No subject

conceived, but that might just because she couldn't recognize the queues.

"Uhhh...no," Eija said, flushing as her shoulders hunched together and she
leaned her arms into her knees and looked downward.

Ranma brought her hand up to her her face and leaned into it.

"Do you know enough about your new anatomy and life force to tell if you've
conceived?" Ranma asked.

"Uhhh...no," Eija admitted.

"What do you know about parthenogenesis?" her mother asked firmly.

"I...haven't thought to ask," Eija said. "Kaname and I are not interested
in...uh...that."

"So just Sousuke then," her mother asked pointedly.

Eija was quiet for a long moment.

"Honesty," Ranma said.

"Yes," Eija responded quickly. "Definitely yes, oh yes! It was so...I'm
sorry..."

Ranma was twitching again.

In reality, Ranma severely doubted that three sexually inexperienced teens
had really reached the pinnacle of pleasure in their first time. Though
given it probably was very...intense, they probably thought they had. But
she wasn't about to start giving advice on how they could do better.

"So, you let yourself have sex, unplanned, unprotected," Ranma summarized.
"And without out full understanding of what that means for you."

"Okaasan, you did tell us about such matters before," Eija protested.

"I gave you a talk on the human reproductive system," her mother reminded
her. "I expected you to ask about what is involved for Goddesses."

"First thing," Ranma said. "You are going to, as soon as we've got time, ask
someone to explain about reproduction for a God. Cycles of fertility, early
symptoms of pregnancy, parthenogenesis. The whole works. Understand."

"But Kaname and I aren't..." Eija protested.

"Do you absolutely know that you have to have sex for it to happen?" Ranma
asked.

"Well...isn't that how..." she stopped puzzled.

"Reality bending," Ranma said firmly.

"Ah, uh...right," the Goddess said, flushing at the thought of accidentally
impregnating her friend.

The questions they'd have to answer alone...well, they could always ask
Sousuke to claim...

"Do you understand what you're supposed to do?" Ranma asked firmly.

"Yes," Eija said meekly and quickly. "I should, study reproduction."

"Then you're going to tell me," Ranma commanded, leaning forward. "Have it
prepared and organized."

"Yes, Okaasan," the young Goddess said, tone of voice already mortified at
the thought.

"You are not to have unsupervised time with Kaname and Sousuke," Ranma said
firmly. "Someone has to be on hand with you and I have to know who it is."

"For how long?" Eija asked.

"Until I decide I can trust you again or until you turn eighteen and an
adult," the exorcist noted. "But I really don't expect this to last even
half a year. If it does we have larger issues going that we haven't thought
about."

"Half a..." the dark-haired girl repeated. "But..."

"Eija," Ranma said.

"Yes, Okaasan," she said quietly. "I understand."

"I want to hear about what you've learned in no more than a week," the
red-head noted finally. "And that's accounting for the war and like around
us."

Eija winced and then nodded.

"Do you know why I'm pissed?" Ranma asked finally.

"I believe so," the Goddess said. "I had...umm, relations with Sousuke-kun.
I thought you liked Sousuke-kun."

"I do, and Kaname," Ranma said. "But that's not the main thing. If this
happened two or three years from now, the sex part wouldn't even bother me,"
mild lie there. "Other stuff, though, try again."

Eija thought about it for a moment and winced.

"I had...uh...sex before I was eighteen?" she said cautiously.

"I just gave you that one," Ranma prodded. "What else?"

"And, I didn't make sure protection was used," Eija added.

"So, to summarize?"

"I acted without thinking?" she answered.

"And what do we call that?" Ranma asked.

"Panda?" Eija wondered.

"That's right," the exorcist said. "Panda. Now, you're going to end up
getting asked to do something pretty soon, so get yourself ready."

"I will, Okaasan," Eija said quietly.

The redhead stepped up and leaned forward to hug her daughter tightly,
patting her on the back and cradling her head.

"All in all," Ranma said encouragingly. "I think you have a good couple of
significant others there, but now's not the time. Got it?"

"I think so," Eija said, wrapping her arms around her mother and holding her
back. "I'll keep control of myself, Okaasan."

Ranma rubbed at her back before straightening and stepping back.

"I'm going to have to see the lynchpin in this situation," she said. "Get
some practice in and then rest."

"All right," Eija said.

Ranma smiled once more, snatched up Kaname's school uniform blouse and
strode purposefully out of the room.

*It's over,* Eija said over her link then.

*What happened, are you okay?* Kaname asked.

*I doubt Director Satomi would harm her daughter,* Sousuke noted.

*Of course she wouldn't hurt Eija,* Kaname said. *Built still, what
happened?*

*She doesn't want me to spend time with either of you without supervision
for now,* Eija said. *And I am supposed to research God reproductive
matters...and deliver a report on it.*

*Oh God, how embarrassing,* Kaname said.

*That would seem prudent,* Sousuke noted.

*Indeed, I should have thought of such on my own,* Eija said. *Rather than
merely assuming.*

*Is she there right now?* Kaname asked. *You didn't mention the...psychic
thing, did you?*

*No, and no! I am not insane,* Eija protested. *Okaasan said she had to see
the 'lynchpin' and left.*

*Okay, so we have until the end of Sousuke's mission to...*

Kaname's thoughts paused a moment as a trickle of almost fear worked out
from her part of the link.

*Uhh, I have to go,* she said.

*Is there something troubling you?* Sousuke asked quickly.

*Miss Satomi is right behind me asking for privacy,* Kaname told Sousuke.

*Oh dear,* Eija said. *If it helps, she still says she thinks you and
Sousuke are a good choice...*

*That's comforting,* Kaname said meekly.
------------------------------

"Shall we start with whose idea it was to 'practice kissing'?" Ranma asked,
as Kaname turned around to face her. "Because that's just about the perfect
phrasing to rope both Sousuke and Eija in."

"All I was planning on was the kisses, I swear," Kaname said quickly. "I
mean, they might have...my Dad...Sousuke still might..."

Ranma relented briefly and reached out to hold Kaname's shoulders and steady
the girl before she could freak out further.

"Okay," Ranma said. "The kissing is fine. But you didn't stop there."

"Well, I didn't kiss Eija," Kaname said. "I mean, why would I do that to
her? She wouldn't do that to me. And it's not like you're my parent, because
my parents are..."

"Stop it," Ranma said firmly and moved to sit Kaname down on the bed and
then sitting across from her. "Calm down."

"I just...I could feel what she felt when they kissed," the blue-haired girl
said, trying not to get excited. "And she could feel it when I did. And then
we could both feel Sousuke and he could feel us, but that might have started
with the haircut..."

She stopped and stood up starting to pace as Ranma watched.

"I just felt better each time and better and better," Kaname said. "And I
kept thinking we might die today and...and..."

"And you and my daughter had underaged, unprotected, unplanned sex with your
boyfriend," Ranma said.

"It's the un-stuff that bothers you most, isn't it?" Kaname asked.

"You certainly figured that out fast, did Eija tell you that?" the martial
artist asked.

"She told me about some report," Kaname said. "So, it sort of makes sense.
But, uh, we're not underaged in Japan?"

"Japan has schools that require female students to wear skirts no
*longer*than a certain amount," the redhead said. "Much as I like my
home country,
it's not number one on my list of discouraging teen-sex."

"Right," Kaname said before bowing. "I'm sorry about this, Satomi-san."

"Now, you're not my kid," the woman said, "so technically, I don't get a say
in what happens to you. But we are doing stuff for Mara right now..."

"And Mara answers to you," the Ainur noted nervously. "Umm, about
Sousuke..."

"Sousuke gets his own talk," Ranma said simply. "He'll get to choose whether
to tell you or not himself."

The redhead stood up and started to walk out of the room.

"Oh, by the way," she said at the doorway. "You're getting training. If you
want to keep seeing my daughter after pulling this, you're getting trained."

Kaname winced.

"I have no problem with that, Satomi-san," Kaname said firmly.

"Good," Ranma said. "And if you want to talk to me about your parents...I
can do that. Without incident."

"Uhh, thank you, Satomi-san," Kaname said with a blush before Ranma left.

*I live!* Kaname declared thankfully.

There was silence on the link for a moment.

*Is Director Satomi...very upset?* Sousuke asked.

*I think we need to wait a couple of years before we try this again...* Eija
said. *Or at least learn to hide it better.*

Ranma poked her head back in the door.

"And just so you three know," she said. "Given that Sousuke is apparently in
on that link thing now, 'hiding it better' is in no way something you want
to try to do."

"Uhhh, how..." Kaname asked.

"I'm a parent, Kaname-chan," the martial artist said before leaving again.
"Now get yourself together, Captain Testarossa will be looking for you to
work on the electro-shield thing soon."
------------------------------

The site arranged for the meeting was more or less empty, though neither of
the three believed that had anything to do with the Demons and Ainur
currently running evacuation grabs and keeping the police busy.

It was a poor part of town, though East Germany would likely have never
admitted to such a thing being possibly, and there should have been life
aplenty in the old buildings that lined the roads around them.

Instead, the buildings yawned dark and empty from every direction as the
three Mithril agents came into the area. A single police vehicle, one of the
large prisoner-transport vans, was parked oddly on the side of the street
within sight, perhaps half a mile away.

"It's almost time for this meeting," Grey said. "You'd better be getting to
it Sergeant Sagara."

"Affirmative," Sousuke said, frowning as he eyed the buildings around him.
"I do not like the look of this Ma'am."

"I'm with the kid," Batiste said. "This looks a bit too much like a trap."

"I could attempt to use one of the routines we have established for remote
viewing," Sousuke suggested.

"Let's keep that down to a minimum," Grey said. "We know there are ways to
tell when powers are being used that don't require people who have them."

"I've got my eye on the paddy wagon down the lane," Batiste said. "We'd
better move before we have three new nukes to consider."

Nodding, Sousuke moved out into the quiet street and darted from cover to
cover before reaching the structure that he was certain contained his
target.

It was an old building which still had the faded image of a dragon with nine
heads painted into one of the walls. A piece of ancient culture, though
culture that had been carried north rather than was native, that had been
protected from the purges of the communists and now revealed to the air
again.

He stepped inside, pistol out and searching the shadows cautiously as Grey
and Batiste came in next.

There was no movement in the open first room, which may have been a tavern
of some kind, and they cautiously moved about to clear the room before
proceeding upstairs.

Batiste stopped at one of the tables and pointed toward the still steaming
bowl of stew that sat there. Grey nodded at the sign of recent occupation
and looked toward Sousuke, directing him to head upstairs with a gesture.

*Are you certain that you cannot risk using any sort of chi?* Eija's voice
asked. *You might find some use out of my eyes.*

*I believe I could,* Sousuke said. *It shall be fine, however.*

*Sousuke,* Kaname voiced in, *It is silly to just go in blind.*

*I am not,* the mercenary noted. *Do not worry, this is not my first time.*

Neither girl was especially happy with that response, but they did not
insist.

He took the stairs heading up one at a time, moving slowly and placing his
weight slowly so as to avoid creaking sounds. And he finally reached the top
of the first flight and the door there that was left just slightly ajar.

Behind the old, wooden door that fit the look of the ancient building
perfect was a high tech piece of metal half-slid open. A useless and
destroyed keypad was built into the frame work of the doorway that the
wooden door had concealed. Beyond lay a dusty hallway that may have, once
upon a time been a lead in to a sterile environment. From somewhere within
came the steady, distant beep of a heart monitor.

The nine-headed dragon outside suddenly had a separate meaning than just
Gauron.

He glanced down the stairs toward Grey.

"It's a Legion facility," he said under his breath.

Grey passed that along and Batiste cursed under his breath as he followed
them up the stairs, eyes looking out toward the street.

Stepping into the hallway, Sousuke looked from one direction to another,
noting the doors that opened out onto silent rooms before coming to an end
and overlooking what had been an extensive and well-tended indoor garden and
now was an overgrown mass of thorns and red flowers.

In the middle of it all was a bed holding someone Sousuke couldn't get a
good look at, but whose identity he was certain of.

"Ah, Kashim," a familiar and hated voice said. "Did you bring your friends?"

Sousuke frowned and found a stairwell to move down into the vines and
approach the man on the bed as Grey and Batiste came into the room and onto
the balcony. Grey indicating for Batiste to hold his position.

"Gauron," Sousuke said, turning past a particularly thick bush and saw the
sociopath's darkly smiling face staring up at him.

The face, aside from one eye bandaged over, seemed to be the only part of
the man that still seemed to be intact. One arm was gone completely and the
other seemed to have been removed at the elbow while both legs were removed
at various points. Nor did it look like the overall body under the bed sheet
was in good shape.

There was a table at the foot of the bed covered in dossiers.

"Sorry if the place isn't fit for visitors," Gauron apologized with a smile.
"The lady of the house hasn't been around for a while."

"Where are the bombs, Gauron?" Sousuke asked, glancing around and wondering
how Gauron had expected to trigger the bombs in his current condition.

"Straight to business," Gauron laughed. "That's always you, Kashim. Now, how
do you expect to get me to tell you? Are you going to torture me until I
talk?"

He laughed in a low tone that was full of grim humor.

"I'm beginning to think it was just a bluff to get me here," the Ainur said.
"Maybe I should just leave you to your privacy and head back."

Sousuke glanced down at the dossiers and frowned as he took in the names and
some of the organizational seals displayed. Socrates Group's Atlantis unit
was named on each folder, with Kodachi's seal presented. The surprise on his
face must have been apparent because Gauron laughed again, loudly this time.

"Yeah, my little rose had encountered a lot of people in power before your
people managed to weed her out," Gauron noted. "Mithril seems to be good at
handling my proteges it seems."

"Your protege?" the Ainur asked darkly. "What do you mean."

"It's probably too strong a word," Gauron admitted. "I simply...took away
the garden walls. They were rather weak to begin with, though, so not much
of a task."

Sousuke seethed at the words and Gauron's admittance to having some part in
what Kodachi had done, but forced himself to stay calm, remembering that
Gauron wanted to make a big scene out of this. He coolly pointed his pistol
at Gauron's head, and noted the man's smile in response.

And the pistol pointed up, away from Gauron.

"You want me to kill you," Sousuke said, eyes narrowed. "Something connected
to your heart monitor?"

"Very good, Kashim, very good," Gauron said, smile shrinking a little. "But
what is it, do you think?"

"One of these bombs, if they exist," Sousuke said.

"But that still leaves the other two," Gauron said. "If it is here at all."

His smile grew again.

"Trust me when I say these threats, possibly bombs, are real," the mutilated
form on the bed said with cold seriousness. "And if you were still the old
Kashim, I think you'd be able to see that with no question."

Behind Sousuke, Grey and Batiste started moving again, searching to see if
they could find a bomb on the sight.

"Stop calling me that," Sousuke insisted.

"I find it amazing that you have so totally bought Kalinin's hypocritical
lectures," Gauron said. "When it's been very much proven that he didn't
follow them himself. So, why are you still following a soiled knight's
teachings, Kashim?"

"I don't know why Kalinin did what he did," Sousuke said, voice turning
dark. "But I know he'd never be what you are."

"All of us are like me," Gauron said. "Especially you. Some of us just know
how to let the leash go and be what we really are."

"Kalinin was a good man," Sousuke declared loudly.

"A good man who betrayed his fellows for his own purposes," Gauron laughed.

The pistol snapped up again, but Sousuke immediately pulled it back and
grimaced in frustration as Gauron frowned.

"Have you gotten that soft then?" Gauron asked. "Have you fallen for the
whole champions of justice crap Mithril tries to shove down their own
throats. Look at them closely, Kashim, they're just like the rest of us,
using their might to impose what's right on the world. And if certain
elements weren't clouding your judgment you could see that."

"Certain elements," the mercenary repeated. "What are you..."

His eyes snapped to the Legion files on the Atlantis crew and snatched them
up, skimming through the files until he found what he was looking for.

"Suggestion implanted."

Complete with trigger phrases and limitations.

*We're going!* Eija and Kaname said.
------------------------------

"This whole episode is just one big screw-up," a tall man with glasses was
saying to the Goddess walking beside him. "It had to take sheer laziness for
nobody to figure out anything was going wrong. People have no idea just how
stupid they are sometimes."

The Goddess, a civilian firmly in the third category, smiled briefly and
then slumped in irritation as the man continued to try to explain just what
her people, his and the Demons had done wrong and what he would have done to
fix things. She suspected he was hitting on her, but that was something of a
vague notion given the way he kept talking about people being idiots.

"And if only one little thing had been done, we'd be living in peace right
now rather than war," he said. "But that's what the military does, they go
to war, and they'll jump at any chance to..."

The man was roughly grabbed and slammed into the wall, hands placed behind
him.

"Oh thank the creator!" the Goddess said. "He just kept talking and
following me! I'm getting out of here while you have him busy."

"Doctor Peter Kavanagh," the security officer said. "We have reason to
believe that you brought a package on board past the standard checks."

"Look what I'm talking about!" he declared. "They just attack me for no
reason. Over a box of snack food."

"Uh huh," the officer noted. "And where is this snack food?"

"In my quarters obviously, where else would you keep snack food," Kavanagh
protested.

Word was relayed and men split off, moving quickly and talking over the
radio.

"Dr. Kavanagh, have you ever met a Kodachi Kuno?" the soldier asked.

"Maybe, she's a biologist, isn't she?" he asked. "Maybe at the last
convention I attended..."

The soldiers exchanged looks and glanced toward him.

"Don't you read memos and threat-assessments?" someone asked.

"Oh please, like I'm going to believe the military when they say someone is
a human version of a virus," he protested.

"We found the bomb," the radio crackled. "Sending it to a dead shard now.
Not sure how he intended to detonate it. There's no way a radio signal will
reach here from Earth."

"What bomb?" Kavanagh asked.
------------------------------

"You have no idea what it took to get to those before one of your teams
found them," the freak said with a chuckle. "Luckily, Kodachi wasn't one to
trust computers completely. All paper and only one place. We got lucky."

"We?" Sousuke said sharply, resisting the urge to teleport immediately to
Kaname and Eija and get them to safety.

"Oh, did that slip out?" the thing on the table asked with a chuckle. "So,
you have two bombs, or at least you think you do. Where's the third,
Sousuke. Where's the third?"

Sousuke gritted his teeth silently and held his pistol tighter as he walked
up to Gauron's side, trying to think of anything that he could do to
threaten the man with that would actually work. But Gauron had never been
one to care about...anything...even before.

"I have to admit," Gauron said. "I had trouble with that one myself. I mean,
this city was obvious, if the bomb is here. Atlantis is obvious, since I had
access. But where else could I put a bomb that would matter?"

"Tokyo," Sousuke said. "Where Eija and Kaname would be if the Gods hadn't
invaded."

"Ah, I knew you could figure it out, of course, that was the original plan,
perhaps they never finished their trip when things went to hell...or is that
heaven?" Gauron suggested with a snicker. "So what are you going to do then,
Kashim? Three bombs, maybe, connected to my heart monitor, possibly. Killing
me sets them off, not killing me, well, I die relatively soon anyway.
Probably before you can get to a satellite feed outside this building and
report to your superiors. You know, I was at first disappointed when Leonard
jumped the gun on his raid, but now I can't complain. It's left me with such
great resources."

He opened his mouth and started to give a sequence of numbers before he was
interrupted.

"Uh uh," Gauron said. "No cheating. Let's consider voice activation
Sousuke."

"This could still be all a bluff," the Ainur said.

Grey and Batiste came into the room then and shook their head.

"No sign of a bomb," Grey said. "But there are vats upon vats
of...something. Some have been tampered with and I think that gives us our
answer for why there's no one moving above us."

She glanced through narrowed eyes at Gauron who chuckled.

"I was trying to insure our privacy," he said with a snicker. "I'm glad you
weren't early, apparently it broke down only about fifteen minutes before
you arrived. Of course, with most of the city focused on other things, I
don't think anybody noticed much."

"Bastard," Batiste snapped bitterly as he pushed forward toward Gauron where
Sousuke was again holding his pistol on the lump's head.

"We can't kill hi-" Grey started to say.

A shot rang out as Batiste shuddered, the bullet passing through the man's
body and into Gauron's smiling face. The older Mithril mercenary shuddered
and crumpled over Gauron's body, looking surprised.

Beside him, Sousuke and Grey looked up to see a man standing at the entry
balcony leveling an assault rifle their way. Batiste, stumbling in pain
ducked around behind cover even as Grey and Sousuke did, and the assault
rifle obliterated Gauron's form.

For a brief moment the heart monitor dropped to a long, constant tone before
picking up again, though erratic and weak.

"The hell!" Grey shouted. "He survived that?"

"No," Batiste growled. "That's me. Hurry up and get this stuff blown to
hell!"

"Are you down there Kashim?" a young male voice called out. "Are you still
the little boy I helped out of the sand? Or have you learned what it is to
really be a man and to survive in this world?"

"Another friend of yours, Sergeant Sagara?" Grey asked.

"I believe so," Sousuke said with a flicker of discomfort at the thought of
Zaid here, alive and working with Gauron.

He glanced from behind his cover and ducked as a bullet smacked against the
ground and Zaid fell back to the hallway.

"He's retreating," Sousuke said.

"Batiste, can you last?" Grey demanded.

"I'm not done yet," he said, in a wheezing tone that didn't carry with it a
real spoken answer.

"I'll take your friend," Grey told Sousuke. "You do something about the
nerve gas."

"Be careful, Zaid is very good," the Ainur warned.

"So am I," Gray said.
------------------------------

Elsewhere, pilots briefly received a confirmation tone which then cut off.
Messages were exchanged and decisions were made as several mega tankers came
closer to land and their cargo powered up.

And another such signal reached a device, only to be cut off before it could
finish.
------------------------------

"We've got some civilian ocean traffic coming in to Kyushu," a clerk noted
to the officer with him. "Looks like cargo-ships that were planning on
docking at Tokyo until the late unpleasantness. They've keeping station in
the outer waters until we took Kyushu."

"It's been a week since Japan was invaded," the officer said in an
incredulous fashion. "Why didn't they go somewhere else?"

"Fuel, I suspect sir," the clerk noted. "They seem to have only a little of
it."

"Damn stupid civilians," the officer responded. "Give them clearance to get
to dock and get fueled up. And find out what they're carrying."

The last was added almost as an afterthought.
------------------------------

Ranma looked down to where Naiki was, it looked like, dancing with the
Kraken girl. There was nothing sexual about it, which was a relief after the
whole situation with Eija and her...trinity was probably the best term.

Mao was still under sedation in Atlantis and Ranma had one more talk to give
regarding secrets and why to help keep them. Granted, she wasn't sure she
wouldn't have done the same thing in Naiki's shoes, but it still needed to
be discussed.

The exorcist leaped down toward the beach and started walking across to
where the two girls were pretty much just playing around, when a sudden
flare of chi out in the ocean attracted her attention. And the sudden change
in attitude with Lusca and Naiki said that both of them felt it too.

All three of them directed their eyes out towards the ships crossing the
waters and a small fleet of four massive cargo freighters that were moving
in tandem.

"Oh hell no," Ranma said, remembering the last time they had seen one of
those cargo ships producing so much chi.

"Oh please not another of those things," Naiki said.

"What things?" Lusca asked.

And then the first Behemoth started to rip out of the ship.
------------------------------

"There's a memory I'm taking from you," a woman said before blinking and
shaking her head. "I mean me."

She was tall and slender, with long legs and hair braided into eight tails
coming down out of her head. She was sitting in and among several trees
growing out of slight rises in the ground at her feet. It was a veritable
forest of ordered trees.

"Because if you...I have this memory for too long," she said. "It'll become
the only thing about you...me...and you'll...hurt people...but you'll need
it so you can stop it from happening again."

She grimaced and cricked her head.

"If you escape or get rescued, that is," she sighed. "You see more of the
memory the more serious it gets and you'll know how to take each level of
bind off so you can protect people from this happening again."
------------------------------

"I got you!" Lusca shouted cheerfully as she tackled one of the little
children she'd been chasing in circles through the tide and around the
beach.

"We got you!" several other children shouted before piling on the teenager.

They were dressed in simple white tunics of a Nordic design as they played
around the lonely island on which they now settled. They weren't human, not
the youngest generation at any rate. And that was why they had come out
here, to escape the eyes of humans that wouldn't know what to think of these
things.

Most of the children appeared at least a little bit strange and fishy, and
some even had tentacles growing out of their backs. Lusca wasn't the only
sea Demon or God whose mixing with humans would had added to their
development though this particular group was heavily related to her.

For the moment, they were an unnamed oddity. Only a handful of colonies all
over in hidden places. Some would eventually disturb a young man in New
England in the late nineteenth century. But none descended from this group
of families.

An old, ancient even, woman shuffled out and smiled at the laughing and
joking children.

"Mother, shouldn't you be studying?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"Oh don't worry, Sigrun," Lusca said with a giggle as the younger kids
tickled her viciously. "I've done this lots of times before. I've never
failed the test. I'm sure of it."

"How can you be sure without your memories, mother?" Sigrun asked with a
smile.

"Oh, but we want to play with Great-grandma Lusca!" the kids said in tandem.

"How disgusting," a loud booming voice called out from the waves.

Instantly, the kids were pulling back up the beach with Lusca standing
between them and the water, the old woman moving in front of the younger and
calling forth her own vitae.

A tall, bearded form slipped out of the water and up to stand head and
shoulders, towering over the teenaged form of Lusca and those behind her.

"What do you want here, Poseidon?" Lusca demanded angrily.

The children ran further up the into the island as several other people ran
forward. Hundreds, humans, half-Demons, little sea spawn like the children.
Almost all of them wielding power in some way, magicians, psychics and the
like.

"I've come to deal with a blight on the waves," Poseidon said glaring down
at her. "You shouldn't have let your guard down Kraken. The sea is going to
belong to me completely from this point on. No more sharing with such
inferior creatures as you."

"Oh please, are you trying to be funny?" she asked in return, scoffing. "You
can't kill me. The Doublet System would kill one of you Gods, for all you
know, maybe you."

"There are thousands of Gods, Lusca," Poseidon said. "What's the chance that
you're actually connected to me?"

Lusca frowned nervously a moment and then crossed her arms and laughed.

"But you don't know," she said. "So there's no way you're going to do it. So
that makes you doubly a coward."

"What?" Poseidon demanded. "You're calling me a coward?"

"Yes," she responded. "I'm barely fifteen years into this life, I don't have
enough power to shake a tree and you had to know it. So instead of waiting
for me to grow up and come into my full power in two years, you're coming
after me now. And then you can't even bring yourself to do it because you
might die."

She laughed in a superior tone.

"So get out of here now," she declared. "This is my island. You can't do
anything here! So don't pretend otherwise."

Poseidon's answer to Lusca's smug look was a summoned wave of water smashing
her into the nearest tree. She was shaking her head clear when something
stabbed into her arms and held her there against the tree. Looking up she
saw Poseidon's trident stabbed through her now bleeding arms and nailing her
against the tree.

"What are you...WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" she demanded.

Poseidon turned away from her without responding as the collected warriors
charged forward to defend Lusca from her attacker. The outcome was terribly
obvious to a part of Lusca even as she stared in shock and denial when the
first spray of blood splashed across her face.

"No! No!" she called out. "Stop! Stop! Don't do that! I'm sorry! It's not
funny! It's not funny!"

She cried out, pulling against the trident spearing her to the tree as she
watched the slaughter continue and not end with the warriors who were
trained in fighting Gods and other monsters. Nor did it end with the adults
who were at least somewhat able to defend themselves.

No it didn't end until the last two sentient beings on the island were Lusca
and Poseidon and she was hanging from the tree, voice gone and tears dry.
Weak and tired from the blood loss.

She did nothing but fall to her knees as the trident was removed from the
tree and her arms. All of her energy was gone, drained away. And then the
body of one of the children she had just been playing with was dropped in
front of her.

"Why," she asked quietly.

"This is my ocean," Poseidon told her. "And the Kraken who brooks no rivals
is not welcome."

"You still can't kill me," Lusca said. "I'll have my power soon and I'll pay
this back! I'll find someway to make you pay. I'll make a prison and trap
you for eternity! You will PAY!"

"I do like that last idea," Poseidon said, not frowning. "I think I'll
remove this entire corrupt, tainted island while I'm at it."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Lusca growled.

"What you just said," Poseidon noted humorlessly. "Trap you for eternity. Is
this funny now?"

"No," Lusca said narrowly as Poseidon drew the circles around her body, weak
for blood loss and healing to slow to be able to do anything about it. "This
is not..."
------------------------------

"...funny in the least tiniest bit!"

Ranma and Naiki watched as the red marks on Lusca's face flared into life,
the girl's body started shifting and growing.

"Oh crap!" Naiki said. "Mom!"

"I don't think we can stop her," Ranma said as Lusca had already grown to
four times her normal size and kept growing. "Besides, if you remember
right, we're going to need her."

Lusca dived forward and vanished into the water.
------------------------------

One of the Behemoths was wading through the waves toward the island, three
others flanking it, when the water ahead of it exploded upward and the pilot
with in found himself staring at the tooth filled maw of something that
looked like it belonged in a horror movie.

It was easily as tall as the Behemoth, if much more slender, with four
draconic legs, two of which were more like long arms, holding up a reptilian
body and draconic head out of which eight tentacles grow with a thick
webbing between them, like some sort of monstrous frill.

Tentacles with razor-tipped hooks slipping out of the suckers lashed outward
around his vehicle and crushed downward even as he tried to raise his lambda
driver. The tentacles wrapped around the head of the creature and just about
swallowed the bulk of the first Behemoth. Underneath the frill, along the
neck of the creature, a row of eyes opened one by one to watch what was
going on as it attacked the thing in front of it.

The pilot inside screamed aloud in his cockpit as he tried to train the
weapons of the monstrous robot on his attacker, drawing a line of blood
across what may have been a shoulder, but doing little more than minor
annoyance through the aura.

The other three behemoths tried to ignore the monster as it seemed to focus
on the first of them. They were intent on their mission, which was to reach
the island and cause as much damage as possible. The heavy cannons in the
head were already strafing across the waters at everything that could be
targeted. A pair of destroyers exploded into gouts of fire under the attack,
followed immediately by a transport loaded mostly with civilians that had
been arriving to start on repairing the damage the battle had done.

Naval cannons flashed out, shells exploding against the lambda driver
induced chi-fields. But that didn't stop them. And soon hastily called in
jets slipped by sending missiles into the robots, which exploded with
shattering force on the things.

Huge tentacles ripped out of the water like a wall that was as tall as the
Behemoths were, and lashed out to grab at the giant robots, hoping to hold
them in place so that they couldn't advance on the island.

"Thorns!" one of the pilots shouted. "Remember the footage."

The lambda driver boosted auras shifted into the sharp forms of terrible
spikes which tried to tear at the tentacles that reached out to grab them.

The monster itself yelped and leaped back, bleeding from several relatively
small wounds as the visibly mauled Behemoth sent it back. The frill of
tentacles fell back, covering the row of eyes on its neck.

As the creature roared out wordlessly, a blast of red, raw pishouge tore out
of the creature as if it was breathing crimson, bloody fire and slammed into
the already damaged Behemoth as it pulled its thorns back and tried to form
a shield again.

The blast of energy ripped the machines right arm clean off even as the
other Behemoths were approaching the monster's form and drawing their huge
swords.

Neither of the first two noticed as two human sized swords leaped out to
land on the swords, which extended outside the clumsily shaped lambda driver
fields and thus did not benefit from their protection.

The pilots of those two Behemoths looked in confusion and shock as their
swords were sliced apart length by length, approaching ever closer to the
hand. Focusing in, they saw flickers of movement from Naiki and Ranma, one
on each robot, and the two machines tried to turn their guns on the two
martial artists.

Which earned them apparently special attention from the monster which jumped
between them and lashed out with its own tentacles to grip the head and
start crushing until the cannons tore gaping holes in the tentacles at a
cost of their own destruction.

The most severely damaged of the Behemoths limped into position facing the
monster which was apparently distracted by the pain of its wounds, and
started blasting into the creature with its own cannons, drawing a line up
the things body.

Naiki leaped over to the shoulder of the tentacle monster and reared back
her hands.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" she shouted, angrily pushing forward.

The line of automatic cannon shells suddenly reversed back towards the
Behemoth tearing it into pieces as its damaged lambda driver failed to raise
a field to compete with the attack.

The fourth behemoth was circling around slowly behind the monster, raising a
massive sword wrapped in lambda-driver created chi.

Lightning bolts rained down on top of it, one after another, smashing into
the chi-aura and weakening it, overbearing it, each time. Electricity
coursed into the robot a little more each time, slagging new circuits and
making the thing harder and harder to control.

Ranma looked from her position on the remaining hilt of one of the massive
swords and saw Deimosu along with Urd, Raiden and Thor standing on the
nearby shore and concentrating despite all three of the older Immortals
having serious injuries still to deal with.

The cruise missile from behind finished off that fourth Behemoth in a high
explosive flash as Ranma turned toward the robot whose weapon she was
standing on and took a deep breath before diving through the field, pushing
it aside with her own chi as she move further down, closer to the actual AS.

More Demons, Gods and Ainur appeared on the shores wielding various
different powers to rain down on the remaining two Behemoths even while they
struggled with the tentacles of the monster around them until they tried to
drive it off with thorns again.

Naiki gripped tightly to a ridge of the creature she was standing on as it
jumped away before the thorns could stab her deeply again.

The thorns only made it easier for Ranma to reach the cockpit entry and, now
underneath the aura of protection, smash through into it and finding the
pilot beneath. The shocked man looked up into the redheaded form of the
exorcist that had just ripped his door off and then he saw what looked like
a single fist coming his way and his skull caved in.

Jumping away as the Behemoth fell backward, Ranma watched as the last
monster AS caved in under a barrage of magic and conventional power.

As the the Behemoths were destroyed, attention was cautiously turned toward
the massive tentacle monster still vaguely glowing red and standing in the
middle of the surf, looking around frantically, tentacles twitching.

"Hey! They're gone! Calm down," Naiki shouted.

The creature hesitated and seemed to look around itself for whoever had just
said that, not thinking that perhaps the speaker was on the body already.

The simple, curious gesture was enough for the anger and fear to lose their
hold on the creature and it visibly started to shrink down. Naiki leaped off
and came to the shrinking creature's side as it became obvious that the
wounds she'd received weren't going to just vanish.
------------------------------

"And after you don't need it, you can forget again."
------------------------------

Lusca blinked as she found herself in the water and a bit confused. She'd
just been fighting something. She wasn't exactly sure why, it just hadn't
been funny, that's all she knew. There was an odd sensation that was
immediately answered as she noticed a red trail working out away from her
through the water.

"Oh I got hurt, right," she said with a frown.

Then Naiki was swimming up to her side and grabbing hold. The next moment
they were teleporting away and Lusca found herself in the medical tent,
which didn't make much sense since she wasn't on duty at the moment.

"Hey!" Naiki shouted. "I need someone to come help me here! Someone that
knows Demon anatomy."

Lusca blushed then as she realized that Naiki was holding her gently and
firmly.

"Did you just save me from the monsters?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Naiki said casually. "Where's a doctor?"

"SQUEEE!" Lusca declared loudly and holding Naiki reciprocally tightly. "So
brave!"

Naiki almost fell over then as Lusca altered the weight balance she was
working with.

"Whoa! Wait until you're not bleeding!" Naiki pleaded. "Bullet holes, Lusca!
Plural!"
------------------------------

Elizabeth Weir walked into the room as the bomb in question was sitting in
the gate room, and the vast collection of seal-connections that Atlantis had
available to reach many of the shards in Earth's cosmology. Some were copies
of those that Earth had, but most were deeper shards, shards that were on
the edges of Earth's cosmology.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"Yes," McKay said in serious tone of voice. "That's the bomb Kavanagh swears
he didn't bring in."

"And why isn't it already gone?" Elizabeth asked.

"Because I tend to think that when the apocalyptic madman sets a bomb to
blow up a city at the time of his death," Rodney says, "he doesn't just
assume radio signals will make it past dimensional barriers."

"If you think it might be booby-trapped then why move it at all?" Elizabeth
asked.

"I've already determined that it's not going to go off just by moving it
around," McKay said. "What I'm concerned with is whether it will go boom if
we try to move it from one dimension to another. Kavanagh is an idiot but
he's plenty smart enough to be able to craft a little thing that goes 'zot'
when a dimensional border is crossed."

"It goes 'zot', we go boom," Weir noted.

"Exactly," McKay said. "I figure this bomb is probably set to explode if we
either try to take it apart or to send it away."

Weir moved toward the window and looked out into the vast ocean surrounding
the city.

"Can you prove that?" she asked.

"I'm working on that," Rodney said firmly.

"You're aware there may be another bomb in Tokyo?" Weir said. "It could just
be here to make us waste our time."

"I know that," McKay snapped. "I also know that Shepard and everybody else
are currently in Tokyo, and have been for the last few hours. I also know
that it's also a war zone. But until I have proof otherwise, I'm going to
say the crazy guy who wanted a nuclear pyre on death planned on using us as
the detonation trigger."

Weir stared at him for a moment and he calmed down slightly.

"Sorry," he said, nervously. "I'm under a bit of pressure."

"Apology accepted," Dr. Weir said before glancing up to see Kaname Chidori,
Eija Satomi, Kyoko Tokiwa and another girl on the balcony at the window
looking out.

Ostensibly, they were obviously there to look out at the view, but they
could have gotten that anywhere. Most likely they were there to see how
their bomb warning was going.

"Miss Chidori," Weir said. "I believe we had word that you're expected to
meet with Major Carter and Captain Testarossa, shouldn't you be getting to
that?"

"I'm on my way, Ma'am," she said quickly. "We were just wondering..."

"Yes, the bomb thing is going well," Rodney said. "Now you have your
project, I have mine, if you'll excuse me I think I have to figure out how
to determine if this thing is booby trapped without doing anything that will
trigger a booby trap."

"Why not just throw it off the side of the world?" the fourth girl asked.

Weir and McKay both paused for a moment.

"Mizuki, the world isn't flat," Kaname noted.

"Actually, this one is," McKay said moving quickly to the balcony and
looking out toward the horizon.

"Won't the gravity just pull it up against the bottom of the world?" Weir
asked.

"Yeah, but that's like a mile thick rock underneath the ocean," McKay said.
"I don't think we'll have to worry about any radiation down there. Wire it
to explode so that it's not just sitting around waiting to pop back up
again...we should be clear."

"Get to it," Weir said. "Quickly. Miss Chidori, I think you need to be
going. We'll open a gate as soon as this device..." she indicated the bomb,
"...is out of the room. Should make things easier for you."

"Thanks," Kaname said,
------------------------------

Sousuke listened to the distant sound of gunfire and resisted the urge to go
to it. He had his orders, it it involved getting rid of these chemical
weapons.

*Any suggestions?* he asked.

*I believe I can help,* Eija said. *I'll be there shortly.*

*Eija, the area is very dangerous and...*

*You have an injured man who's continued life will keep nuclear devices from
going off,* Eija said.

*Affirmative,* Sousuke said. *What is the status on the radiation?*

*I'm at the American place,* Kaname said. *Tessa and I are working on it
with them. But it's going to be a little bit. The Immortals we were
gathering got caught up in a fight on Kyushu.*

*We have four hours,* Sousuke noted idly. *It shouldn't be a problem.*

*Yeah, four hours to figure out how to push radiation out of the atmosphere
without electrocuting anybody below it,* Kaname noted.

Suddenly, Eija's presence felt much closer and Sousuke knew she was in the
building even before she told him.

*I'm here,* she said. *And now, I think we might seal that room. I shall
walk you through it.*
------------------------------

Batiste watched as Sousuke darted into the room full of vats that they had
discovered while Grey chased after the young man that had just fired on
them. That left him behind to pretty much live as long as possible to keep
the rigged heart monitor from sending the message of destruction.

Which had him thinking.

It should have been set up so that when the guy died, it stopped
transmitting. If that had been the case, they would have all died from the
nerve gas and a couple other bombs would have gone off.

Grunting and clutching at the bullet wound he'd taken, Batiste turned around
to start examining the machine in front of him. If he could find the
transmitter and take it apart, they wouldn't need to worry about the bombs
anymore.

He almost jumped when a hand clapped on his shoulder and turned, with gun
ready to see one of Sousuke's girlfriends there at his side.

"Where the hell did you come from?" he demanded.

And she finished stepping out of the pool of blood beside him.

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "I tend to surprise people."

She bowed momentarily and started looking to his injury.

"Let me see what I can do about this," she said politely. "Keep doing what
you are doing, I shall not interfere."
------------------------------

Zaid jumped out into the street and ducked around a wall, aiming his rifle
at the doorway, waiting for Grey to follow his steps.

He was surprised at the sound of feet on the roof above him and glanced up
just in time to see her aiming her submachine gun down into the alleyway.

Barely dodging out of the way and around another corner he heard her land on
the building he was leaning against and cursed. Buildings put close together
were not uncommon in his home, but he'd spent more of his time hunting and
fighting in the desert hills of Helmjastan. This woman apparently knew urban
warfare much better than he did.

He dashed out, keeping tight against the building so that she couldn't
easily target down at him while he tried to move as quietly as possible,
looking for a building that had a distance too wide for her jump across.

The scrabbling of footsteps brought him to look in time to duck underneath
another stream of bullets, though one still scratched a line down his
shoulder. He returned fire with his rifle, but she was already almost
completely behind cover when he did so.

Her choice of weapon was also better suited to an urban confrontation, not
requiring as much to get in line as his rifle did. Swinging it back around
his back, he retrieved a pistol and waited for her to show herself again.

Grey came from a different direction than he'd expected, popping out of a
different split between two buildings and directing her submachine gun
towards where Zaid had stationed himself, looking for cover.

He turned quickly and fired just about the same time she did, three slugs
slashing out, one cutting into and through her stomach even as her own
bullets raked across his torso.

Both fell back away from each other, grunting with the pain that pounded
through the armor each was wearing. They each crawled into cover before
looking for the next shot. They were catching their breath, but in that
time, they each loss track of the other.

Zaid, turned around a corner and froze, seeing a person standing there in
the shadows that looked somewhat familiar.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Someone that can give you a way to survive," the man said with a smile.

It was several minutes of fruitless stalking before Grey decided that the
man had gotten away. Slipping back into the shadows she headed back for the
others as quickly as possible.
------------------------------

Eija scanned the room about her, looking for the spirit, expecting him to be
around somewhere, watching and waiting for his final trick to be played.
Maybe hoping to play a few more as a ghost.

"Almost got this disarmed," her patient said beside her. "And then we should
be safe to..."

The reflection of a digital display off the metallic floor suddenly
appeared, catching Batiste's eye as he clipped the last wire.

"Is something the mat..."

Eija found herself pushed roughly back as the bed containing Gauron's body
was twisted on its side between her and Batiste.
------------------------------

Sousuke watched with something close to amazement as the entire room simply
vanished leaving empty air where it had been, only leaving behind what
appeared to be a small shell or a large bullet.

And then the building rocked with an explosion as he felt Eija's surprise
and pain pour through the link he now had with her.

*Eija!* Kaname's voice called out along with his as he rushed back into the
garden to find a blackened mess, Batiste's corpse thrown into one far wall.

Kaname appeared then out of a burst of circular, liquid energy and, like
Sousuke, zeroed in on Eija's position. She was bruised, battered and
unconscious, but judging by the area of untouched wall and floor around her,
had managed to raise a mana-shield quickly enough to withstand the bulk of
the explosion.

"Well, isn't this familiar," Kaname said as she came to Eija's side, clearly
trying to lighten the mood as her eyes flared red and she took in Eija's
condition. "She's going to be okay, I don't think she's in danger."

"Good," Sousuke said with relief before he moved to check Batiste's body.
"He took the full brunt of the explosion, must have thrown himself on it."

He frowned and looked toward the center of the explosion darkly. This device
hadn't been nearly as powerful as the last one. Was it truly designed to
kill him, or just make him suffer the death of others?

"What the hell was that?" Grey demanded as she came into the area. She
turned and saw Kaname and Eija and then Batiste. "Oh no! Batiste, what
happened?"

"I think he may have been trying to disarm the readout," Sousuke said
grimly.

"You mean...the signal went out?" Grey asked silently.

"It may have," the Ainur noted.

"I'm taking Eija back to Atlantis," Kaname said quickly.

"We should all go," Grey said. "Now, our mission here is over."
------------------------------

"Kaname, back to Major Carter!" Mara said as they appeared in Atlantis.

"But..." Kaname started to protest.

"We've got Belldandy and a couple others coming in for Eija," Mara said
quickly. "They're already looking over Lusca in there, so they're ready.
She'll be fine."

"Did the bomb?" Kaname started to ask quietly.

"The bomb that was here was detonated under Atlantis with no problem," Mara
said.

"What happened with the Tokyo bomb?" Grey asked desperately.

"I was going to ask you that!" Mara said quickly, snapping her head around.

"We're not sure," Grey answered. "We think Batiste made an uninstructed
attempt to disarm the heart monitor. Did the bomb go off in Tokyo?"

"No," Mara said. "Not Tokyo."

"But it did go off," Kaname said weakly.
------------------------------

Nabiki stared across the horizon toward the other side of Okinawa with a
bleak horror at the sight of the rising mushroom cloud.

"Good heavens," she whispered. "That's the refugee settlements."

People from China, Southeast Asia, and recently mainland Japan. The majority
of them had been placed on that side of the island. For the past ten years,
it was the main place on Okinawa for refugees of any type to stay long or
short term.

"Aunt Nabiki," Kimiko said quietly. "What's that mean?"

"It means something bad happened," Nabiki said, holding the hands of her
nieces and nephews tightly and staring out in that direction.
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