[FFML] [Fanfic][X-COM][Teen Titans][Ranma 1/2] Reflections Lost on a Dark Road (chap 11)

[Justin Wagner]

Pre-crossover Chapters: Pre-crossover chapters of Lathis' "Teen Titans
and the Lost Boy" and the sequel "Dark Titans" can be found on his FFN
author site. Cap'n Chryssalid's "The Road to Cydonia" can be found,
likewise, on his FFN site or his TRTC Ufopedia archive.

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/992366/Lathis
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/235984/Capn_Chryssalid

Crossover Chapters: Chapters of this specific fanfic are to be hosted on
Cap'n Chryssalid's archive and on FFN

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2754251/

- - -

NEW:
Reflections Lost is now also up on my seperate website archive

http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/Fanworks/reflections.html


- - -

- - -

Nigh on two months have passed since Ryouga freed Terra from her stone
prison, restoring the Titans to their full number after long last.  The
reunion has been anything but quiet, though, with deception and disaster
tearing the team apart just as quickly as it came back together.  With
Robin and the original Titans drawn to Tamaran for Starfire's 'wedding',
it fell to Ryouga, Terra - as well as some unexpected help from
unexpected friends - to avert disaster in the underwater city of
Atlantis.  Everyone is back together again, now, and taking a well
deserved breather from their adventures.  But as unseen forces
manipulate from the shadows, and disaster looms from both without and
within, their tenuous peace is doomed to be shattered... and sooner than
they expect.

It has been five months since the inclusion of the Nerima Crew into
UNETCO as the war between X-Com and the alien visitors enters its
seventh year. Despite the destruction of Earth's last alien refuge and
the annihilation of the conspiratorial Sirius Group, the organization
has been hit hard by Cydonian reprisals, and stretched thin by
increasing commitments in the Far East to counter abductions of martial
artists and the psionically gifted. Even as the buildup culminates for
the last great push against Mars itself, distractions and complications
continue to arise within the ever present specter of alien terror.

- - -


Reflections Lost on a Dark Road
Close Encounters
Chapter XI


- - -

Cap'n Chryssalid
Lathis - "Enjoy if you will, Tolerate if you won't."

- - -

Despite the 24 hour threat of alien attack, UNETCO rotated individual
squads in and out of normal operational hours, typically every week,
ensuring combat personnel were well rested no matter what fatigue they
would have to endure for the next couple days of extended, continuous
operations. On and Off Duty was in turn broken up into shades: Red,
Orange, and Yellow deployment levels. Red meant full alertness On Duty;
Orange meant Stand By On Duty; Yellow semi-active but still on rotation.
In practice, this meant that teams had to plan their "Off Duty" time
between two and seven days in advance, since more than half of the time
they could be rapidly activated for a mission.

The more squads a base had, the quicker each individual saw some formal
break time.

Like most teams, this meant that when India Squad had some true "Off
Duty" time to unwind, they tended to really unwind. The Dojo, their
preferred haunt during the day, was also their preferred haunt when they
got the chance during their ODR. Not only was it suitably indestructible
enough to contain any potential roughhousing, but it was more spacious
than any room or venue except the mess hall. The actual activities
didn't start here, however.

Up through more than a hundred feet of concrete, steel, alien alloy, and
rock, part of the Main Hangar also doubled as a basketball court. It was
literally the only place in the base with a high enough ceiling, and in
the shadow of a parked UFO less than sixty feet away, white hand-drawn
lines demarcated the court. A tough metal hoop, replete with chain links
for a basket, hung from part of the wall along a retractable boom, lit
by a faint blue light.

Looking around, the non-native Ryouga cracked his knuckles, before
beginning to limber up.  "Alright, Star, neither of us have ever played
this game before, know none of the rules, and Raven is resolutely
refusing to play... But I still think we can take these guys!"

"Indeed, friend Ryouga!  Let us 'kick the butt'!" his companion cheered
enthusiastically

A second later, massive metal hands clamped down on the shoulders of
both players and pulled them towards their recently returned companions.

"Aw yeah!  That's the spirit, you two!" Cyborg boasted loudly.  "And
don't worry, dawgs, this here court is my house, now.  Ain't no carbon
copies gonna beat us!"

Sitting in a chair far removed from the court, Raven just shook her
head. "You three are so going to lose."

Opposite them, India Squad stood assembled, along with Akane and Kasumi.
Nabiki, having no interest in getting sweaty trying to compete with
aliens, meta-humans, insane martial artists and now a giant cyborg, sat
down near Raven with a pack of chips.

"Hey!" the older Hibiki called over. "You want to mix up the teams, or
what?"

Instantly, Starfire wrapped her arms around Ryouga and Cyborg and pulled
them protectively to her sides.  The former and the latter looked on, a
bit embarrassed, but finally, Ryouga shook his head.

"Not if I want to keep this arm."

"Don't sweat it, Ryouga-kun," Akane enthused, heading over to the
Titans. "I'll be their fourth." As she approached the trio, she asked,
"If you guys don't mind?"

"Naw, 'Kane!  The more the merrier!  Smart money knows to join the
winnin' team before the game starts!"  Cyborg quickly stepped forward to
drop a hand on her shoulder and pull her toward his teams huddle.
"'Course, if we're gonna play shirts and skins, I think I'm gonna need
to get a shirt, cuz this game is gonna be way too distractin'
otherwise!"

"Do we even have a shirt that can fit you?" Akane asked, staring up at
the towering Titan.

"He's got a point," Hibiki replied, tossing off his shirt to fall on a
pile on the floor with the rest of his team mates. Three of them wore
simple white muscle shirts, and one - Ryu - went completely and
unabashedly topless. It came as little surprise that all four looked
like the shape they were in, after months of training and steadily
improving their martial arts.

At which point Nabiki let out a particularly shocking whistle and
catcall, prompting the three more modest men to grumble and cross their
arms and regain some basic dignity.

"We're human beings, not objects!" the formerly uniformed Ryouga finally
yelled.

"Not from where I'm standing!" came the teasing reply, "Take off your
tops, you sissies!"

"We're ignoring you now!"

"No you're not!"

"Yes we are!"

"No you're not!"

"Put that camera away!"

"You know you like it!"

"Everyone please!" Kasumi spoke up, carefully holding the basketball in
both hands. "Standard Martial Arts Basketball rules. Feel free to attack
the other player unless they're making a shot, in which case I'll call
your foul. No grappling, no ball tending, no blocking within one meter
of the net."

Floor nearly quaking with each step he took, Cyborg stepped to the
center of the court, preparing for the toss up.  Standing a foot taller
and far broader then everyone else present, he dropped his hands on his
hips and looked down on the people across from him.

"Alright then. Who came to play?"

Mousse quietly walked up, taking a second to adjust his glasses,
producing a trademark evil glint.

"Go!" Kasumi tossed the ball up, shooting at high speed towards the
ceiling. With a rush, the cybernetic teen and the nearsighted Amazon
leapt. Cyborg, surprised by the speed of the toss up (forgetting Kasumi
wasn't quite baseline human when she didn't want to be), reached for the
ball, only to get a heel kick to the arm. Mousse bent backwards, and
with his free hand tapped the ball back over his shoulder.

It passed to Ryu, who landed and started dribbling as he headed down the
court. Starfire was the first to swoop in, trying for a direct swipe of
the ball. She narrowly missed, as Ryu switched to dribble behind his
back, and then he shot forward again... only to come to a stop when a
flying kick, aimed at his head, forced the Yamasenken master to block
with his arm.

He quickly passed to the older Ryouga Hibiki, who quickly came face to
face with a wall of Cyborg. Quickly picking up on the rules - this being
martial arts basketball, and not the normal variety - he went directly
for a swipe, aiming for the UNETCO officer's chest. Or the ball.
Whichever came first. But the ball quickly bounced back down the court,
where Kuno and Akane were sparring back and forth.

The youngest Tendo very nearly stole the ball, and the moment it entered
Kuno's hands, she elbowed him clean in the gut. The swordsman, bereft of
his blade in this fight, staggered back a step. Akane took that moment
to claim the basketball and start dribbling, even as Kuno recovered and
started playing defense.

"I am most open!" Starfire yelled, having floated across the court and
settled down in an open area. Her arms were up and gesticulating wildly.

Akane passed, but a blur shot through the air in the form of Mousse, who
landed and started running for the hoop. Just outside the three point
circle, the Chinese martial artist took his shot, the ball arcing over
and into the net.

Mousse, in a rare display, pumped his arm. "Yes!"

It was, in retrospect, pretty dirty ball playing. It rewarded the
players who kicked and elbowed and kneed the person opposite - it didn't
matter, as long as they had the ball they were fair game. The only thing
sacred was the ball itself, which couldn't be punched or kicked or
'harmed' in any way. Taking their cue from Akane, who seemed to have
played this version of the game before, the Titans quickly got into the
game.

A kick to the face sent Ryu airborne.

A starbolt powered fist uppercutted Mousse.

A hook kick and body tackle sent Cyborg sprawling.

A trip sent Akane down to kiss the floor.

A reverse suplex introduced Hibiki's head to the bulkhead.

An open palm strike sent the younger Ryouga into the backboard.

Kuno and Starfire both reeled back, their fists extended and vibrating
from delivering a blow to the cheek.  Well... Starfire reeled, Kuno was
launched backwards at ballistic speeds.

And then things got nasty.

"See? This is exactly why I'm nice and safe over here," Nabiki drolly
commented, a flying quarter ton cyborg spinning through the air. Raven
just nodded, quickly erecting a black shield as the basketball crashed
into it with a resounding thud.

"Using ki on the ball!" Kasumi called. "Foul!"

"What?" An indignant shout followed a second later. "Come on ref! What
game were you watching!"

"Mostly nice and safe," Nabiki observed, snatching the ball out of the
air as Raven's shield dissolved to throw it back. "Watch where you throw
this thing, you morons!"

Four well practiced voices responded in a chorus: "Sorry!"

Finally, the ball ended up back in Kasumi's hands.

"Game!" she called. Both sides looked like they'd been through a street
fight - though, given who they were, it looked like they'd been in a
street fight with about half the Titans rogue's gallery. Half of India
Squad had mild burns thanks to starbolts, a bloody lip thanks to a
rocket powered fist, or chipped glasses thanks to an out-of-nowhere
meteoric mallet strike. The Teen Titans weren't much better. Assorted
cuts, bruises, and dents - in one particular case - contrasted with
exhausted smiles. Most notably in Starfire's case, as the alien girl
happily sucked up green blood from a solidly punched nose and spat it
with a wild grin.

The skins had won, due mainly to their experience in the game, and the
fact that some of the Titans - unfamiliar with basketball rules - had
either unintentionally double dribbled or goal tended, and not even
their cybernetic captain had been able to overcome their lack of focus.
Still, when Kasumi told them to line up and shake hands there was no
grudge; only a desire to do better next time. Well... except the two
girls who had sat on the sidelines, who had wisely opted out of getting
themselves mauled over a ball game.

Spoilsports.

They took a quick break to shower down before changing and meeting back
up at the dojo. A cooler with cold drinks and a basket full of snacks
waited, along with a computer hooked up to the room's speakers and a
section of the wall with an integrated view screen. In the former case,
it played music from a rather extensive library of... dubiously acquired
mp3s, and in the latter, it had an equally dubiously acquired range of
movies on disk.

By the time India finished unpacking stuff from a back room, it also had
a foosball table, dart board and a large pile of chips. Formal gambling
involving any meaningful amounts of money wasn't allowed on base, but
rules like that never stopped people from putting lighters, personal
items, hard to acquire junk from the outside, or just their pride on a
game of cards. Or dice. Just so long as it never raised a stink.

"Alright! Looks good!" Ryu proclaimed, falling into one of the bean bags
with a contented sigh. His right hand groped for the nearby cooler,
finally snapping the lid up and fishing around inside.

"Hey, Kuno!" Ryouga immediately called out, holding up a large picture
of a grinning pigtailed martial artist giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
"Darts?"

Across the room, the Titans found a couple of chairs and formed a loose
circle as they began to chat among themselves.  Mostly it centered
around their various adventures in this odd new world, and the various
amounts of collateral damage and punishment they had incidentally
inflicted in their short times here. Among them Ryouga and Starfire
seemed to be having a great deal of fun trying to determine who's final
battle had been more epic, trying to win Cyborg to their side as to
break the stalemate.

"Hey! You guys want anything to drink?" It took a second for the Titans
to realize Ryu was referring to them. Most of India, Nabiki, Akane and
Kasumi included, were already relaxing with either a drink or some
snacks or both. The Yamasenken master, however, was too lazy to get up,
and instead compensated by raising his voice in their guests' general
direction.

"Yeah," he said, seeing he had their general attention. "So, we got,
uhm... Kirin. Sapporo Draft... what the Hell? I can't even pronounce
this one." He held it up, and standing behind him, Akane rolled her eyes
and translated.

"Stella Artois," she said, a little smartly. "It's Belgian. You should
try it."

"I'll stick with Japanese, thanks," Ryu put the bottle back in the
cooler and kept blindly fishing around. "I can feel some coke in here
too, I think..."

"You guys can help yourselves," Nabiki suggested, from where the stood
working at the computer. "But next time you'll have to pitch in."

"Naw, we're good," Cyborg declared for the group.  "None of us are old
enough to drink anyway."

"The offer is greatly appreciated, though," Starfire added politely.

A moment later, they expanded their conversation.  "Hey, Mousse!"
Ryouga called out.  "Which is more impressive?  Me beating down Evil Me,
or Starfire going Toe to Toe with Herb, Lime and Mint?"

"Is that what happened?" The Chinese weapons master was lounging around
nearby, plucking cheese puffs out of a bowl with a rather long knife
before eating them. "I thought the Lieutenant was about to kill you... I
do remember hearing on the communication line, 'if he doesn't surrender,
I'll probably have to kill him.'"

"That's not what I said," the Hibiki in question spoke up, still playing
darts with Kuno, the Ranma picture now pockmarked with holes and darts.
"Not exactly anyway."

"Either way," Mousse continued, heedless. "Your friend taking on Herb
and his idiot bodyguards all by herself is pretty impressive. Didn't
they send attack helicopters after her too?"

"Indeed they did!"  Starfire cheered.  "Though I did not count them, due
to the fact that they were not really a threat to me."

"Feh!" Ryouga scoffed at the implications. "The only way he was gonna
kill me was by ordering someone to shoot me in the back. I know all
about his 'ultimate technique' now."

Dart still in hand, the older Hibiki turned again, giving his younger
counterpart a dark smirk. "That's right. You saw me use it on your
umbrella when I tried to disarm you. But... that's not what the
technique is really designed for. If I wanted to hurt you with it, I'd
have used it on your arm or leg."

"Ha!  You wis-"

"That's enough, Ryouga.  This is exactly why I thought we shouldn't
come."  Raven leveled a flat glare at him.  "Can't you let go of this
petty grudge of yours?"

"But - but they beat us at basketball!"

"Dude, Ryo, don't even worry about it."  Smiling broadly, Cyborg dropped
a hand on his shoulder.  "I mean, sure, maybe if you and Akane had
actually played the game as opposed to just focusing on the fighting, we
woulda done better.  And if Kasumi didn't decide that Starfire floating
and not dribbling counted as a foul ...  Anyway, the point is, that I
sunk more baskets than any two people in the game, so I guess it was a
personal victory for me!"

Ryouga, Raven and Starfire just stared at him.

"Yeah, that makes it all better."

"I'd never really use that technique against someone who wasn't my
enemy, anyway," the older Ryouga added. "All of us here have... certain
techniques that we'd never use in an honorable fight. Mousse has his
Kuro Hakuchouranbu (Flight of the Black Swan), Kuno has his Sokushi
Tenrai (Instant Death Heavenly Thunder), Ryu has his Kyouhu Kijin Dai
Ran Bu (Frightful Demon God Big Mad Dance), and even Ranma, Ukyou and
Shampoo have techniques like this."

"Konatsu has that Konatsu Andon (Paper Lantern) of his," Ryu helpfully
supplied. "I still can't believe he has a technique like that."

"The point is, that just because you have a technique, doesn't mean
you'll ever seriously use it in anything but a life or death situation,"
the uniformed Hibiki mused... but quickly shrugged, deciding it wasn't
worth getting into a dispute over. "Well, whatever. We're all on the
same side here. There's no need to bicker like a pair of Saotomes.
Though I am a bit curious why you gave up using the Shishi Hokoudan."

Glaring at his counterpart, Ryouga crossed his arms over his chest.  "I
didn't 'give it up,' it just stopped working for me."

"You know, I'd be happy to trade what I know about getting the most out
of my Shishi Hokoudan," the older Hibiki offered, tossing another dart
at Ranma's picture clear across the room. "And, if you want, you could
show me how you managed to pull together so much Earth chi. Not a
condition, but it would be interesting to know."

Ryouga shook his head, looking a little annoyed by the offer. "...No, no
thanks, that's fine.  Using that technique wreaks havoc on your mental
state, anyway.  It forces your emotions to unhealthy levels that aren't
restricted to combat.  Even the Mouko Takabisha does it to Ranma; you
know how ridiculously overconfident he gets now.  Sure, I miss it ... a
bit, but it's much better to not use it at all."

"I can't say you're wrong about all that," the other him admitted,
finishing the dart game by knocking one of Kuno's out of the center,
right between Ranma's eyes.

"Oh, old school Mario Kart!" Akane gushed, as the view screen changed to
display a flamboyant castle, surrounded by fireworks, with the Nintendo
cast rolling by. A cheery voice announced 'Let's a go!' and the three
Tendo sisters immediately grabbed controllers hooked up to the laptop
and the game emulator. Ryu scrambled for the fourth, only to have it
snatched away by a triumphant Kendoist at the last second.

"Kuno!" he cursed. "Damn it!"

"Whahaha!" Kuno laughed, sitting down next to Akane. "The 'Green
Thunder' Yoshi the Magnificent rides again! Prepare yourselves!"

"I call Peach," Kasumi quickly added, to the groans of her sisters.

"Don't you guys got any good games?" Cyborg asked loudly as the a random
race started up. "You call that a racing game?!"

"No gaming systems allowed on base," Nabiki replied, but kept her eyes
on the race as it got into the first lap. "No XBOX, no Playstations, no
nothing. Emulation is the best you'll get, and while I do have
Playstation and Wii emulators..."

"I happen to like this game," Akane said, firing a shell at Yoshi that
sent the little creature spinning. "It's a classic."

Shaking his head sadly, Cyborg went back and sat down with the rest of
the Titans.  "Man, and I thought that the computers were antiquated
here; the games are even worse!!"

Starfire giggled.  "I believe it looks adorable! Look at the little
mushroom man! Raven, we should play next!"

"I don't do video games," replied the sullen Titan. ."You should already
know that."

"Curse you woman! My lightning! Stolen?!"

"Oh my, was that you, Tatewaki-kun? I thought I heard something get run
over."

"And now a puzzle box, too?! Akane Tendo how could you?!"

"Beating Yoshi up is half the fun in this game, Kuno-sempai."

"Make way for Wario!! Bwa-ahahaha!"

It didn't take long for the Titans to mingle a bit, especially with the
promise of future gaming eventually luring most of them in. All the
Titans save one that was. While Raven seemed content to watch others
play, she made no move to directly get involved in any of the matches.
Instead, she hung back, remaining for the most part aloof.

"Miss Raven," Mousse spoke up, pushing casually off the wall. Like her,
he'd mostly been relaxing at the periphery. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"I appear to have nothing but time at the moment."

He nodded, and headed to the front of the dojo, a short distance away.
"Based on your black psi-constructs, I placed a few discrete inquiries.
Am I wrong in concluding that you require a meditative environment
during the day?"

"I'm not certain what you mean by a 'meditative environment'.  I
meditate whenever possible, but my environment is anything but
meditative."

"Well," he asked, now a little unsure whether he had guessed right. "You
must know about the Mind Shield we have protecting this base. It can
interfere with certain forms of meditation. If you were having
difficulty because of it, I may have something that can help. To an
extent."

Raven looked at him oddly for a moment.  "Well ... I haven't actually
had much need to meditate lately, but if you have something that you
think might help with meditation in general, it might still be
interesting to know."

He flipped a small piece of paper out of his shirt sleeve with his
middle and ring finger. Taking it Raven could see that on the folded
note was a base address, somewhere in the lower levels.

"I can show you, if you don't want to find it yourself," he elaborated.
"My former mentor here told me about it, and I've found it very
therapeutic from time to time."

"Find what, myself?  Is there a reason you feel a need to be so
cryptic?"

"That was not my intent." The weapons master rolled his shoulders and
explained, hoping he wasn't be too intrusive with respect to someone he
barely knew, "The address I gave you is the only open-air section of the
base hydroponics facility. A bit like an underground greenhouse. The
Mind Shield extends for over a kilometer, but I find that down there,
you can barely feel its effects. It may help you or it may not."

"...Oh."  Raven looked at the piece of paper.  "Oh! Well, thank you.
I'm not usually that into the whole 'nature' thing, but I suppose it
might be worth a try."

He simply nodded and was about to go back to the snack tray.

"Oh," he said, turning slightly. "One other thing: Ryouga mentioned
getting the four of you new accommodations. You and your friends should
start thinking about what you'll need in terms of space."

Without so much as a 'later' the nearsighted Amazon headed off to hang
out near his comrades.

Raven watched him walk off. "Hmm, a touch less personable than our
Mousse, that's for certain."

Well, that wasn't really a fair comparison to make.  Her Mousse had been
somewhat beholden to her, what with the whole equality mess that had
gone on back in the village. He was also surprisingly good at foot
massages... Hmm, maybe she could try asking this Mousse...? No - no, he
would never go for that. Or would he...?

Regardless, giving her head a good shake to dispel any particularly
troublesome thoughts, Raven felt she was pretty much done with this
party.  She wasn't certain she could handle any more of this 'mingling'
with familiar strangers. While they looked like her friends, and even
acted like them often enough, they were not the people she knew. Taking
one last look back at the gathering, Raven made her way out of the dojo.

It was a shame; a foot massage would've hit the spot, too.

- - -

Taking a moment to adjust the blouse she'd been 'issued' by the
organization - as she found the garment to be terribly uncomfortable -
Raven continued her short trek.  She knew where she was going, having
gotten directions from a few helpful soldiers, and she was almost there
already. That destination being the facility's workshop.

Normally it was the last place she would go, but the dark Titan felt an
odd compulsion to check up on their newly returned friend.  They hadn't
had too long to chat with Cyborg, what with all the paperwork, then the
- she groaned loudly - the party last night. At least she had a perfect
night's sleep to look forward to now. Still, Raven hadn't seen Cyborg
since she'd ducked out of that gathering early.

A few more minutes passed and she finally reached the base's
manufacturing facility.  Her security clearance was just high enough to
get her in with a minimum of fuss and it didn't take her long to spot
her friend.  It was hard to miss the towering boy standing at a long
work bench at the far side of the room, not with all of the sparks
flying wildly all around him. Making her way over, she leaned forward
trying to see what he was working on.  Of course, the pile of high tech
gadgetry on the table meant as much to her as the joys of a good book
meant to Beast Boy...

So, she decided on a different approach.

"Hey Cyborg, whatcha doooin?"

The titanium Titan stopped his work and turned around-

"Gah!"

Only to start in shock when he realized just who it was.  "R-Raven? I
didn't think it was you.  I mean ... y'know?"

She rolled her eyes.  "What?  Am I not allowed to engage in the
occasional flight of whimsy?"

"Not according to your contract."

Raven worked very hard to make her expression as flat as glass.  "Ha.
Ha. Ha. You know, I'm not at all surprised to see you in here. What does
surprise me is that your dismantled body isn't strewn over half of the
benches being gone over by a dozen researchers."

"Ouch."  Cyborg grimaced visibly.  "Thanks for that mental image, Rae."

She shrugged, not feeling the least bit sorry.  "It's nothing personal.
It's just that this entire organization was built upon reverse
engineering alien technology. The other day, Nabiki mentioned them
spending more time picking through wreckage than fighting. You must be
like a walking treasure trove of unusual and unique knowledge to these
people."

Her companion nodded, not arguing her point in the least.  "True dat -
true dat.  And I admit, I was kinda diggin' being the latest and the
greatest... I... may have bragged a bit..."

Raven glanced at him through lidded eyes.  "...Shocker."

"Yeah, yeah."  He waved off her blase response. "A lotta it was stuff
about where we're from. They're really curious about why thing're so
similar but so different and all that. Once they started asking
questions about my weapon systems and running scans, though, I started
to get a bit nervous.  Moreso than even my computer systems, I could
just see the glint in their eyes as they considered the possibilities of
a new weapon. If I wasn't human, I'd betcha I'd have ended up on a
coupl'a lab tables by now."

Pushing aside a ... metal ... thing, Raven hopped up to sit on the work
bench beside him.  "So?"

He chuckled to himself.  "Well, you know how much it goes against my
grain, but I seriously downplayed some stuff.  I told 'em that that
this-" He held up his arm and it clacked loudly as it converted to
cannon form. "- is as good as it gets."

"That must have been a struggle for you," she replied with a wry grin.

"I think they knew I was holding stuff back, they're not idiots ya know,
but I was also pretty sure by then that they wouldn't do anything too
drastic to find out for sure. Serves em right, anyway, since they
wouldn't let me see their serious tech either! So not only did I forget
to mention the vehicle mounted versions I already made, I didn't - um
... heh, y'know, forget that last addendum.  Nothing else important to
mention there... yeah..."  Cyborg's nervous shifting spoke volumes,
nearly as much as his yammering mouth.

Raven gave him a stern glance as she asked her question. "Didn't tell
them what?"

Her companion shrugged helplessly. "Well, I heard they're actually using
nuclear warheads, ya know? Well, they were. So I was kind of tempted to
mention that - and this is purely hypothetical - with the proper setup
and energy output, my sonic tech could - again, theoretically - be used
to... destroy a city..."

"What?" Raven's eyes shot wide open. Not just that these people were
actually using nuclear weapons, but... Cyborg had researched what, now?

"And just how do you know this?" she asked.

"What? C'mon, I'm a scientist, too, Rae. I can't help it if my mind
happens to wander down those dark little avenues of 'fullest extent'.  I
mean, it's not like I'd actually ever do something like that. Besides,
with enough juice in it, a rock could destroy a city! That's just plain
old physics."

The dark Titan eyed her friend warily for a moment. "Well ... as long as
all this remains purely hypothetical." Desperate for a topic changer,
she turned her attention to the pile of junk before him.  "So, what are
you doing then?  Trying to incorporate their technology into you?"

She was momentarily confused when Cyborg responded with a bark of
laughter.

"Incorporate? Sorry, no. Well, for the most part no." Wiping a tear from
his eye, he shook his head tellingly. "From what I've seen, as nasty as
some of their gear is, pretty much all of the research, all the work
they've done here... it's all a dead end."

That captured Raven's interest.  "What do you mean, 'dead end'?"

"Just that," he replied. "Anything they got that's remotely interesting
- besides the biology and psionics - is all powered by this Elerium
stuff."

He lifted a small container from the bench, clearly marked as holding
several micrograms of Elerium. It was all they'd given him to study, and
even then, only under direct observation and only within a single area
of a designated workshop. Unfortunately, he seemed to be a long way from
earning a look at their major reactors or weapons systems. On the other
hand, they had given him access to general data.

"Vehicles, power armor, ammunition. Pretty much all their top of the
line gear uses this stuff somewhere in it," he explained to his
teammate, "And they have no idea how to replicate it themselves yet.
Though I'd bet they've been working on that for years now. The point is,
they depend entirely on the aliens pretty much handing it to them on a
silver platter.  Heck, if the aliens were just more careful about
cleaning up after themselves, or if they traveled with less of the stuff
when they came here, or something like that, they could cripple this
entire organization by depriving them of their main power source."

Looking at the container, Cyborg shook his head again, sadly this time.
"Even if the aliens don't smarten up - and considering they're a few
thousand years set in their ways, I don't see that happening anytime
soon - even if these guys do win... well, when the aliens are gone, then
I'd bet this stuff won't be far behind."

Suddenly, he chuckled to himself.  "If you think about it, it's kinda
like if the entire military back home decided to power everything they
got using Xenothium... well, a little less explosive and a lot more
stable, but every bit as rare. You get the general idea."

Raven shuddered at that comment.  She'd had more than enough exposure to
that element, thanks to the various incarnations of Red X.

"I mean, I can see why they're doing it," Cyborg continued, "A very
necessary case of short term gain for long term pain. They have no
choice but to pour so much research into this alien technology since
nothing else is really competitive. From the specs, they've got high
powered lasers, but they actually use atomic decay and some creative
chemistry to power the damn things, and yet they're still barely up to
par with the lasers we got back home. And all of this?  It's all just to
try and keep it close to the level of this alien tech. It's just sad
that, in this case, once the Elerium dries up, so much of that research
is going to end up being completely useless for anything else.  At least
unless they find out how to make their own."

A moment later, he held the tiny container up to eye level.

"I kinda wonder if that's the point...?" He saw she didn't get it, and
explained, "The tech itself can be reverse engineered, but without a
steady supply of this Elerium 115 most of it is for nothing. I kinda
wonder if the aliens are using this tech on purpose because of that?
Even if they get wiped out here, they take the secret of Elerium with
them, and the people here are practically back to square one. ...So,
really, what's the point of me jamming a plasma cannon in my arm when
I'd have to tear it right back out as soon as I got home?"

"Well, I suppose that makes sense," Raven conceded, "Of course, that
does lead me back to my original question.  What are you doing?"

She gestured to the table full of gadgets for emphasis.

"That stuff?" Cyborg asked.  "I'm just trying to tinker together a
dimensional portal for us.  They got plenty of tech to play around with,
when I can get my hands on it, but not much practical theory to help me
out."

"Oh, really?"  Raven couldn't hide the note of hope in her voice. "Do
you think you'll be able to get us home, then?"

"I..." He picked up two of the various metal pieces and took a moment to
examine them.  "I don't really know. I mean, sure, I know the basics of
dimensional travel - Lord knows it comes up enough - but I've never
actually tried anything like this before.  More troubling though, is the
research I've been doing."

"Hmm?" she murmured. "What do you mean?"

"It... it isn't anything I can put my finger on yet.  Just the
theoretical sciences. All the basic laws of physics seem to be normal...
Newtonian stuff... but the high energy physics and quantum mechanics
seems to be riddled with anomalies that I haven't had time to figure out
yet.  There's other stuff too. Frankly, even if I build the thing
perfectly, I can't be a hundred percent sure that it will work as
advertised."

Raven felt her face begin to fall at his lack of confidence.

Cyborg quickly noticed and reversed direction. "Hey, don't you worry
none, Rae! Just like everything else I make, I won't know till I build
the thing! Shouldn't take me more than a few days to mock up a
prototype, anyway, provided I can talk them into giving me what I need
and no emergencies come up. But, what are the odds of that happening,
right?"

The glare she fired his way was positively withering.

"Thank you so much for jinxing us."  With that, she hopped off the table
and made her way to the exit.

"Hey!  Rae, where ya goin'?"

She fired a dark glance over her shoulder.

"To the armory. I plan on being prepared for whatever disaster you've
inevitably summoned down on our heads.

- - -

Some things weren't so different between worlds.

Reaching the sea-side town in a plainly damaged vehicle, with a badly
wounded girl in the passenger side, locals had quickly moved to direct
Jinx and Akari to the town hospital. Not a single one of them spoke
English, but Jinx quickly noticed the ones in uniform: local police.
There wasn't time to worry about them at the moment. People cleared the
streets of the old soviet era town to make room for the beat up truck;
officers and concerned citizens yelling and directing people out of the
way of the medical emergency.

It also put the two girls in a spotlight Jinx suddenly found herself a
bit apprehensive over.

The town itself wasn't quite what she expected. The buildings were a mix
of plain concrete and glass structures, looking to be maybe thirty years
old, a couple older brick buildings, and one or two newer looking
structures. Out by the docks, visible at the end of town down a slight
incline, were a dozen or more ships at anchor. They were small, so
probably just large commercial fishing vessels. Further out to sea, she
could see a structure, likely an oil rig.

The hospital was one of the plain concrete structures; very utilitarian
looking, with a few triumphant-styled statues out front. Men ushered the
truck in past a thick iron fence, and almost immediately, two doctors
(obvious in their white coats) rushed up to check on their new patient.
Gesturing Jinx back and out of the way - something the sorceresses found
aggravating - they collectively drew back at the extent of Akari's
injuries, particularly the obvious burns on her arm.

The two doctors started yelling back towards the rear entrance of the
clinic, and a stretcher came forward, rolled by a female orderly.
Furious at her inability to do anything else, with everyone constantly
pushing her out of the way, Jinx barged her way into the clinic anyway.
The doctors or nurses, or whoever, had already taken Akari into the back
though.

Angry as she was, there really wasn't anything she could do to help her
friend back there ...

It was about then that she saw the bulky looking touch tone phone
sitting on the reception desk of the clinic. In an instant, Jinx
recalled what Akari had told her. Completely ignoring all the strange
looks and incomprehensible questions that were being asked of her, she
stalked straight over to the phone, picking it up.

Not knowing any numbers to really use, she just hit '0,' waited for
tone, and a moment later, was greeted by the sound of what could only be
an operator. Though the sorceress couldn't understand a single word that
was being said. It shouldn't matter. As long as the call was going
through to someone.

"Trenchard, Trenchard, Sectoid, Ethereal, X-COM are losers.  The MIND
rocks hard. Reapers, mind rape, harvesting, oh my!"

She then slammed the phone back onto the cradle and continued to ignore
everyone around her.

"What?" she snapped, seeing one of the uniformed men eyeing her
suspiciously.

Fortunately, he turned away and started conferring with another man
nearby.

Jinx may not have understood a word either man said, but she knew body
language, and she'd been around enough to guess what they were talking
about. A stolen car? An obvious foreigner. Blood in the car that they'd
probably soon trace to someone else. A nearly dead girl driven in from
out in the woods? Any minute now, as soon as they found someone with
basic English language skills, they'd be asking for her to 'come with
them' to 'answer some questions.'

Honestly, it would have been easy to just vanish, right then and there
... but with Akari in critical condition just out of sight, that wasn't
an alternative. Though it went against everything she had ever been
taught, by any of her various instructors and masters ... she decided
that, if it came to that, that she would - she nearly choked on the word
just thinking it - cooperate.

Taking a deep breath, she found a convenient sheet, tore it in half, and
wrapped it around her head into a loose approximation of a bandanna to
cover her pink hair as best as possible.  Akari had warned her that her
looks might draw undo attention, and she didn't want to make things
worse for the girl then they already were.  Unfortunately, there weren't
any convenient sunglasses sitting around anywhere, and the locals didn't
seem too big into accessorizing for California weather.

Sighing to herself, she leaned back against the desk and waited for the
inevitable hassle.  She just hoped those X-Com guys, whoever they were,
showed up before the aliens decided to just cut their losses and nuke
the entire damn town to get her.

It took a few minutes, but the inevitable happened.

"Hello!" Someone said, in obviously accented English. Jinx, who had been
patiently waiting in a plastic chair, looked up to see a young man with
neat brown hair and a business suit. He looked to be in his mid-
twenties. She could guess he'd been drafted to serve as a last minute
interpreter, given the two uniformed officers standing a few feet away.

"My name is Alexi Marcinkevich," he continued, holding out his hand.
"There are not many English speakers in this town, so they asked me to
help. You are American, yes?"

She shrugged.  "Yeah, sure, why not.  So, 'Lexi, is it off to the gulag
for me, then?"

Hmm ... she really needed to work on her 'cooperation' skills.  Still,
at least she hadn't slapped him upside the head.  She'd just chalk it up
to the fact that he was probably the cutest guy she'd seen in this
hellhole world.

The young man gave a friendly laugh.

"No, no. They're just... well, worried about the man you were traveling
with." He noted Jinx's confused look. "The car you drove in was
registered to a Mister Savkin. A forestry official. Older man, black
hair? Did you see him?"

Jinx gave a weary sigh. So that was it, then?

"Unfortunately, we never actually met the driver," she explained,
glancing down briefly. "We found the truck as it was.  That's the reason
that my friend is injured, we were attacked by the same... group that
must have attacked him."

"I see." The man turned to speak to the officers behind him. The men
frowned and nodded, and one spoke into a radio clipped to his jacket.

He then turned back to Jinx. "The woods can sometimes be dangerous.
We've recently had a problem with smugglers and some kidnappings. Do you
think you could help identify the men responsible for a sketch artist?
Also, I'm sure you'd like to contact the American Embassy? Is your
friend also an American?"

Jinx shook her head.  "No, she's Japanese. Akari's her name. From what I
gather, she's actually been missing for months now."

It was hard to squelch the amusement she felt at the absurdity of the
situation.

"I can try to help out your sketch artist, though," she added, putting
on a play of perking up at the chance to help out. "We never really got
a good look at the guy's faces, they were really ... hairy.  One
definitely had shaggy white hair, though.  A few of them were bald, too,
no doubt about that.  It's all kind of a blur."

"Don't worry," the cute guy said with a reassuring smile. "You're safe
now. And with your help, we'll put these guys away for good."

One of the officers said something then, and the man nodded.

"I guess I'll be following along for a little while longer," he told
Jinx with a shrug. "Officer Bulganin over here wants to take us to the
station. You sure you're not hurt? Or hungry? I can't imagine what you
and your friend have been through out there."

The sorceress looked down at her ankles, up to the guy, then back to her
ankles.  "I - I think I hurt my ankle when we were running through the
woods.  I'm not ... sure I can walk all the way to the station on my own
..."  She trailed off innocently, touching a long finger to her lip as
she looked up at him expectantly.

How often did she get to indulge herself, anyway?

The Officer - Bulganin - motioned impatiently for them to head back
outside. Alexi exchanged a few words with him, and the older (and far,
far less attractive) police offer grumbled something before nodding and
turning to go. Alexi turned back to her with a friendly grin.

"It'll just be short drive. I'll carry you if it hurts to walk," he
offered, and picked the much smaller Jinx up in an easy two armed
wedding carry. Yes: it was a total indulgence, but after who-knew how
many hours of running and fighting horrible star spawned monsters, it
was an indulgence well-earned. At least in her opinion.

"So where are you from? New York?" Alexi asked as he carried her out the
back of the clinic to Officer Bulganin's blue and white police car. "I
got my Bachelor's Degree in the States, but I can't place your accent at
all."

"Well," Jinx murmured, leaning in a bit closer to his ear than was
strictly necessary, "I spent a few years in India when I was younger, so
I never really picked up a proper accent.  But yeah ... New York is
where I live now-" Who knew, with the mess ups from one world to
another, the geography could even make it true. "- but I kinda live on
my own, so I don't really know the country that well yet ..."

"Well, don't worry. We'll take care of you." He then added with a sadder
smile, "Our hopes and prayers go out to your friend as well. We've
already contacted a larger hospital to help with her care and to fly
over a specialist in burn therapy..."

The thought of Akari dulled Jinx's mood, but she let herself relax
against her interpreter for a few seconds more. If information about
Akari was already being sent out, then it only helped their chances of
getting the attention of this X-COM and "echelon" thing Akari had
mentioned. Hopefully they wouldn't take their time deciding to
investigate; she had the feeling the local police weren't really cut out
to deal with the sorts of stuff really hiding out in the woods.

She also thought about what Alexi had said before: specifically, the
kidnappings.

The town knew about people disappearing, and they had to be the victims
of the "harvesting" Akari had mentioned. The people here really had no
idea what was actually going on! Was it really that easy to overlook?
Akari had all but said that this world didn't have any "super heroes" of
the sort Jinx was used to back home. But would they have really done
much good here? No one she knew of spent a lot of time investigating
disappearances in the middle of Russia. Even when she was in India, and
she knew the kidnapping industry was deeply entrenched there, it never
seemed like any of the so called "super heroes" got involved in such
far-off, petty crime, especially outside their comfortable first world
spheres of influence.

This was definitely something that had to be nipped in the bud, and
soon.

Alexi opened the door and helped her into the back of the car. Officer
Bulganin's was already in the front seat, lighting up a particularly
foul-smelling cigarette. The older man let out a thick cloud of smoke,
making no real effort to direct it outside rather than inside the
vehicle. Alexi went around and entered the car on the other side in the
back.

As they headed out, the young man had a few more generic questions, all
quite polite and friendly. Most were about the "kidnappers" they had
escaped from. He also asked briefly about any poachers and whether they
were involved. Jinx remembered the hut Akari had taken her to before and
shook her head. Those men hadn't been involved in anything in some time.

Of course, she didn't have a passport or other papers. When he observed
that "Jinx is an unusual name - very pretty, but unusual" she'd
explained that her parents were eccentric. He laughed and seemed to
accept that. Yet another thing their worlds apparently had in common:
parents with strange taste in names for their children. She kept her
background vague, knowing they'd be making calls and looking into it
later, only to find none of it was true.

In the front seat, Officer Bulganin said something.

"He wants to thank you for all your help," Alexi translated, and just
for a moment, Jinx really did feel sort of bad about having to deceive
the two men. Maybe it was because she was, frankly, a young girl lost in
another country, but she'd been treated pretty well. Better than she'd
expected. But it was probably safest for the both of them if they were
kept in the dark.

The police car stopped at a split in the road, a number of people slowly
crossing and blocking the turn left. Bulganin took the opportunity to
yell out the window, flicking his cigarette out into the street. The
small group in the road began to scurry to get out of the way and the
perpetually angry looking officer grumbled a curse under his breath.
With a grunt, he lit up another cheap cig and wrapped his lips around
it.

"You know," Alexi spoke up. "I was thinking..."

The sound of glass breaking cut him off.

In the front seat, Officer Bulganin's head rolled back on his shoulders.
Thick smoke drifted from where his jaw had been. The area had been shot
off, along with his right cheek and some of his neck. The windshield in
front of him was a spider web of cracks, one very prominent hole blown
clear through in the middle of it all. Jinx tensed to dive for cover
when she felt Alexi throw himself over her, pinning her under his
weight. Another window cracked and shattered, this time the car's rear
window.

"Get down!" Alexi yelled, stating the obvious in complete shock colored
by fear. "My God! Someone's shooting at us!"

Though her position wasn't too bad at the moment, this guy was heavy and
Jinx wasn't appreciating being crushed, however good the intentions.
She quickly began to calculate her options as Alexi nobly attempted to
'protect' her.

Another shot rang out, punching another hole through the rear window.  A
fraction of a second later, another bullet slammed into the lower back
of the passenger seat, missing them by just a few inches.  Immediately,
her H.I.V.E. training kicked in; the trajectory of the bullet meant it
was coming from an elevated position, either a high window or a rooftop.
It was also coming from behind them, limiting the number of buildings
that the sniper could possibly be positioned.  Judging by the fact that
the bullets hadn't torn through the engine block, it seemed obvious that
the sniper was using a weaker rifle, rather than any form of heavy
military hardware.

"Okay," she grunted, staring Alexi in the eyes with a disturbing lack of
fear. "I appreciate the chivalry, beautiful, but you gotta get - off!"
With a heave, she pushed the larger man off of her and onto the floor
between the front and back seats.  Alexi landed with a startled gasp and
a loud thump, staring up at her in confusion.

Deciding to double her chances, Jinx lifted her leg and arm at the same
time, pink light flashing briefly before lashing out.  With a loud
double 'bang' both rear doors were blasted off the car and sent flying,
skittering across the asphalt.  An instant later, Jinx dove out of the
car and behind one of the parked vehicles lining the street.  A bullet
slammed into the pavement right behind her heel, but the sniper was too
slow to line her up in his sights before she found cover.

Reaching up, she quickly undid the sheet she was using to cover her
hair, then, getting a hold onto the corner of the cloth, tossed it up
into the air over her head.  The piece of material spread out into a
square as it spun into the air - and a second later, it was sent flying
as a bullet tore through it. Jinx smirked and quickly poked her head up,
thankful that the sniper had made the rookie mistake of shooting at any
movement he saw. She only scanned the area for second, using her earlier
evaluation to pick out the most likely sniper's nests.

There!  It was still light out, and the fool was still wearing normal
street clothes, as if he hadn't had more than a minute to prepare.  It
was easy for the experienced villainess to pick out the obvious
silhouette on the distant rooftop.  It wouldn't be too difficult for her
to cover the distance.

At least, it wouldn't have been.  For the second she'd had her head
poked out, she also saw another man, large, brutish looking.  She
wouldn't have thought anything of it, except that while everyone else
was screaming and running for cover, he was heading straight for her,
towards the car getting shot full of holes.  The fact that he'd been
reaching into his jacket in an overly obvious manner was just the
cincher.

So ... these were the alien collaborators that Akari had been telling
her about.  She couldn't imagine the kind of scum that would willingly
work for these alien butchers... and she was very well acquainted with
the various forms of scum the world had to offer.  Akari, and those like
her, had been given no choice.  They had been dominated, broken, forced
to join. These - these morons were selling out the entire planet, and,
more importantly, they were attacking her!

Fortunately, these were the kinds of odds that she was far more familiar
dealing with.  The aliens had been bizarre and new.  Jackasses with
guns, she'd been dealing with them for years.

She waited until the man on foot got closer.  He had his gun out now,
and was searching her out nervously.  The wide eyed stare on his face,
even as he closed in, betrayed no small amount of fear.  Either he had
been given a brief description of what he was up against, or he just
realized that his life was already over, one way or the other,
collaborating in a murder in broad daylight in the middle of a busy
street.

Jinx decided that she would save him the trouble of worrying about that.
Once she felt he was close enough to the car she was using for cover,
but not quite close enough to start shooting at her, she held up her
hand and then she snapped her finger. Suddenly, the man stumbled
forward, the ground under his foot cracking and giving away, widening an
already existing pothole enough for his entire shoe to slip in.  The
instant he lost his footing, his gun arm swinging up to try to regain
his balance, Jinx sped out from behind the car, speedily arcing around
so that the larger man was between her and the shooter on the roof.
Another bullet slammed into the ground behind her heels, but again she
was too fast.

The large man on the street looked up at the last minute and his eyes
betraying his shock when he realized that, in the second he'd been
distracted, she was already right in his face.  He swung his arm down
clumsily, trying to bring his gun in line, but she lashed out with a
vicious back hand; the sharp snap of bone and cry of pain were
surprisingly satisfying as the gun went flying to the ground several
feet away.

Sliding forward, she drove an open palm up into the man's broad chin,
snapping his jaw shut with a loud click, then she slammed her elbow in
his solar plexus once - twice - three times the lady.  An explosive
burst of breath was blasted from his lungs, and the much taller man
began to wilt forward like a dying flower.  Rather than let him drop,
Jinx gripped his lapels with surprising strength and slammed her
shoulder into his stomach, actually lifting him up off his feet.

With the bulky mass of the bastard wedged on her shoulder, Jinx arched
her back and started to run forward, aiming herself in the general
direction of the building she'd picked out earlier.  Her passenger
wheezed frantically, trying to grab her back, but his arms lacked the
strength to get a good grasp on her without any air to fuel them.  It
wasn't nearly as easy as toting Akari around, but it still wasn't more
than she could handle, so Jinx quickly tore down the street.

A second later, her captive's struggles ceased, a sharp jerk running
through his body that nearly disturbed her delicate balance.  Using her
forward momentum, she pushed through the unsteadiness and bulled on.  A
twinge of guilt stung her at the thought that she had inadvertently
gotten this man killed. Then again, she wasn't responsible for people
trying to kill her.

Her uncertainty as to the man's condition was quickly rendered moot as
one, and then another, bullet slammed into the large man's back. She
reached the sidewalk shortly after, and dropped the corpse to the side,
zipping into the alley between the two buildings in a flash.  Jinx
kicked off the ground, launching herself into the air with the greatest
of ease.  She hit the wall of the adjacent building a second later, and
kicked off again, angling towards the far wall.  Three triangle jumps
later, and she landed on the roof the sniper had been using, hands
already flaring with power.

All that awaited her was an abandoned rifle. The roof door was still
swinging closed, though, and she could clearly hear the sound of
panicked footsteps tromping down the stairs.  Smirking to herself, the
sorceress fired across the rooftop in a scant few seconds, then leapt
into a crouch, surfing the banister down the staircase.  With a quick
flip at the base of the stairs, she hit the floor just in time to see a
tweed jacket disappear around the corner at the far end of the building.

Predatory instincts kicking in, Jinx raced down the corridor fast enough
to make an Olympic athlete green with envy.  She slid around the corner
before the fleeing man was even halfway down the staircase.  Feeling
spiteful, she swung out her arm and a pink hex shot from her hand. It
slammed into the last stair, just as the man's foot was about to land on
it.

An unhinged giggle left Jinx's lips as the man suddenly collapsed
forward, his head banging off the far wall of the stairwell when the
bottom stair suddenly gave way beneath his weight. Taking her own time,
Jinx strolled down the stairs and crouched down over the downed man.
Taking a fist full of hair, she savagely lifted his head up.

It looked like he was still alive, just knocked the heck out ...

More's the pity, really.

Jinx resisted the urge to rough him up a bit more, and quickly went
through his pockets.  She found another gun, just a small pistol that
he'd obviously been too panicked to think to use, a wallet, some foreign
(well, local-foreign) cash - which she stuffed into her pocket - and a
pretty standard looking set of keys. How nice, too: there was a name in
good old fashioned English on one of his credit cards!

"Well, Mr. Tatyana, looks like you don't get to take the easy way out."

With a tired sigh, she then hefted the man up onto her shoulder and made
her way down the stairs.  A moment later, she was outside of the
building, taking a deep breath of the fresh, country air.

Tasting it, she let out a few hacking coughs.  "Damn all this fresh air.
I need to get back to the big city to get my smog fix."

Her snide comment died on her lips when she noticed that she wasn't
alone outside the building.  Standing right in front of her, obviously
having had followed her trail after the shooter had stopped shooting ...
was Alexi.  The slack jaw and wide eyed stare made Jinx fairly certain
that she wasn't going to be able to talk her way out of this one.

"So ... how about that food you mentioned?" She asked with a smile. "I
am feeling a bit peckish..."

- - -

Yevhen Reshetov paced the length of his office.

He was nervous, anxious, and a certain spot on the back of his neck
burned uncomfortably. Not just uncomfortably, but ominously. He resisted
the urge to rub it, knowing it wouldn't do any good. Taking a few
seconds to stare at the muted television propped up against one of the
walls, he closed his eyes at the scene. It was a local channel with
'breaking news' regarding the shooting in the town. God, what a mess
that had turned into!

Back on his desk, a white phone rang.

Taking a deep breath, Yevhen let it ring twice more before he felt
composed enough to pick it up. He had to keep calm - things weren't as
bad as they seemed. They never were. There was always a way to make the
best of any situation! He was living proof. Running a hand through his
thick graying hair, he narrowed coal black eyes partly concealed by
reading glasses.

"Mister Reshetov?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Yes," he replied. "What is it?"

"We're just calling to update you about your dog. She's fine. We haven't
been able find a good place for her to stay overnight. We'll keep
looking into alternatives."

"I see." Yehven nodded. "And what about Mister Rudny?"

"Mister Rudny got into some trouble. As you probably already know,
Mister Nikitin did not. We're looking into the situation. No one wants
Mister Rudny to cause us any future difficulties. We're going to have to
talk to him."

"I understand..." Reshetov replied, a frown creasing his face. "Do
whatever you have to. I leave it to you."

"We'll do what we can, Mister Reshetov. We may have to try and find help
outside the area."

The conversation ended, and the weary man placed the phone back on the
hook. The news wasn't good. The girl was still alive, and they hadn't
been able to get access to her yet. She was still in that police
station. It would take time to get to her if she stayed there.  Damn her
for surviving the attack!

Damn those two idiots for botching it!!

Reshetov didn't know their real names - he didn't want to know them -
but they had been the best they could put together on such short notice.
Yehven's benefactors had literally only given him less than a day to
pull something together. That thing-in-a-girl's-body should have been
killed. His benefactors hadn't called back yet, but Reshetov knew they
had to know about the gaffe. They would be...

Oh, God -

They'd be unhappy.

Again, the tiny implant in his neck seemed to echo their unspoken
condemnation. It was like a physical reminder of their agreement, their
contract, their deal. For over two years now, he had had it. There was
no question it was better than the alternative he had faced, back then:
dying of cancer, all his aspirations and hopes and dreams seeming to be
out of reach. They had come, offered him a deal, cured him! Hell, on
most days, he felt twenty years younger than he looked! He even had
enough energy to keep his newest mistress happy - not bad at all for a
man pressing sixty five!

Of course, those benefits didn't come without a price.

This was just the latest and more troublesome one. Some blasted American
girl that needed to be eliminated. Then there was handling the body of
the other girl, the one that was - or who would - die in the hospital
downtown. Why couldn't things just go back to being easy like before? He
ended up rubbing the back of his neck after all, frowning at the options
left to him.

Behind him, the regional flag of Kamchatka Krai hung from the wall.

- - -

The spoon swirled around in the bowl of reddish soup, but Jinx didn't
particularly care for the Gazpacho they had so ... kindly provided for
her.  Frankly, she wished she still had the fur coat they'd purloined;
those beans were starting to sound pretty tempting at the moment.

"You ... are not hungry?" Alexi asked somewhat nervously.  The police
had been nice enough to bring in another chair into the holding room for
the man to sit on, since Jinx had already been seated at the steel table
at the center of the room.  Unlike other times she'd been in such rooms,
they hadn't actually handcuffed her to the table, so that was a nice
change, at least.

With just a glance out of the corner of her eye, she could still see
that he was shaken, possibly from seeing several people die in as many
minutes, or from his itsy bitsy brush with death, or, quite possibly
from seeing her man-handle two grown, armed men with her bare hands like
they were a pair of infants.

Not... that she would ever manhandle infants...

"Not really, no," Jinx replied lazily.  In fact, she was starving, but
she didn't want to show any weakness in front of the normals.  Somehow
she didn't think 'picky eater' would keep them wary of her.

"W-what you did out there.  How? How was that even possible?  I have
never seen anything like it, not for real."

Dropping the spoon into the bowl with a clatter, Jinx leaned back and
stretched out; she was only slightly annoyed that the man didn't appear
to appreciate the view she was offering at all, as skittish as he was.
"Don't think too much about it, Lexi.  I'm probably just a government
experiment or something, and they'll probably have to erase your mind
when they come to collect me anyway."

To her amusement, Alexi's eyes widened till she thought they might
actually pop out of his head.

"No, no - you are making fun of me!" he finally replied, pointing at her
playfully. "Government experiment. For just a moment there, I almost
believed it!"

Jinx was about to reply when the door opened.

"Alexi," a man, one of the officers on duty outside, interrupted. Jinx
sighed as the conversation shifted back to a language she didn't
understand. "Call for you. Sounds important."

"For me?"

"It is probably about your little friend there."

Alexi frowned, but got out of his seat.

"I'll only be a few minutes," he assured his new foreign friend. He
could sympathize with her, being so far from home. He'd been there. But
what she'd done before - that was just crazy. People couldn't do those
sorts of things, could they? He'd also written off her strange cat-like
eyes as being something exotic, maybe even contact lenses, but what if
he was wrong?

Thoughts racing, he followed a police officer into another room. It was
completely empty.

"Right there," the escort said, pointing down at a phone, currently off
the hook.

Then he left, closing the door behind him.

"Yes?" Alexi picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Mister Marcinkevich?" a male voice on the line asked, curtly.

"Speaking. May I ask who this is?"

"My name is Denisenko. Colonel Denisenko. I'd like to talk to you about
the young lady you've been speaking with."

Alexi felt a shiver run down his spine.

Jinx had been kidding, hadn't she?!

"I just need you to answer a few questions, son," the Colonel added,
given Alexi's pause. "Is that understood?"

"Ah... yes." the young man gulped. "Yes sir."

Back in her holding room, Jinx waited. Alexi didn't come back, not
immediately. When he did, he seemed visibly shaken. When she asked if
there was anything she could get to pass the time, he quickly
volunteered bring in a small television. Letting him set it up for her,
Jinx could roughly guess what he had been called out for earlier.
Someone had obviously wanted to talk to him... about her.

Which was probably a good thing.

50/50 depending on these X-COM guys Akari mentioned.

There was next to nothing on the TV, naturally. No interesting English
programming anyway. They got BBC, though, and it had English subtitles.
She saw, first hand, what Akari had mentioned before in passing. The US
President really was a man named "George Bush" - who she had never even
heard of before - and the US was actually involved in not just one, but
two ongoing occupations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Seeing some
news about it made her wonder just what had happened on this world to
cause it to happen. The year was different, too, but only by a bit. It
wasn't like she was in a totally different time...

Most unusual of all was that there was not one report on meta-human
crime.

Back home, there was almost always something in the news about some
super villain or super hero doing something. Maybe they robbed a bank;
maybe they stopped a bank robbery, maybe War World or Apokalipse were up
to their usual no good? Nothing. As the BBC recapped "news from around
the world" there was not one line devoted to anything... really unusual.

Not that she was a super villain anymore, but if she was, Jinx felt
confident assuming she'd be the only one on the planet. The only one.
That... was a really odd thought, like imagining you were the last woman
on Earth. And it wasn't simply that there were no meta-humans. There
were no heroes or villains. At least none that made the news.

Small talk with Alexi and some news on Akari (really only that she was
"stable") passed the time.

Then, finally, the door opened again.

A man and woman entered, wearing military uniforms but no weapons. Alexi
immediately got out of his seat, but when he did, it became clear that
these two new arrivals weren't exactly the imposing military men either
had expected. Beneath their pressed beige uniforms and caps, neither one
came even close to six feet tall. One was also pretty obviously a woman,
despite the pants and the cap covering the top of her hair. The male of
the pair lifted his cap somewhat, letting a pigtail spill out behind it.
Jinx could hardly be bothered with them, though, glancing at her cute
translator as he made his way to the pair.

"Mister Marcinkevich?" asked the man ... in an oddly familiar voice, and
continued in English. "I'm Lieutenant Machinko, here on Colonel
Denisenko 's orders. We'll take it from here."

"If you say so..." Alexi inclined his head in respect, but also turned
to Jinx. "It was nice meeting you, Jinx. Thanks for... well... you know.
Good luck."

Jinx nodded back, then blew a kiss to fluster the man and Alexi gave her
one last grin before leaving, not inclined to get in the way of
potential trouble. She then turned to regard the T.V., addressing the
soldiers out of the side of her mouth.

"Sooooo," she began. "You guys here to conduct a by the book military
investigation with absolutely no suspect overtones?"

"To answer your question," the male, Lieutenant Machinko, replied. "That
depends. First we need some privacy. Lieutenant Tokuno?"

The female of the pair nodded, retrieving a device the size and shape of
a cell phone. Clicking a concealed button on the side, she slowly placed
it into one of the uniform's front pockets before buttoning it closed.
She then assumed a ready stance by the door.

The male sighed and tapped his ear.

"Screen up? Good." With that, his manner changed slightly, and he
smiled, drawing Alexi's chair across the floor to sit in it backwards,
resting his arms casually on the backrest. It was an almost adolescently
carefree posture, and one most wouldn't associate with the uniform the
young man was wearing.

"Yeah, so..." he drawled a bit. "Trenchard, huh? Not too many people
know that word."

Not to be out adolescence-d, Jinx leaned back and kicked her heels up
onto the tabletop, folding her hands behind her head.  Something was
tickling the back of her mind, though, deja vu or something like that.
It felt like something was flying over her head and it was getting
annoying.

Deciding to play up her annoyance, she finally turned to regard the
pigtailed man before her and replied, "Yeah, it is kind of a funny word,
isn't it.  I mean, is it 'Trench'-'hard', or 'Tre'-'Chard' with an 'n'
stuck in there?  You'd have to have a seriously twisted Mind to come up
with something like that."

He nodded, apparently still quite cheerful.

The woman by the door huffed. "Looks like another one with an attitude."

"Jinx, right?" the male of the pair asked, but didn't wait for a reply.
"You know, I was on my way here when I heard a funny story. What was it
again?" he asked Lieutenant Tokuno.

"Something about a little girl beating up some armed men," the woman
answered, then tacked on. "Sir."

"Yeah, that was it!" he said, snapping his fingers as if just
remembering it. "Weren't you that girl, Jinx? I gotta say, you just
don't look like the type. Maybe it's the bright-pink Sakura-hair, I
dunno. I just have to ask: was that really you?"

Jinx was about to reply to the jerkish comment - really, what kind of
ass would compare her with 'Sakura'? - when, suddenly everything
clicked.  The voice, the pigtail, the chauvinistic attitude and casual
use of insults?  Jinx did a quick double take, just to make sure.

'Noooooo way,' she thought to herself.  There was just no way that she
would run into him of all people, here and now.

Slowly, a wide smile spread across her lips.  "Well, Mr ... what was
that name again?  Machotome?  Never mind, not really important.  Anyway,
I must say, that I certainly wasn't expecting such a chauvinistic and
sexist comment from someone so obviously in touch with their feminine
side."

Smiling wider, she leaned back into her chair, and prepared for the fun.

"Hey!" he snapped, leaning forward a bit. "Just what's that supposed to
mean?"

"Sir..." the woman by the door interrupted. Or tried to.

Jinx stifled a laugh.  "Nothing, nothing.  Man, I gotta say, though,
that Gozpacho stuff really did not hit the spot.  You know what I could
really go for?  A good Okonomi-yukki would be divine ... Oh, wait!  You
know what, a good old fashioned American Pizza would be even better.
Makes that other stuff taste like tripe!"

"You've obviously never had real okonomiyaki!" The woman crossed her
arms in front of her. "Comparing it to cheese covered greasy slop?! Ha!
Don't make bad jokes, sugar!"

The man looked over at her, obviously noticing she was breaking
character.

He then went back to staring at Jinx, this time a bit more suspiciously.

"I don't know you from somewhere, do I?" he asked, cautiously now. "Like
a marriage contract or stolen food or family curse or nothin'?"

Jinx actually did laugh at that.  "Do military officer's often have
marriage contracts or steal food?  I would think an organization like
the army would frown on petty thieves and vagabonds, don't you?" She
then looked over to 'Tokuno'.  "Y'know, those slacks aren't really
flattering on you. You really shouldn't wear men's clothes all the
time... but I bet you'd look real cute in a dress."

"Hey!" the woman frowned, more than a little offense mixed in with
embarrassment.

"Wait a sec," the man spoke up, motioning for his partner to calm down.
"Something's strange here." He gave Jinx a look hard look. "I don't
recognize you, but somethin' tells me you know me. And the lieutenant
there. So what's up?"

Jinx shrugged helplessly.  "How could a little girl like me know
anything?  I'm surprised you didn't keep that Alexi guy around.  I mean,
only a big strong man could possibly have taken out those two bad guys,
am I right?"

She then made a show of scrutinizing the pair.

"You know," she said. "You two really don't strike me as proper military
types.  How can I know for sure that you're actually who you say you are
and not some ... some kind of bad guy coming to finish me off?"

The two exchanged a quick look, and the guy let out a suffering sigh.

"Don't expect us to flash a badge or nothin," he breezily replied. "But
I think the fact that we could waltz in here - and waltz out - with you
any time we want has to count for something. Look, I know you've
probably been through a lot. You've probably seen a lot, too. Nasty
stuff, I'd bet. We just want to double check a few things. Were you the
one who left a rather nasty looking barbeque in the road a couple miles
out of town?"

The sorceress shrugged carelessly. "Don't think the MIB act impresses
me.  And just say that if it was feasibly possible that I could have
been responsible for the barbeque, what of it?  What does it matter?"

Honestly, the witch was having a little too much fun at her 'friend's'
expense, but she couldn't help herself.  Last she'd heard, Akari was
stable, so she was only minor-ly freaking out about that, rather than
going completely ballistic.

"It matters because it means ya aren't just some little girl with funny
anime-hair," he answered, studying her. "Looking at what we've found,
there's a few possibilities. One of 'em is that you're a plant. A mole!
A stooge!"

"A hybrid alien-human," the woman clarified. "The looks. Those abilities
you showed. The things you said. You're obviously not normal."

"And what was that technique anyway?" the male asked, sounding a bit
impressed. Blue eyes wandered to her hands. "I've never heard of pink ki
being tossed around before. Not seriously."

The woman picked up, correcting the male who was not going off topic.
"They called us in to take a look at you and determine whether you're
human or not. 'Cause if you're not, that means we label you and put you
away in a jar. So how about you play along, huh, sugar?

Jinx narrowed her eyes, glaring darkly at 'Tokuno'.

"Oh, is that so?" she asked. "Any alien hybrids you find you're just
going to label, toss in a box and dissect at your leisure?  Tell me, do
you hate all the aliens so much that you'll imprison and torture anyone
that's has any alien DNA in them at all?"

She didn't wait for the rhetorical answer they would inevitably reply.
Instead, she leaned forward, smirking viciously.

"Tell me, does that include Akari?  You know, the alien hybrid that's
quite possibly dying in that filthy clinic down the road?  I bet you'd
like that, wouldn't you?  Sticking my friend in a little box and poking
and prodding at her for something she had no control over?"

The woman reeled back a bit, both at Jinx's implications and her own
words.

"That ain't Akari!" The man spoke up, brows pulled together in anger.
"These things killed her! You got no idea...!" He forcefully bit off
what he had been about to say and calmed down. Slightly. "You got no
idea what they're capable of. That girl, the real Akari, was a friend of
ours."

Jinx laughed, loud and mockingly.  "'You're the ones who have no idea
what you're talking about! That Akari was more real than you could ever
know! I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for her. I would have died
in that ship like a dog, but she - Akari - saved my life, and you two,
who never even met her are trying to tell me she's a worthless copy?"

Reaching into her sleeve, she suddenly whipped her hand out, launching a
projectile which bounced off the wall inched from 'Tokuno's' head.

"Maybe you should try talking to her before you start dissecting her for
fun?  You know, even I've heard the line 'Beware those that fight
monsters', yadda yadda yadda."

'Tokuno' caught the crumpled up ball of metal as it fell with one hand,
her eyes not leaving the pink haired witch. In the warmth of the woman's
palm, the foil unraveled and flattened out. In little more than a sec or
two, it looked smooth and completely un-creased. Like it hadn't just
been mashed into a ball moments before.

"Or maybe you're thinking exactly what they want you to think," she
growled, but glanced down at the material in her hand. It was clear she
knew what it was. And where Jinx had gotten it.

"Check that out," the male, 'Lieutenant Machinko,' ordered. The woman
nodded, and stepped outside the room.

He tapped the desk between him and the irate sorceress.

"You know they can do things to your mind, don't you?" he asked. "They
can make you want to believe them. Follow them. Help them. Worship them
even. We need to be careful. That girl... Akari... it wasn't too long
ago they promised a friend of mine that they'd bring her back, if only
he'd give into them. Stronger people than you or me have fallen into
their hands."

Jinx shook her head sadly.  "Listen to you, talking like you have even a
single clue what Akari has been through.  Look, Machotome, I've
experienced a crash course in just what the aliens are capable of, and I
don't need your crap about that." She leaned forward, then, steepling
her fingers before her. "In fact, I'm on your side here.  I have seen
just what those alien bastards can do, and I wanna see every single one
of those bastards dead ... except for Akari ..."

"Except for her," he stated. "From what we intercepted from that clinic
she's at, your friend is a full fledged Trenchard. That means she's got
these alien tissues grafted to her brain. That's like the point of no
return."

"No one can..." he stopped, realizing Jinx wouldn't just relent. "Okay.
Let's just start at the beginning, huh? I promise you nothing bad will
happen to your friend. God knows, she's not the first hybrid we've
captured."

"Good," Jinx barked, willing to move on as well. "Then you know how to
fix her up.  Once you can actually prove that you've helped her, instead
of just locking her in a box like the Little Miss Fry-Cook was so eager
to do, then I'll tell you everything you need to know ... and probably
one or two things that even you won't believe.  And believe me, I
believe I know what you will believe or not."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"What did you call her?" he cupped his hand under his chin. "You do know
who she is! You know who I am, too. Did she... did Akari tell you?"

Jinx replied with a shrug.  "Yeah, sure, why not.  That'll do for now."

The lieutenant noted her confident expression and weighed his options.

"Alright," he said after a few long seconds. "This is weird, and you
seem to know some stuff you shouldn't. So I'll give you some leeway.
That means I'm gonna be puttin' my word on the line ta vouch for ya.
I'll do what I can for... for Akari, but you better come clean. I ain't
a bad guy, but if I find out you're trying to pull a fast one, I'll make
you regret it. Clear?"

"Oh, you can trust me.  I'm as harmless as a sweet little pussy cat."
Jinx suddenly leaned forward, opening her slitted eyes wide and clawing
at the air with a little 'mreow'.

"Ga-ah!" the man flinched. "Creepy evil c-c-cat eyes!"

A second later, he coughed and straightened his shirt.

"Not that I'm afraid of cats," he quickly clarified.

"Bwahahaha!"  Jinx clutched her sides, falling back into her seat.  "Oh
yeah, you've really got me intimidated now, Mr Munchhausen.  I'll be
sure not to cross you."

She then leaned forward again, giggling helplessly.  "Seriously, though.
Alien collaborators just tried to kill me, in broad daylight.  You gotta
make sure no one like that goes after Akari." Another thought occurred
to her.  "If you want all the info I got, though, it's going to cost
you.  If you want my help, you gotta help me out in return."

"Like we'd leave an alien body... or an alien-human hybrid body... lying
around in a public hospital," he assured her, still a bit wary from the
catty display earlier. Evil! Evil cat like eyes that pierce the soul
leaving only scratches behind! Scratches that never heal!

He shuddered again.

"What do you want?" he asked, slowly composing himself. "Money? You do
know we can't let you just run around. Even if you're on our side, I'd
bet the aliens have your thought patterns on record. They'll just find
you again."

Jinx tapped her fingers on the table, slowly dragging her nails across
the surface before tapping them again.

"Money?" she muttered absently.  "I hadn't even thought about that.  I
mean, if you got any extra sitting around, I could take it off your
hands..."

Tap, tap, tap ... drag.

"But that's not what I'm talking about," she insisted. "I got some
friends that I need to find, and you, you wild stallion, you, are gonna
help me find them before the aliens do, capiche?"

"So Bossy. Man! At least you're not another fiance..." he muttered under
his breath. "Fine. Fine. Saving people is part of the job description,
anyway." The officer tapped his ear. "We're extracting pinkie here.
Yeah, the back is fine... fifty bucks says this town crawls. Yes, you
can shoot her if she makes a run for it. That's right. I want the entire
clinic purged. Not one blood sample or scrap of cloth, you hear me?
Good."

He stood up.

"Alright pinkurori..." Lieutenant Saotome motioned to the door. "We're
going to escort you out. Just walk out quietly and try not to make a
scene... he asks, knowing she'll probably make one anyway..."

"Perv."  Jinx grumbled darkly to herself. "You're just lucky you didn't
say pettanko, or this would have gotten bloody."

She then rose to her feet and started for the door.

"Well, what are you waiting for, kyonyuu?  Let's get this show on the
road before you embarrass yourself anymore."

"You know, I'd say they're not paying me enough to deal with brats like
you... but they are."

A quick nudge out the now-open door prodded Jinx along.

"Go on."

Lieutenant 'Tokuno' was waiting for them, seemingly unarmed. Not like
either martial artist really needed anything but their hands to deal
with ninety nine point nine percent of the human population. The halls
had all been cleared and locked down as they exited the police station
out back. On the way out, Jinx got a look at another person she would be
sharing her ride with.

The unnamed sniper she had subdued definitely looked like he had had
better days. The police had been, if anything, less gentle with him than
she herself had. Aside from being covered with bruises and what looked
to be a burn mark on his shoulder, he was now muzzled with some sort of
metal and plastic mask. A pretty young man in a uniform similar to Ranma
and Ukyou's handled him with ease, despite the sniper being the
physically larger of the two. Manacles kept the man's hands together,
and he shuddered frightfully with every step his escort made him take.

"That one's an obvious conspirator," Ranma spoke up from behind Jinx as
they walked. "The locals didn't get much out of him, but we'll find out
everything he knows. He knows it, too. We always get the information we
want."

"Seriously, Red? What's with the 'big bad' routine?  It is sooo not you.
You keep trying to be all 'I'm ominous and shady', but you just can't
pull it off." Jinx then turned to Ukyou. "I mean, at least Fry Cook has
the professional look, but she's got the anger management of a pitbull."

Ahead of her, the okonomiyaki chef snorted in annoyance, still a bit
confused by the younger girl's familiarity.

"Hey," Ranma remarked. "I'll have you know I'm pretty bad ass..."
Unfortunately, it ended up sounding more petulant than convincing.
"Anyway, don't insult my awesome acting skills. I learned from the
best!"

Jinx just rolled her eyes.

Coming out back, Jinx narrowed her eyes against the sudden blast of high
speed wind.

No less than three black helicopters were currently loitering above
them. They were the usual sleek unmarked types Jinx knew had parallels
on her world: usually the type to offload government sponsored trouble.
Two maintained the positions while the third lowered close to the
ground, the parking lot having been cleared of vehicles. Some of the
local police were in attendance, but unarmed. At least six men in
military fatigues had the area locked down and secured.

At the third helicopter landed, blades still spinning, Jinx noted how
quiet they were. Even this close, while there was plenty of wind, the
blades and engines seemed to be muffled or silenced. It reminded her of
the LuthorTech designs she and Happosai had run into in Metropolis. The
side of their new ride opened up, and a woman jumped out. Unlike Ranma,
Ukyou and the pretty boy, this one was armed. A rather large sniper
rifle of unfamiliar make hung from a strap around the woman's shoulders.
She also made no attempt to cover her distinctive violet hair.

"This is our ride," Ranma said. "Go ahead. The area's clear."

The instant that Jinx saw the purple haired warrior, she instinctively
dropped into a defensive stance, her hands flaring up with pink energy.
Just as she was about to verbally hiss her anger at the familiar Amazon,
Jinx suddenly realized that she was being silly and stopped.

Dropping out of the combat stance, she quickly turned to Ukyou, smiling.
"Hey there, I didn't think you were the type to hang out with alley
cats. Even less so than the Pigtailed Girl."

For the first time, the young woman ahead of her turned enough to show
off a smirk.

"Sounds like you two had a catfight," Ukyou observed. "Just be glad you
got away without the smooch of death."

"Tongue of death is more like it..." Ranma muttered behind them. Both
girls immediately turned to give him a very familiar look. "Hey!
Kidding!"

"Don't kid about that sort of stuff... sir."

Ranma gave a dismissive huff. "So she knows about me, you, and a certain
someone. But not one word about our fourth teammate here."

Konatsu, still manhandling the muzzled sniper, said nothing.

The three: Ranma, Ukyou and Jinx, stepped up and into the helicopter's
cabin. No sooner was Ranma inside and closing the sliding door behind
them than it began to ascend. Outside, another helicopter lowered to
pick up the soon to be mentally-interrogated  alien conspirator and his
ninja escort. Inside, with the door closed, it was almost completely
quiet. Shampoo and Ukyou took seats built into the wall opposite Ranma
and Jinx. Both girls watched their pink haired guest closely, as if
waiting for an excuse to pounce.

"Geez, relax a bit," Ranma told them, sliding the base of his seat
forward a bit, giving him enough room to recline a couple inches. "We're
evacuating you, the corpse camper down there, and Akari. We don't have
the gear to decrypt that data-packet you gave us, but we'll get on that
next. What I'd like to know now is how you know about us. If you're on
our side, you can explain that much."

Rather than answer, Jinx just continued to match the glares of both
Shampoo and Ukyou as haughtily as she could.  She wanted, just so much
to do something to tick off Shampoo.  Sure, it wasn't her Shampoo, but
she had been pretty much universally put off on all Shampoo's at this
point. What to do, what to do?

One option had potential.

Pissing people off and showing off at the same time was always fun!
After a minute, she finally turned to Ranma, prepared to reply to his
question. Then, suddenly she pointed to something behind him.  "Hey,
what's that thing?"

Immediately, Ranma spun around to look at what she'd pointed at.  "Ummm,
what? You mean that crate there? Just extra gear, I suppose." He then
began to turn back "I really don't see what that has- mmmph!"

Only to have his statement cut off when his lips pressed firmly onto
Jinx's, who had leaned forward quickly while his head had been turned
around. The pigtailed boy's eyes shot wide, and Jinx shot back to her
seat, smiling wickedly across the way to the girl's sitting there.

'Well, they got a reason now!  Let's see what they do.'

"You I..." A rather large knife slipped out of its sheath with an
ominous click. "Kill."

Ukyou settled for cracking her knuckles, silently radiating murderous
ki.

"G-g-geez! What'd ya do that for?!" Ranma wiped his mouth, glad he
didn't end up smearing lipstick over his cheek. "Stand down!" He barked
at the two angry women, then turned on Jinx. "What the hell are you
doing?!"

The tiny cabin of the room was literally swamped thick with battle
auras.

Jinx tittered to herself.  "Aww, don't be so sore, girls.  I got you a
present, anyway."

With that, she tossed a pair of boxers across the helicopter to land on
Shampoo's lap.

The pink haired witch's smile was as self satisfied as it had ever been.
It was a wonder what you could do when someone was distracted, even a
master of the martial arts. And Ranma, just like Ryouga, was just so
easy to distract with the proper application of lady parts.

"See, now that I've given you a gift that you wanted so much, we can be
friends, right Shampoo?" she asked teasingly.

"I don't know you," the Chinese girl stated, in essentially perfect
English. She stole a look at Ranma's boxers, and then tossed them over
to the still shocked martial artist.

"How did she...?" Ukyou stammered. "That was - "

"Where did you learn that move?" Ranma asked, now holding his underwear.
When it came to techniques, especially family techniques, he was
completely serious. The good natured routine evaporated in an instant.

"Ah!" Ukyou suddenly put two and two together. "Did she just touch
your...!! I'LL KILL HER!"

Amazingly, Shampoo had to restrain the enraged chef from literally
reaching across the cabin and strangling their "guest." She didn't look
happy about having to do it, but she did anyway. After a few struggling
seconds, during which Ukyou's hands very nearly found the front of
Jinx's dress, the Japanese girl began to slowly simmer down.

"Jinx," Ranma spoke up again. "Did Happosai teach you that move? Is he
alive?"

The witch made sure to stick her tongue out at Ukyou one last time
before turning back to Ranma.

"Well, I suppose this is a good a segue as any," she replied.
"Unfortunately, it's complicated, and the answer is yes and no."

Ranma nodded, understanding how things got complicated. Still...

"I'd appreciate it if you explained it to me," he said. "Happosai,
despite being an evil disgusting rotten pervert, was the founder of my
family's school of martial arts. He was also... kinda... in a way, my
Master. Though I never admitted it. We'd heard he was killed a few
months ago."

Jinx nodded sadly.  "I'd gathered that when the Ethereal Commander tried
to break my mind. You have my condolences, even though he wasn't
technically 'my' Happosai." She held up her hand to stop the obvious
questions.  "And yes, I said 'my' Happosai.  You see, I was in a fight
recently, and, in a bit of a freak accident, got teleported halfway
across the world in a second."

Taking a deep breath, and holding up her hand again, continued, "It
wasn't until Akari and me talked things out, that we realized that I
hadn't just been teleported across the world, but across dimensions, to
boot.  So, long story short, I guess, is that I'm from a different
dimension, as are a few of my friends that got sucked through the portal
before me, now I'm lost and more than a bit confused on how similar, yet
different this world is from mine."

Finally, she lowered her hand. "So ... any questions?"

For a couple seconds, silence reigned in the cabin.

Outside, the town was already dwindling away against the expanding blue
of the coast. Ukyou and Shampoo seemed initially incredulous. The former
- still angry about the kiss and imagined groping - crossed her arms and
leaned back, plainly not convinced. Shampoo flipped her tactical knife
around and slipped it back in its sheath, clipping it closed with one
hand. Her eyes never left the pink haired sorceress.

Next to Jinx, Ranma had his boxers in his right hand, and his jaw
resting against his left. It was his opinion, frankly, that mattered the
most. Not just because Jinx liked him more than the two mercurial girls
seated opposite; he was plainly in charge here. She'd been honest with
him, just like he wanted. It was up to him to believe her.

"I see," he finally said, cautiously adding, "You realize my commanding
officer will want to verify this."

"Ha!  Good luck!  Unless you can find Cyborg, I doubt you guys have
anything that'll actually let you 'verify' this. And think again if you
think you're just gonna waltz into my brain and start rooting around,
either. I booted an Ethereal Commander outta there, and I'll do the same
to you!"

Ranma frowned a bit at that.

"Sir," Shampoo spoke up, to Jinx's surprise. "She even know about that."

"She does," he admitted and gave a half-hearted shrug. "And I know what
you're thinking. Still, rules are rules, right?" To Jinx, he explained,
"When you have an enemy that can manipulate your thoughts, even
subconsciously, caution saves lives. It already has saved lives."

"Ummm, yeah, no," Jinx insisted. "I know that nothing got left behind,
in fact, I know they didn't even manage to take everything they wanted
before they gave up and just tried to kill me."  She leaned back in her
seat and looked away.  "I'm not gonna bend on this one either.  So,
unless you wanna beat me unconscious, just give it up."

"And no." She looked pointedly at Ukyou and Shampoo, both of which
looked to be on the verge of ominously cracking their knuckles. "That's
not an invitation." Muttering to herself, she looked back to back of the
helicopter. "Sheesh, tell them I got a friend named 'Cyborg' and all
they can do is go on about mind rapin' me..."

Something occurred to her, just then.

"Hey, wait a sec...!"

Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyou turned conspicuously silent.

"Konatsu," Ranma said, having thought a certain something over. "Look
after things in here."

Some sort of hand-signal passed between Ranma and Ukyou as the two moved
to the forward pilot's compartment. Shampoo remained behind, watching
the seated and slowly-catching-on Jinx intently, but without overt
hostility.

"Of course you wouldn't be surprised by Cyborg," Jinx said levelly. "You
already know, don't you."

Shampoo and Konatsu remained silent, neither confirming nor denying.
Inside the front third of the helicopter, the other two members of
Juliet squad exchanged hushed words.

"You know, I still can't believe this," Ukyou huffed, sounding clearly
skeptical. "So, what? She's a friend of ours from this other dimension?
And she conveniently shows up with the lost boy's ex-girlfriend? And she
don't want to get a mind scan?"

She shook her head, refusing to believe it.

"Sounds like this is a trap to me. I bet the moment Ryouga shows up -
and goes completely ape shit ballistic, by the way - snap!" She snapped
her fingers. "The programming kicks in. It'll be just like that time
India Squad got ambushed."

"I'm aware of the risks," Ranma whispered. The nearby pilot, helmet on,
tuned them out. "But she's already figured most of the stuff out anyway.
So we're gonna roll with it fer now."

"But lieutenant," Ukyou pressed. "She's dangerous."

"And what should I do, huh?" he asked, glancing back at the door to the
rear cabin. "Knock her out?  Put a suppressor on her?"

"You could at least let me scan her... even if you don't want to, I can
-"

"No. Not... not yet," he cut her off. "I'm gonna talk to her. This isn't
like before... what Ryouga and Konatsu and myself had to do. I will not
do that unless absolutely necessary. Hell, her friends are already back
at Seiran. You read the reports! For the time being, we'll let her have
what she wants."

"...but!"

"She's had an Ethereal in her mind," he reminded his subordinate. "She's
probably scared to death we'll do what it did. Just wait and see. I'll
talk to her, and she'll agree to a screening. Eventually. What she said
before... about us acting like they do. She has a point. So we're going
to act like the good guys we are, aren't we?"

Ukyou frowned, but eventually nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Good," he said, making as if to open the door back to the main cabin.
"If she steals your underwear, you're free to beat her to a pulp."

The two went back.

The three black helicopters raced silently across the sea.

- - -

Commander Yasuda called the meeting personally.

All the available combat team officers were in attendance, including
both Captains, Lieutenants Tsuchihashi, Stirling, and the recently
promoted Feretti and Karpov. Ryouga, the junior officer of the five,
felt his blood run cold when he saw the picture on the display. No: not
just that. Beneath the frozen shock, a knot of anger threatened to erupt
like a volcano.

"We have a situation," Captain Ben-Solomon explained, standing just in
front of his display. "This alien-human hybrid, a Trenchard, has just
recently entered our custody. Responding to a breach of information
security, Juliet Squad recovered the following subjects."

In the short video clip that played, a badly wounded Akari Unryu lay
flat on a medical stretcher. Her eyes were closed, and the camera
recorded burns on her body, in addition to the massive bite-wound trauma
she had suffered. Her features, ostensibly human, became less so below
the neck, where alien surgery and alteration had either removed or
mutilated the parts of the human anatomy considered undesirable by the
Visitors.

"Juliet Squad and associated personnel have sanitized the hospital where
she was being kept and eliminated all civilian records. Doctors and
other medical staff have been sworn into secrecy concerning their
reports and exposure to the body. The Trenchard itself is in our custody
and currently en route to an emergency holding and medical depot."

"Saotome has already conducted a basic mental probe of the Trenchard,
and confirmed certain events. Many of which relate to this second
subject..." The picture changed to show Jinx from a variety of angles.

"This individual, identified as 'Jinx,' is responsible for bringing the
Trenchard in for medical attention. Her appearance corroborates with the
data we have recently acquired from the other four displaced individuals
here at Seiran. Based on the Trenchard's memories, we have confirmed
that the aliens attempted to bring this girl in for study, and that some
sort of reaction occurred, damaging the Trenchard's corona lucis. The
two then made an escape, evading capture for roughly two days."

"Critically, we now have intelligence, including satellite imagery and
preliminary recon, indicating the presence of a cluster of landed UFOs.
We have already shut off all air traffic in the region in preparation
for an assault. Irkutsk is already getting ready to sortie in support."

"We'll need to formally verify our Intel," Yasuda remarked, narrowing
her eyes at the map overlay on the screen. "Lockdown the area in the
meantime and prevent anything taking off or landing while we double
check the Trenchard." She turned to Ben-Solomon. "We will need a Class-A
to oversee the data extraction and base attack. Joshua."

"Yes, ma'am," the Captain replied, quickly agreeing. "I'll see to it."

"Tsuchihashi. Stirling. Hibiki. We'll be using your combat and support
teams, along with Hanley and Kinoshita. Rendezvous with Juliet and then
proceed to target."

The lieutenants in attendance all agreed, but one had an unspoken
question that needed clarification.

"Commander," Ryouga asked, "Shall I take our... observers with us?"

Yasuda nodded. "Do so. Keep an eye on both them and this Jinx character
as well. You and Saotome should be able to handle the situation."

"We will, ma'am."

"Good. Get to it, gentlemen."

- - -

The situation was sufficient cause for concern that they took the
Avenger.

Every major XCOM base had one, or sometimes two, of the high performance
craft; they were the fastest and most powerful ships available to Base
Commanders. Armed with the heaviest and most powerful weapons in the
UNETCO arsenal, and double strength hull armoring in addition to Mach
Eight supercruise, the ship was a premier interceptor, especially when
coupled with the lighter but more fuel efficient Firestorm. Just as
important, the ship had a generous cargo bay specially designed and
equipped to support rapid deployment and Field Operations.

Despite not heading directly into a combat zone, the five assembled
squads, plus the four guest 'embedded observers,' were already partly
equipped by the time they left Seiran. India were already half prepared,
with the lower sections of their personal armor in place. The upper half
lay either draped across their shoulders, like a clam-shell, or hung
from a nearby rack while they finished weapons checks.

More senior officers, and two heavy assault squads, were already in
their personal armor: either the MA-3B ARES (Armored Response
Environmental Suit), or the MA-3C MARS (Mobile Armored Response Suit).
The latter suit, designated for officers and the 'lightning response
team' (Tsuchihashi's Beta Squad in this Op), was slightly up-armored,
but compensated for by the Elerium powered anti-gravity engine it
sported.

The Titans, less familiar with the gear, were slower to equip.

Command had insisted that, even in the nominally low intensity position
of 'observer' that the three humanoid titans wear some protection. It
took time to get fitted for proper personal armor, and each suit was
custom fitted and mated to its owner. Instead, the three were given
basic type-2 enhanced tactical vests to wear either under or over their
normal attire.

The vests incorporated some of the exotic alloy and ceramic hybrid
plates used in personal armor, but without NBC or full environmental
protection. It was an 'all or nothing' type defense, designed to protect
the most vulnerable and likely to be hit areas: the torso, the upper
legs and groin, and the outside of the upper arm. They had also been
issued a tactical helmet and communications headpiece.

The big exception was Cyborg - there was no armor his size, and there
hadn't been time to produce any protective gear... though, in
retrospect, in his case it would be more than a bit redundant. For the
time being, he would have to go as he was.

"Mousse," Ryouga said, walking down past India Squad. "Ryu. Get H-2 up
and keyed in. I want her warmed up and ready for anything."

The two nodded. H-2 was the heavy plasma hovertank they had been given
command over for the upcoming mission. The Avenger currently carried
four of the silently hovering war machines: two plasma armed and two
with fusion ball launchers. The latter also carried external backup
laser cannons for infantry support. Most teams assigned one also used it
as a bit of a pack mule, for carrying heavy weapons or miscellaneous
equipment, and as emergency site to site transportation.

He had little to worry about with his own squad, he knew. He'd already
given them a basic brief - the same one he'd passed to Ryu, as his
second in command, he'd also given to the dimensionally displaced
younger Ryouga. He'd only assumed that the younger-him had in turn
disseminated the appropriate information to his team mates.

And he tried, really hard, not to think about who he was about to see in
a half hour.

Steeling himself, packing up that conflicting tornado of thoughts, he
walked over to where the four Titans sat, a little further back in the
Avenger. They looked maybe half ready, if that. Starfire had her
tactical vest on, but didn't seem happy about the interaction of the
helmet and her hair and how to get it on. She had the headset on at
least; he wasn't particularly worried about shrapnel causing a head
injury in her case. The other Ryouga and Raven were less prepared, with
the latter trying to help the former with the straps on his vest. It was
obvious they didn't have a lot of personal experience with this sort of
thing.

Holding onto one of the overhead straps, he looked them over.

"Good," he gave Starfire a complimentary nod, and then went to his other
self. "Sergeant. I assume you've briefed your team."

"Fully briefed and prepared," his young counterpart replied.  "Of
course, if someone had actually shown us how to use any of this stuff,
it might have helped, but we'll figure it out in plenty of time."

Cyborg nodded.  "We're all good to go, Ryo Two. I've programmed the
energy signature of the Elerium isotope into my scanner, so I'll be able
to lock onto anyone that fires an alien weapon within a hundred meters.
I've already taken the liberty of setting up a wireless link with one of
the techies so I can feed them the data in real time, so they can get a
tactical overview of where all the enemies appear on the grid."

"I've also prepared to act as psionic backup in case there are any
mental attacks," Raven added, giving one last sharp tug to finish
strapping Ryouga into his armor. "I should be able to sense any stronger
than average psyches once we get in range and react accordingly if any
of them try anything."

Ryouga nodded, pleased by the news. "I'll be activating our weapons and
armor systems shortly. You'll follow us and patch the physiological data
from your tactical vests... or your cybernetics... to the CIC. Which of
you have an ATRISK - a 'Medikit'? Starfire and Raven?"

The young sergeant raised his hand.  "I'm carrying the medkit.  I'd
prefer that everyone else isn't distracted.  Also, with permission, sir,
I request permission for our squad to focus mainly on rescuing any
civilians that might be held in the ships.  It is kind of our specialty,
and we aren't really suited to killing aliens yet."

"That's fine," the native Hibiki agreed. "We don't know how many
abductees may be at the alien base, but rescuing them is always a top
priority. Just watch your backs. Do not remove anyone from active stasis
unless you have to. Many, especially the ones used for experiments or
implantation, can not survive outside a stasis tube. Cyborg here should
scan each one before you do anything," he reminded them. "Okay. Nabiki
should have you hooked into our IFF transponder system... everything
looks good."

He paused a second, then asked, "But, I also wanted to ask about this
girl Ranma brought in. This Jinx."

"She's our friend and a powerful ally," Ryouga replied staunchly.  "If
she's there, I will see her."

"I don't have a problem with that," the Lieutenant assured him. "I'd
just like to have some first hand opinions on her. There's...
conflicting reports."

"No, there aren't," Ryouga replied evenly.  "If she's up and well enough
to move then she's coming with me. This isn't even up for debate,
Lieutenant."

So focused was the younger Hibiki on his declaration, that he didn't
even notice the odd looks and shifting postures of his teammates behind
him.  The look on Raven's face alone spoke volumes.

"Sergeant." The other Hibiki leaned in, unperturbed. "I merely asked
your opinion. I know you are clearly fond of this girl, but should I
even bother asking what your teammates think?" He leaned back with a
scowl. "No point in it now, I guess. If she passes muster, then we'll be
handing her off to you. I hope you're all fine with that."

Not backing down a millimeter, Ryouga nodded sharply.  "More than fine,
sir."

He then turned back to his squad, dark look still on his face. "Alright,
get back to it; half of you aren't even ready yet.  Let's get Raven into
her vest, and Starfire, get that helmet on already."

Heading back down to check on the HWP, the Lieutenant noted the whole
'Jinx' topic seemed to be particularly troublesome. He knew from some of
Raven's memories that Jinx was a sore topic. In retrospect, it would
have been better to call each one of the over separately to discuss what
they thought of her, and whether they even wanted her around, much less
on their team.

It was a stupid mistake, and one he knew a more experienced officer
wouldn't have made.

Now he was left with what he knew of the pink haired girl, which was
basically Juliet Squad's conflicting reports (ranging from 'crazy cat-
like girl' to 'slutty troublemaking tramp' to 'she seems nice, though,
maybe, just a little bit antagonistic'), Raven's memories - in which
Jinx did not feature in a very sympathetic light - and not much else.
Just that this girl had escaped, on foot, with Akari.

No: not Akari. Not really.

Yasuda would almost certainly pass the buck onto him from Ranma, all but
forcing him to try and integrate her into the new 'Yankee Squad.' God
knows, it seemed to be what the other-Ryouga wanted. But a squad wasn't
just the officer leading by fiat and showing personal preferences to one
member. It had to be a cohesive unit, led by a fair and impartial
officer, and it was altogether unclear if Jinx had a place in it with
those other three.

"Damnit," he cursed under his breath, assembling the rest of India.
"Alright. Let's get this show started. I have now activated India Squad.
Nabiki!"

"Here," the voice of the team coordinator, back at Seiran, was strangely
comforting.

"We're going weapons hot. Patch everyone in."

- - -

Depot R-067

It didn't even have a formal name.

UNETCO operated many mobile and secondary facilities, like Hisen, or the
USNS Fisher, but those were still permanent bases. This one was only
temporary. It consisted of a few plastic domes and two airlifted cargo
containers, retrofitted to support a small number of research and
support staff. A dozen armed guards in conventional kit stood watch,
having set up a small but tight perimeter between the basecamp and the
dense forest.

The Avenger came to an abrupt stop just above the base before lowering
steadily to a cleared area on the ground. Landing gear extended, and the
fighter/transport same to an easy stop, driven by its two skilled
pilots... each psionically connected to the drive and weapons systems.

Ranma and his team were waiting for them outside.

As Ben-Solomon came down the ramp, followed by Lieutenants Stirling and
Hibiki and the newly minted Sergeant Hibiki, the pigtailed leader and
his group saluted. He and the rest of Juliet were all in standard
fatigues, and obviously eager to get fully equipped for the mission
ahead of them. There was a fifth person present as well: a teenage girl,
petite, with twin fountains of gravity defying pink hair shooting up to
her left and right.

"Sir!" Ranma spoke up. "Juliet Squad awaiting orders!"

"Good to see you, Saotome," the Captain replied, saluting back. "We
brought your gear; it's waiting for you back in the ship. Get Juliet
suited up and ready to deploy."

As the group waited for Ranma and co to go fetch their equipment, the
young sergeant studied Jinx for a long moment, before turning to his
near doppelganger.  "Heh, I wonder if Jinx will be as confused as Cy-
Ow!"

Ryouga's inquiry was cut short as a slim body slammed into him hard
enough to send them both flying halfway back up the loading ramp.  Even
with his training, not to mention the armor, the sergeant felt the wind
blasted from his lungs from the full on tackle, and his back slamming
heavily into the indestructible metal of the landing gear.

A second later, he felt someone try very hard to push that breath back
into his lungs.  His gasp of shock stifled, it took Ryouga a second to
realize that he was being both pinned to the ground by someone little
more than half his weight and kissed quite intensely. Several long
seconds passed, and Ryouga was just finally beginning to relax into the
quite agreeable greeting, when a loud throat clearing filled the air.

Finally, Jinx cut off the kiss, gracing him with a wide grin, and then
the both of them looked up.  Up at the top of the ramp, Raven stood, her
hands crossed over the vest now strapped securely in place.  The look on
her face was clearly at odds with the disparate looks of amusement and
envy coming from the Tamaranian and the Cyborg that flanked her.

"Are you quite done, yet?" Raven asked, clearly off-put.

"Hey," Jinx replied teasingly.  "You and Ryouga got your thing, what
with the whole morning diner thing.  Well this is mine and Ryouga's
thing."

"Ummm ... what is this thing to which you refer?" Starfire asked
tentatively.

Jinx's smile widened, even as she lowered herself to wrap her arms
around Ryouga.  "I get one free affirmation of life every time I come
within a hair's width of dying!  Two, if it's for a good cause!"

Unable to help himself, Ryouga smiled before sitting up and getting to
his feet, incidentally dragging Jinx along for the ride as she refused
to loosen her grip in the slightest.  Looking down at the pink haired
girl, he carefully dropped his hands on her shoulder.

"So, are you alright, then?  I heard you had some alien trouble?"

"It wasn't a big deal.  The aliens these guys got are complete losers.
If I wasn't so busy saving Akari's big butt, I woulda got outta there
easy."  Jinx immediately leaned back in, nuzzling into his chest with an
intensity that strongly belied her joking nature.  Though he was sure
that no one else could, or would even care to notice, he could actually
feel a slight trembling running through her body as she clung to him.

Standing next to his commanding officer, the older Hibiki watched the
exchange closely. What the other-him did in his personal time wasn't his
business, but even he could tell that there was trouble brewing in that
group with Jinx added to the mix. In most other circumstances, it would
have even have been a little funny. Unfortunately, at the moment, they
were on duty and it was more worrying than amusing.

"Let's go," Captain Ben-Solomon said, having also watched it with mild
interest. "I want to see the Trenchard. And I know you do, too,
Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir."

The three men turned from the ship and the scene near the ramp to head
to one of the plastic quarantine domes.

"Wait!"  The shout was unexpected, especially considering who it came
from. Turning, the trio noted that Jinx had actually separated herself
from Ryouga and was now standing several feet away from him, her hands
folded before her and looking on with a downward glance.

"I - I want to see her too," Jinx insisted. "They haven't let me see her
since I took her to the clinic.  I want to make sure that she's
alright..."

The Captain started at the girl for a few seconds. They had all read
Juliet's report, and what Jinx had told Saotome. On the other hand, she
was still a civilian, a possible security risk, and an unknown factor.
To Jinx's credit, she didn't try and unleash her 'puppy dog eye' routine
and instead remained polite and composed.

Finally, the Captain nodded.

The three resumed walking, and Jinx quickly caught up, trailing just
behind them.

The quarantine dome was standard fare for alien corpse and technology
recovery. Unfortunately, it was so ubiquitous and recognizable that it
had all but entered pop culture. Millions of civilians could recognize
it on sight and associate it with 'alien cover up' - different
structures had to be used over the last few years, masking the
appearance and phasing out the overexposed 'semi transparent dome.'

Approaching it, Ryouga didn't know what to think.

Akari.

Of course, she was dead. Even when his own father, at the time in the
alien thrall, had told him she 'was still alive' he had known it to be a
trick. Cologne had teased him about it, and an Ethereal had reasoned
that she was 'one within them.' He wasn't an idiot, no matter what some
people said. He knew what it meant.

They had harvested her and copied her, uploading what they needed
regarding her breeding experiments into the Alien Mind. Akari's fate was
the fate of hundreds, maybe thousands, of others, fallen prey to the
alien menace across the length of human history. She wasn't just another
victim, though. He had failed her personally: failed to protect her.
Failed to save her.

Failed to die with her.

Yes, that too.

Worse: he had failed to avenge her. And now there was another one of
her, a human-alien hybrid, a Trenchard. He knew she wasn't the real
Akari, but god, she was close. She was so damn close.

'This is a test. A test of my will. My determination.'

As the four parted the layered plastic airlock doors to get inside, he
saw her, almost as if for the first time. The long, dark, perfect hair;
a streak of pink in it running down the side of her face - how often had
he seen her tuck it shyly behind her ear? The delicate curve of her jaw
- he remembered cupping it gently, as they shared their first kiss. Hey
soft brown eyes were closed, but even in peaceful repose - he remembered
how she had fallen asleep, leaning against him when they'd stay up late
watching TV.

"Akari," he said, barely above a whisper.

His fists clenched at the deluge of emotions that ripped through him,
heedless of his mental preparation and rational analysis. He fought for
control, for mastery over the sudden surge. He had known, deep down and
from the very start, that this would be difficult. But it was something
he had to do. He had to see, to know, just what depths of desecration
these aliens were capable of in bringing Akari back... yes, bringing her
back, but as a mockery of her true self. He felt the depression and
helpless sorrow retreat, replaced by white hot rage. It was so much
easier to control. So much easier to accept.

There was a doctor in attendance, wearing white quarantine gear.

"Captain," he said, inclining his head at the ranking officer.

"I heard she's in bad shape," Stirling noted.

"We've isolated the brain damage - it is quite extensive, but you three
should be safe to enter her mind. In the long term, we don't have any
conventional treatments. Her body will continue to degrade at all
levels... but thanks to the transfer out of Seiran, we have a chance..."
The Doctor impatiently tapped his medical pad against his arm.

"As outlined in the report, we plan to replace the damaged corona lucis
and ampulae psionic," he explained. "We have an experimental cybernetic
implant, a small next generation psi-amp, to replace the ampulae. The
corona lucis is beyond our technology to replace outright so we'll try a
transplant with what you brought up."

"Very good," Ben-Solomon replied. "Get everything ready. We won't be
long."

The Doctor nodded and made his exit.

"Ah, wait, what?" Jinx spoke up, a bit confused.  She turned to Ryouga.
"I thought you were gonna talk to her.  Did you come here just to scan
her mind?"

"She isn't awake. Besides, there's nothing to say," he replied, without
turning to face the questioner. He could feel tears welling up and
fought to contain them. Too late, he settled for hiding them.

"Hibiki," the Captain said, in an unspoken reminder.

Ryouga nodded. He had accepted this; volunteered for it. This was
closure.

He felt his mind tap into his psi-amp, and he took up position to
Akari's left side. Rather than channel through the Captain, all three
men touched the unconscious Trenchard's forehead. In a heartbeat, they
were inside. As expected, there were some natural defenses. The aliens,
even when unconscious, were not without -

Like a sea, the barriers and trap-memories parted.

'She - she's letting us in?'

It seemed impossible. Indeed, it had never happened before. Even when
someone consented to a Mind Dive, there was always some subconscious
resistance. It was instinctive. Here this Trenchard's mind opened like a
book, without resistance or protest. The three trained psionics
synchronized and cautiously began their work, checking the hybrid's
memories, looking for traps or deceits.

But these...

Akari sat at her desk, laboring over the English section of her take-
home exam. She'd had to work on the ranch almost the moment she got back
from school, feeding, training, and caring for the animals - Grandfather
was getting worse, and these days, it was all he could do to get out of
bed for a few hours. The doctors hadn't been able to help, and as the
only heir to the Unryu farm, it fell on her shoulders to help pitch in.
There wasn't time to hang out with her friends after school; she just
hoped they wouldn't hold it against her.

These were...

Little Katsu-chan had followed her to school today, and when the other
children found out, they'd been quick to adopt a new nickname for her:
Ino-chin. 'Ino-chin' they chorused. Piggy! She'd tried to explain to
them that pigs were clean and smart and wonderful animals, but that had
only made things worse. Her friends, who she hadn't had much time to
spend with outside school, slipped away to distance themselves from her.
Still, she was an Unryu.

She held back her tears until she got home.

These memories were...

The antiseptic burned as she dabbed the cut on her cheek, just below her
eye. Careless. She'd been careless. Katsu-chan was getting much
stronger, following the training regimen she had outlined. Father had
bred him from the last Champion, so of course he would end up stronger
than he looked, and he was already getting so big! She should have been
more careful. That was all there was to it.

"I hope it doesn't scar," she wished, but kept her voice low. None of
her former friends had scars or bruises. They had nice hair, and perfect
skin, and lived normal lives. No wonder everyone made fun of her. She
was just a muddy, ugly farm girl in comparison.

Putting away the disinfectant, she turned to make dinner. Grandfather
was all but bed-ridden now, so it was up to her to take care of him and
the house.

It was her.

She'd helped Sumi-chan deliver her first litter today. If all went well,
she'd be able to cross Litter 2-C with 4-E sometime next year. She was
hesitant to breed Katsu-chan before he formally entered the circuit, but
if things panned out, then she'd have a good stock available in two or
three years...

These were her memories, the original her's memories.

"Akari-chan..." Grandfather coughed as he struggled to speak. She
reached out to give his hand a comforting squeeze. His grip was so
frail...

"Akari-chan, f-forgive this old man his weakness," he managed, staring
up at her from his bed. "But I... I am not long for this world. Soon,
the future of the Unryu Ranch will fall... entirely on your
shoulders..."

"Grandfather, no! Don't say that!" She held his weak hand in both of
hers, trying to sound confident. "You'll pull through. Katsunishiki made
first place in the semi-finals last week. You'd have been so proud!"

"I am... I am so very proud..." he said, taking a long breath. "Of you,
Akari-chan. You've worked so hard. Your parents... would have been so
proud to see you..." he coughed again, and his body went momentarily
slack.

"Grandfather!"

"Akari-chan," he continued, this time with more force. "You are a fine
trainer and breeder, but you are the only heir to the Unryu name. My
last request... is this: you must find a man worthy of you. A strong
man, who can be your partner in life. Find that man, one even stronger
than Katsunishiki. I believe only he... will be your soul mate..."

What were these memories doing in a Trenchard?!

Why?

It was a letter from Ryouga-sama. He was training in the mountains - in
fact, it sounded more like he was in the Ryukyu Islands - and he was
wondering what sort of present to get her. The Ryukyu's were known for
their beaches and scuba diving, though she knew he wouldn't be able to
enjoy that activity as long as the Jyusenkyou curse kept him away from
cold water. In the end, it wouldn't matter so much what he got as a
gift, but that he was thinking about her, even so far away.

'I'll find my way back to you, soon. Please wait for me.'

"I will," she promised, and took out a sheet of paper to write her
reply.

Why?!

He was back, and he'd brought a delicate piece of coral with him.

"I dunno what it was doing in Fukuoka," he's explained, standing at the
door with the present in his hands, hazel brown coral delicately wrapped
with a blue bow. "But this reminded me of your eyes."

Hours later, she still found herself staring at it, resting on a special
place at her desk. They'd go out somewhere special tomorrow, maybe to a
restaurant back in town, but tonight she had work to finish. She barely
thought much about school any more. Her life was here: at the farm, at
the competitive circuit with her sumo-pigs (where Katsunishiki now
proudly held the title of Yokozuna), and with her new best friend and -
one day - her husband-to-be.

Finishing off the math problems, she saw Ryouga, exhausted from the
day's travels, sleeping against the side of her bed with his backpack
propping up his right side. He'd been waiting for her to finish her
work, claiming he was happy enough just seeing her, even if she was
working. He'd nodded off an hour ago, and Akari had been careful not to
wake him. He must've run hundreds of kilometers just to get here, and,
really, he just looked too cute the way he was.

"Ryouga-sama..." she leaned over, brushing aside his bangs to plant a
feather soft kiss on his forehead, just under the bandanna. "I love
you."

He hissed, breaking the contact.

"Oh god...!" he gasped, and stared up to keep his eyes behind his hands.
Words tried to form but failed, replaced instead by ragged breaths. What
the Hell was this? Trenchards like this were biological constructs. They
shouldn't have useless human memories. This wasn't... this wasn't what
he had expected to find. This wasn't...!

"Lieutenant."

The words instinctively brought him back, and he faced his superior
officer.

"Sorry, sir." He had broken contact early. They had to have both
noticed. "You've finished?"

"We have. She was most cooperative." Captain Ben-Solomon glanced down at
the unconscious Akari. "Stay and take care of your business."

He bowed his head. "T-thank you, sir."

With that, the man took his leave. Stirling followed, giving his fellow
Lieutenant a quick but sympathetic pat on the back.  Ryouga didn't watch
them go, instead taking in Akari anew: her wounds, her face, her body.
This was her. It may not have been her body, not like before, but she
was inside. Trapped inside. Tears ran freely down his face as he took in
the magnitude of that realization.

She was back.

And she was dying.

Confusion and shock gave way to crushing grief and soul numbing despair.
She was dying in front of him. Again. And there was nothing he could do.
Hunched over her body he gave a strangled cry, and green licks of light
coursed across his skin. He could feel the emotions, raging out of
control, starting to coalesce into a monumental shishi hokoudan. Even as
grief stricken as he was, he knew what that meant. Focusing, not for
himself, but for those anywhere nearby, he tried to channel the sorrow
into the tight black knot in the back of his mind.

'Save it. Save it for those who deserve it,' he thought, barely able to
reign in the dark swirling ki. 'This is my hate. My despair. And I will
BURY them with it!! I swear I will!'

Gradually, the energy receded, burning its way into his soul like fire.

"R-Ryouga...?"

His eyes shot open as he heard his name, and felt a cold hand rest
gently on top of his own.

"Akari?" he wondered, whispering. Her eyes were open, and the sight of
them made him gasp. They were just as he remembered.

"Ryouga-sama..." she replied, her own voice labored but relieved. Her
hand slipped into his palm, and he had to keep from crushing it with his
strength.

"You came back," she said with a growing smile.

He nodded. "Of course. You waited for me."

She nodded back, and took a slow breath.

"Ryouga-sama." She reached up with her other hand, touching his cheek.
"I'm sorry I made you cry."

"No, Akari... I... I'm the one who needs to apologize... I'm the one
who... who-"

"You're alive, aren't you?" she asked, unsteadily wiping away his tears.
"I got my wish. I even got to see you again..."

He shook his head, unconvinced. So helpless. He felt to helpless!

"I-" his voice choked as he hunched over, slowly shaking his head. "I am
so sorry. So sorry. I...I..."

Akari seemed to steel herself, and she silenced him with a finger over
his lips.

"A girl should be here with me. Her name is Jinx. She was the one..."
the hybrid girl took a long, slow breath. "She was the one who freed me.
Get her home, Ryouga-sama. You have to... please."

A loud scoff came from behind them.  "Oh, yeah, real nice, Akari.  I go
through Hell and back to hold up my end of the bargain, and make sure
that you can see your Ryouga again, and you're still giving me
attitude?"

Moving forward, she took one of Akari's hands.  "And don't worry about
yourself, either.  The doctor right outside said that they were gonna
fix ya right up; replace all your alien parts with shiny new stuff.
You'll be just like Cyborg, just, y'know, a bit more buxom."

"Thank you, Jinx..." Looking up at the two of them, her smile widened.
"Ryouga-sama, I'm afraid I have to leave the rest to you. Please... be
careful."

He nodded solemnly.

"I'm sorry we had to meet like this," she added, glancing for a second
at the pink haired girl. "I never had many friends, Jinx. I'm glad you
were one of them."

"Heh, well, it wasn't the worst couple of days I've had."  Jinx looked
quickly between Ryouga and Akari.  "I think I'd better get going,
though.  You two probably have things you want to discuss that don't
involve a voyeur in the room."

Giving a cheeky grin, she squeezed the girls hand before stepping back
towards the door.  "Make sure to give me a call when you're up and
about."

When she was gone, Akari looked back up at her would-be fiance.

"I'm... so weak, Ryouga-sama. I... want to live. I do," she admitted,
looking up at the ceiling of the plastic dome. "And I'm scared. I'm so
scared... But if I live or die, I want it to be as a human being.
Ryouga-sama, please don't let them take that away from me."

"What...?" He looked down at her in confusion. "Akari, I..."

"You know exactly what I mean," she insisted, meeting his eyes, on the
verge of breaking down. "I've had a lot of time to think about this.
Don't let what I know, don't let what I am, go back to Them. I can feel
that's what they want and I... I can't let that happen."

His eyes hardened, as if to argue.

"Ryouga-sama, in the end... all we have is our humanity to cling to...
and the knowledge that we live on in others... My body is far more
Ethereal than Human." She reached weakly for his wrist. "I can't survive
without The Mind, and you know what happens to us in captivity. Please,
tell me you understand."

For a few seconds, he just shook his head. He knew, but... what she was
asking...

"I do," he finally relented. "I know."

"Promise me." She didn't blink, as if it was the most important thing in
the world to see him agree. "Promise me, Ryouga-sama."

He cupped her hand in his, holding tightly. "I promise."

Then he leaned down and their lips met, one last time. Akari's right
hand rose up to stroke his cheek. It was a bittersweet embrace, shaded
by the unspoken notes of finality that neither had to give voice to. His
hand reached up along the line of her jaw, fingers threading into the
pink highlight of her hair. It was a slow, tender kiss on the part of a
man and woman who had been together and accepted the inevitable.

When they finally parted, Ryouga rested his face against her shoulder,
hiding his face and his tears as he cried. Akari let her hand get lost
in his hair as she closed her eyes, remembering the times they'd shared.
Almost blissfully, she felt her own tears rise up in defiance of her
altered physiology. She gave a rough, ragged, weary sigh, and tilted her
head to whisper something in his ear.

Minutes later, when he finally stood back up, his face was an impassive
mask.

"Ryouga-sama, I'm... I'm glad I met you. And I will always treasure the
times we had together and the love we shared... Goodbye, Ryouga-sama,"
despite everything, she still wore a melancholy smile. "If I can, I'll
see you again."

"Goodbye..." he choked out, almost painfully. "Akari-chan. ...Wait for
me. Just a little longer. I swear. I'll take care of everything."

Then, taking a deep, shuddering breath, he turned and left.

Outside, he paused to collect himself. Purposefully looking around, he
saw the Doctor and two others in his team. Mindful not to get lost, not
now of all times, he approached the trio. Further away, he could see the
idle Avenger and a few groups of soldiers and other personnel. Not a
single one was looking his way. Even Juliet Squad, though near the ramp
getting suited up, didn't seem to be paying any attention.

'Good.'

He noted Jinx and the rest of the Titans, a little closer by. They
seemed to be busy amongst themselves, but he had a feeling Jinx was
still paying at least some attention to the area near Akari. The other-
him seemed to be effectively dividing her notice, though. She was too
far away anyway.

"Doctor," he called out as he approached the small group. "That alien
tissue sample? Is it Sectoid or Ethereal?"

"Hm? Ethereal of course," the lead physician replied, and rested his
hand on a large case covered by a white shroud. "The strongest we could
procure. We don't want to take any chances with rejection -"

Not hesitating even a second, Ryouga pushed the man aside and grabbed
the case, throwing off part of the concealing cloth. It revealed a
cylindrical glass jar, the top and bottom sealed and lined with
electronics and an oxygenation system. Inside, suspended in clear fluid,
was an alien brain hooked up to electrodes.

"W-what are you...?!" the Doctor drew back, as the jar began to vibrate
in the Lieutenant's hands. Slapping his hand on the side, Ryouga's palm
released a faint black cloud across the material. Within seconds, the
alien brain - still inside the jar - began to fizzle. The stasis fluid
bubbled, but still lacked the strength to break the walls of the medical
device.

Then, without further warning, the brain exploded.

Dropping it to the floor, the jar now wracked by small eruptions and the
entire surface splattered with charred grey matter, Ryouga let it fall
next to his foot. He then lifted that foot, and in one smooth motion,
crushed it underfoot. The already stressed case finally shattered - with
boiling, steaming liquid pushing out and then a sudden force slamming
down. What little was left spilled out into the dirt.

"What have you done?!" The Doctor roared. "What have you done?! We
needed that brain!!"

The sound of footsteps filled the air as a large number of people
charged down on their position.  At the head of the pack was Jinx, a
confused expression on her face.  She ran straight past Ryouga and to
the doctor.

"What's going on!?  What did he just do?"

"He destroyed the alien brain!" the Doctor cried, looking aghast at the
burning mess that had once been the harvested alien tissue. "Look at
this! Jesus Christ, why is it on FIRE?"

"The ... brain?" Jinx asked.  "Why is it such a big deal?  Was it
expensive or something?"

Behind her, Ryouga simply stared at the flaming mass, his expression
darkening by the second.  He muttered something to himself as he
examined the horrifying sight, but nothing that could be made out by
anyone else.

The doctor turned to her.  "It is - it was - the donor material that we
were going to use to save the Trenchard!  The operation is all but
impossible without it!"

Jinx's eyes widened in shock.  Instantly, she spun on the older Hibiki.
He didn't even raise his eyes to meet her gaze.

"MURDERER!"

Everything else was drowned out in a blinding flash of pink light.  A
second later, the sound of crushing metal and shattering glass split the
air as Ryouga's smoking body was sent hurtling into and through a spare
medical tent before slamming bodily into the hull of the nearby Avenger.

The only thing that prevented Jinx from chasing him down to finish the
job was the implacable grip of her own Ryouga, doing his utmost to hold
the clawing, hissing girl back. Across the way, the smoking martial
artist dragged him self to his feet with agonizing slowness.

"HIBIKI!" Captain Ben-Solomon stormed over, sidearm in hand. A small
entourage of other officers were close behind, Ranma included. When he
saw what had happened, the color drained from the pigtailed martial
artist's face.

Lowering his head, Ryouga kept his hands up in surrender.

"Lieutenant!" he barked, advancing angrily. "What the HELL did you do?!"

"I have no excuse, sir." He slowly, cautiously, lowered his arms.
"She... she said she'd rather die as a human, then have that in her... I
agreed. I accept full-"

"That was NOT your call, Hibiki!" Ben-Solomon roared, getting right into
the young man's face.

"Sir..."

"It wasn't her call either!"

Rather than argue, Ryouga nodded. "Yes, sir. I still had to do it sir."

"How? How could you?!" Jinx screamed, still barely restrained. "She
loved you!"

"You think I don't know?" he asked, voice low and dangerous. "You think
I don't care? You think I don't know what it would mean, putting
something like that back in her head?! She remembered everything they
made her do! You saw it, Captain!" he turned to Ben-Solomon. "I swore I-
!"

He slumped back against the Avenger.

"It was her last wish," he groaned, his voice pained. "No transplant. No
more aliens in her brain. No going back to what she was before. I had to
do it... it had to be me."

"NO!" Jinx shook her head fiercely.  "Bullshit!  That's - that's just
bullshit!"

She struggled to find something worse to say; to do ... but finally
could only break down and spin back into her Ryouga's hold, burying her
head in his chest.

The younger Hibiki could only stare at his older counterpart, disdain
and horror warring on his features.

"...That's it," he spoke, then, the frost in his voice was near arctic.
"I'm done with you.  For a second there... for just a second... I
thought that maybe we weren't as different as I feared, but now?"  He
then turned to the Captain Ben-Solomon.  "With all due respect, sir, I
request that my team be placed under the command of Juliet Squad."

"If that Trenchard dies, Lieutenant, the blood is on your hands!" The
Doctor snarled.

Ryouga glowered angrily but he also knew: the man was right. It was what
he had agreed to.

"Captain!" the Doctor turned to Ben-Solomon.

"Hibiki," he growled, clearly divided by the fact that a part of him
agreed with Akari's last wish, but the rest pissed off that his
subordinate had acted without orders, destroyed medical 'equipment' and
interfered with a procedure that would have netted UNETCO a valuable
research subject. He knew full well that saving her life would mean
reattaching her to the Alien Mind, and that full-body Trenchards and
Ethereals never survived long in captivity. It wasn't a fate he would
have wished on anyone.

Nonetheless, they had their orders, and this was an important
experiment.

"Sir," Ranma interrupted when his CO trailed off. "We can pick up Yankee
Squad."

"Fine. Saotome, get him out of here," the Captain ordered, but added,
"This is not the end of it, Hibiki. Your record's been exemplary up
until today but this will not go unreported."

The mentally exhausted officer lowered his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Come on, man..." Ranma grabbed his friend by the arm to lead him away.

"Sir," the Doctor added, as they left. "I demand you do something about
that man!"

"I will," he assured him, tone brooking no further complaint. "Do what
you can with what you have. The cybernetics will have to do."

"Captain, wait."  Again, Captain Ben-Solomon turned to see the pink
haired girl standing beside him, demanding his attention.  Her face was
still flushed red, as were her eyes, straining to hold in the tears.

"How long can she survive before you need to operate?" she asked,
reasoning,  "All we need is another alien brain, right?"

"It must be an Ethereal," prompted the doctor.

Jinx nodded sharply.  "Perfect.  I know exactly where to find one.
Captain, you need a brain?  I'll get you one, even if it's all that's
left of the damned thing by the time I'm done with it."

- - -

"Ranma...?"

"What now, pork butt?"

"I think I need to throw up."

Shuddering hard enough that Ranma could feel it, despite both of them
wearing personal armor, he could feel it. The pigtailed one had known
from the start that this was a potential powderkeg. It was a small
miracle the entire base hadn't vanished in a gigantic green nuclear
fireball of suicidal ki. The depression and hatred, the elemental, self
destructive, soul crushing ki that he felt mauling its way through his
rival's body was beyond anything Ranma Saotome had ever felt before.

"I... I just killed her," Ryouga choked, lower lip quivering. "Just get
me away for a few minutes. I- I can't..."

"S'alright, man," Ranma tried to sound reassuring, discretely leading
them away from the clearing. Gods. This, and Akari, and all these
strangers... the whole situation was rapidly turning ugly.

At this point, how could things get worse?