[FFML] [Fanfic][X-COM][Teen Titans][Ranma 1/2] Reflections Lost on a Dark Road (ch4)

[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 (with formatting!)

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

- - -

- - -

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
First Contact
Chapter IV


- - -

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

- - -

Hoarse screams filled the air, the agonized howls bouncing off the cold,
metallic walls and reverberating madly over and over.  Koriand'r had
long since lost track of which screams were her own; battling the
torturous pain, she was just barely able to twist her neck to allow her
to see the table resting next to her own.  Komand'r was fastened to the
sterile surface, writing in torment as the beam of concentrated solar
radiation bombarded every inch of her body...

Just as the machine above her own table was doing to Koriand'r herself.

The Tamaranian princess could not even draw satisfaction from the sight
of her treacherous sister suffering such a fate, blinded as she was by
her own torture.  The excruciatingly focused solar emissions seared her
skin wherever they touched, which was everywhere.  As was her nature,
her body attempted to absorb the energy - and absorb it, and absorb it!
There was no end to it; every cell in her body was on fire, every
molecule of her being felt as if it would explode at any second.

And then, with the flip of a switch, it ended.

Koriand'r couldn't even draw in a breath of relief at the sudden
cessation of agony.  All her body could do was tremble weakly, small,
worrying sparks of some unnatural green energy leaping from her skin...

"Fascinating, truly fascinating.  Both subjects continue to absorb solar
radiation at rates far beyond any natural conditions which could be
conceived."

Every muscle in Koriand'r's body snapped taut, the very sound of that
voice as painful to her as the torture she had just endured.  Squeezing
her eyes shut, the exiled princess tried to block out the voice, tried
to forget ever having heard it at all.

"The younger of the pair seems to have a slightly lower rate of natural
absorption, but it is possible that it is simply a matter of maturation
than of any other variables.  Related: further interpretation of our
data seems to indicate that the ultraviolet range of the spectrum is
most critical to the absorption process."

"S-stop this ...  I - I com - command you!"

That was Komand'r's voice, her rage causing her voice to crack painfully
as she issued her impotent demand.

Finally opening her eyes, Koriand'r turned to stare at the Psion
scientist.  His scaled, green face, crested by perpendicular bone ridges
which crossed at the crest of his cranium, simply stared back at the
dark haired Tamaranian impassively.  Somehow the utterly emotionless
gaze of the Psion was more chilling, more frightening than the most
hateful glare she had ever received.

"Both specimens are far beyond our projected estimates.  Subject One has
just crested 600 megarads of energy saturation, while Subject Two in
already nearly 800 megarads of saturation.  Rather than break down on
the molecular level, as was anticipated ... their bodies appear to be
... adapting in unforeseen ways."

Koriand'r struggled weakly against her shackles as the Psion stepped to
the side of her bed, staring down at her with those cold, soulless eyes.
For a moment, he ran a strange device over her, nodding to himself in
satisfaction as he did.  The cruel being then looked up to match her
gaze, his head tilting to the side curiously.

"Today's session has already been extended twenty five percent longer
than calculated. Really, I should allow you time to recover before
continuing the experiment."  At that, a glint flitted through the
Psion's glassy eyes.  "But this unforeseen adaptation is far too
fascinating- "

The Psion reached for the familiar console next to her examination
table.

"I must see more."

Koriand'r's world dissolved into light and pain.

- - -

Starfire awoke, a strangled gasp on her lips as flashes of half
remembered brilliance danced at the back of her eyes.  It had... had
been some time since the Tamaranian had dreamt of her... time ...with
the Psions.  She had done much to forget those unspeakable weeks in
their thrall. The alien warrior attempted to rub her temples to soothe
the phantom pain.

She could not move her hands!  Frantic, Starfire looked down -

Panicked eyes widened into saucers as she took in her surroundings.  She
was laying at the center of a hauntingly familiar room, walls covered
with an unusual, alien looking metal.  Beyond that, she was laid out on
a long table of the same burnished silver metal, and though there were
no obvious shackles on her limbs, she could do little more than move her
neck. And staring down at her from the ceiling, aimed directly at her
forehead, was a device of alien design and unknown function.

She stared blankly for a long second -

...

The containment monitor quickly pulled the headset away from his ears,
leaving an unearthly wail of terror to flow out of the small speakers. A
pained growl followed as the man turned to his partner.

"Christ Almighty, that's loud! Care to tell me why the subject isn't
under level five sedation?"

"Ah. Sorry. I was adjusting the field for the interrogation. It must've
woken up. Ju-u-st a second."

...

- and then, mid-scream, Starfire's voice caught and the air leaving her
lungs became a unencumbered trickle. Her throat slackened as the
numbness forcibly relaxed her body, but it took longer to seize her
mind. An alien sensation, unimaginably terrifying, leeched up from
somewhere below. Within moments her consciousness was torn away,
dropping her into a dreamless artificial sleep.

...

"Much better. What the hell were you doing?"

"Hey, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just surprised it woke up when it
did. It was supposed to be in REM sleep. Anyway, calibrations are good
and everything's ready for later. Should be able to speak and hear
perfectly."

"Good. ... Nice and quiet again. You know, I hate the ones that sound
human. Insidious bastards. This alien doesn't look much older than my
daughter; its hard to believe it went head to head with freaking Romeo
Squad."

"Looks can be deceiving."

"We'd know that better than most. Alright. This is all good. Let's
double check the tertiary mind probe... don't want any false positives
when the psi-ops types get to work."

- - -

Herb's tea boiled silently, cup in hand never having touched his lips.
Instead, all his attention seemed to be focused elsewhere, very likely
on a certain something within the containment facility wing. Kiima
carefully lifted her own lacquer cup up and took a small sip, partly to
calm herself and partly to hide her face in case the Musk Prince turned
around to speak to her.

It was something she likely wouldn't have done in her normal body, but
for this task, she had been asked to use her cursed form. It was a nice
enough body, and it was practical when using environmentally sealed
personal armor, but it wasn't her. It also tended to annoy Herb when he
saw it, likely because it reminded him of Saotome. Still, that was no
excuse. It would have been nice to hear what was on the enigmatic man's
mind. She knew he was somewhat troubled.

And they had been intended, once, to be married.

They still would have been, had Saffron's maturation and subsequent
death not soured the deal between the two clans. They still could be, if
they survived the war and after a new Saffron came of age. Would he even
wait that long? There was a larger pool of extremely strong women around
that they knew of now, and the Musk cared only for strength. Their
former engagement aside, she was also his second in Romeo Squad. He
should have felt free to share his burdens.

"What troubles you, Lord Herb?" she finally asked, setting her cup down
neatly on her knee. For the time being, they were alone in the room,
waiting to be given permission to enter and oversee some verbal
questioning of their new captive.

He didn't even turn around in answering. "Nothing troubles me, Kiima."

"Ah. I see." She did. Stupid male. "What irritates you, then?"

Herb spared a mirthless laugh at her knowledge of him. "This alien we
are to speak with. Her memories are strange. Perplexing. No one quite
knows what to make of it."

Kiima closed her eyes and took another small drink.

"Was it truly that alien inside her mind?" she asked, not having been a
part of the operation.

Her psi-skill was far below the requirements for such a thing. Herb,
however, had quickly excelled at psionic combat in all its forms,
applying his natural affinity and genius with single minded
determination. She knew he would never allow himself to be outshone by
Saotome, even though the pigtailed fighter had a natural advantage of
time and experience within the organization.

"Alien?" Herb asked, and briskly shook his head. "No..."

As he did so, Kiima noticed his hair, and not for the first time. More
than a month had passed since he'd decided to cut his unearthly pale
pinkish-white hair short, breaking with tradition. What once fell down
to his waist was now closer to the common regulation cut more soldiers
wore, and left unbound or adorned, it seemed to have spiked up in the
back. Just the act of cutting one's hair was highly irregular for one of
his line; the Musk followed the Joketsuzoku Amazon tradition (or perhaps
the Amazons followed the Musk tradition) of hair length correlating to
high status.

Unfortunately for tradition, practically on the battlefield was a harsh
mistress: short hair was much easier to wear with a helmet. On some
level, it had to reflect the fact that he was determined to forge a new
path for the Musk in this new era and against this new enemy. The Musk
had not lent themselves to a cause in over a thousand years.

"Mentally, she is no alien. Not in the sense we have of them." He caught
himself at having said that, and explained, turning slightly to gesture
with his hand. "That is to say: she believes she is this...
Tamaranian... thing. And it is true that her physiology is alien but her
mind is almost like that of an unaltered human, and her genetics... she
must have been human once, or created from human stock."

Kiima gave an inquisitive 'hmm.' "And this irritates you?"

"Somewhat," he admitted, finally facing her, his tea still in hand. "I
would like to know what I have dealt with. What I will deal with. I know
Mint has spoken with you."

Of course he would; she lowered her eyes just a bit. "He was-"

"I, too, have fought with this creature. Mint could not possibly see
something that I, Herb, have missed." Slit reptilian eyes, a crimson
red, moved slowly over to the door. "The fact remains that we must find
out more. We must know how she was made. We must separate the false
memories from the true."

"Our mind probe has extracted nothing but chaff - names and places and
things that do not exist." Herb's voice was level, but Kiima could tell
he was... irritated. "If she is delusional, surface scans and machines
will not be able to tell the difference. Command believes we must be
more proactive."

"Ah. You know what that means, don't you?" Kiima began.

Snorting dismissively, the Musk Prince nodded.  "It means that matters
will be taken out of our hands sooner than I would have liked. It
troubles me to be reminded of my... middling... rank within this
organization.  The alien's fate is not ours to decide; all we can do is
wait for our orders."

- - -

Sparks flew merrily as Cyborg worked away on his little pet project.  It
was starting to take shape in his eye.  Now that he had the satellite
dish at the center, helpfully donated by the Thompsons (he'd make sure
to have it back to them before they got back from vacation) it was
starting to look like something that could actually send a transmission
to an existing satellite network up above. The fresh air was a nice
change, too. Setting up the transmitter on the roof of the apartment
complex was risky, but necessary.  He was still concerned over why the
cops had been staking out his motel room. Forget what he'd done, how had
they even found him in the first place? Sighing, he shook his head and
settled back into his work.

He began to hum to himself as he made the connections.

"The power source is connected to the ...transformer, the transformer is
connected to the ...circuit relay, the circuit relay is connected to the
...transmission array and that's what it's all about."

A few more whistled bars and he focused intently on the one last point.
Tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he positioned the
heating element and the solder wire into place, there was a small puff
of smoke and he was done!

Leaning back, he internalized his Booyah so as not to bring any undue
attention.  It looked like a mess, and it was far more annoying than it
had any right to be to set up, but he was still a technological genius,
and he wasn't gonna let nothing as lame as totally antiquated technology
stop him from hijacking an entire satellite network to use as his
personal phone line!

Though, in retrospect, that didn't exactly sound like the kinda thing
that a 'good' person would be trying to do with their time.  It was a
good thing that he wasn't actually 'up to no good', then.  Gizmo would
have a field day in this world; he'd probably have had all the nukes in
the country ready to launch in a week and a half.

'Damn ... hate it when I remind myself he's smarter than me...'

Still, he wasn't that much smarter, just a lot less inhibited. Cyborg
doubted that even Gizmo would have been able to make a better
transmitter here, especially since some of the tech was being...
finicky. Not working when it should have. Still, he'd managed, and now
all he needed was to turn it on. Reaching out, the cybernetic teen laid
a finger on the power switch and, flinching slightly, flipped it.  A
loud hum filled the air and lights flashed to life all throughout the
circle of technology he'd wired together with the small satellite dish
at its heart. So far so good, at least.

Taking out the modified USB adaptor he spliced together, he hooked a
cable from the transmitter array up to the communicator integrated into
his arm.  It wasn't easy, kind of like trying to jam a whole cow into a
single sausage, but at least with his jury rigged interface, he could
hook directly into the system. He made certain to take it easy, starting
off with a simple ping to the commercial satellite network. A few
microseconds ticked by, and then he was rewarded with a response!

"Yeah! The uplink works!"

A moment later, he brought up a map display on the screen.  At first, it
just showed the city, but as his signal spread throughout the network,
it expanded to show the state, the country, and after a few minutes, he
was finally able to bounce signals around a good part of the globe.

Just needed to do a passive scan and...

Four blips appeared on the map!

"Oh yeah!  That's a booyah right there!"  He checked the readings more
closely.  Looked like he was receiving signals from Starfire ... Ryouga
and Raven... and, well, himself.

Nothing on Robin or Jinx, though.  Had their esteemed leader managed to
avoid getting dragged into this dimension with them?  Damn, wouldn't
that be just like him?  Too competent to get sucked here with the rest
of them, where they could really use his help, plus he probably saved
Jinx to boot. Of course, having someone back home was good, since he bet
that Robin was just as busy back there trying to get them home as he was
here.

Alright, so, he had them located, at least generally. It looked like
they were all in the Eastern hemisphere.  Rae and Ryo looked like they
were in proximity to each other all the way over in Japan. Starfire
looked to be in China somewhere, but it was impossible to narrow her
signal down further. Damn, he sure hoped they all had enough cash for
plane tickets, because there was no way he was taking a world tour just
to pick their butts up.

Okay, so that was stage one complete.  He had managed to find them; now
he just needed to send them the message he'd prepared to join him here.
All he had to do was hit the send button. The simple click on his arm
was innocuous enough, but the ominous whine that suddenly rose up from
his rig a second later was less so. And then, the screen on his arm
suddenly went blank.  The lights on the transmitter died.  Dubious wafts
of smoke began to rise up from the apparatus...

Then, a minute later, he heard the first shouts:

"Damn TV!", "Where'd the picture go?!", "B-But it was the season
finale!" and "What the Hell?!  Stupid god damn satellite! FFFUUU-"

Cyborg stared at his arm silently for a moment.  Then, moving slowly, he
looked up into the air above him.

"... Oops."

Clearly, it was time to be hitting the ol' dusty trail. So to speak. He
considered taking his rig ... but a single glance told him that it was
already a complete loss.  This setup and more specifically, the
piggyback network he was using just didn't have the capacity to handle
the signal he was trying to send. If he wanted to actually do more than
just pick up their signals, if he wanted to send a message, he was going
to need something more ... powerful...

Slowly, Cyborg's gaze drifted across the skyline, coming to settle on
the rooftop of a distant building, what looked to be a corporate
headquarters of some sort.

"Oh yeah.  Now that's what I'm talkin' bout!"

- - -

Victoria Christianson was a bit of a scifi geek.

This wasn't exactly something she felt the need to spread around. She
already had a tomboy image that she enjoyed, and one that almost made
her 'one of the boys' back in the precinct. There was a nice casual mix
of female-coworker and physically-capable that merged into a pleasant
middle ground. There was no need to tip things one way or the other, and
making her viewing preferences known would likely achieve just that. It
wasn't her fault she had two brothers and that she had been raised on
weekly doses of Captain Picard.

The case she found herself on, the "mystery man" who had vandalized and
hacked into the city phone system, was made all the more interesting day
by day. It should have been obvious by what he had done to the phone,
and by the bits and pieces he left behind, but this guy was a real
tinkerer. She wondered, briefly, if he liked Star Trek or Star Wars? Or
was he one of those Battlestar types?

The motel room he'd fled from before had been full of half finished
junk.

Not just junk, actually. The technicians and electronics whizzes who got
around to looking at the evidence had said most of the stuff was likely
part of a receiver/transmitter.  It made sense. This mystery man had
hacked into the phone lines to make calls, and now he was aiming higher.
What was strange was that he had used the phone-hack to make mundane
calls. If it had been a practice run for a bigger act of terrorism (or
cyberterrorism), then why order pizza with it? Why draw the attention?

It didn't add up.

The man was still using the phone line he'd tapped into, and the
investigation was still eavesdropping and tracking him with it. Or they
had been until recently, when he left the range of his own bug. Most of
his work was supposedly inspired - and she had heard that the bug itself
was pretty high tech 'in a strange way' - but this other stuff was kind
of slipshod due to the basic components scavenged. They'd checked with
stores around the area, to see if he was buying anything, but the man
was staying off the radar.

No credit cards.

No big purchases.

Nothing.

At least he was still human, and still left something behind. Along with
the absolute mess he had turned his motel room into he had left a few
clues. The damage to the mattress confirmed he was extremely heavy for
his size, conservatively more than four hundred pounds. Skin and hair
samples (and there had been much fewer hair samples than anyone had
expected) confirmed eye witness accounts that the mystery man was
African American and male. They still didn't have any useable
fingerprints, which was downright bizarre. The mystery man had been
careful enough to always wear gloves, but careless enough to leave clues
and smudges lying around.

They hadn't found any non-salvaged computer parts or other evidence of
that sort, but a check with the motel's meter had confirmed that the man
used some sort of high powered device. He had sucked up a tremendous
amount of power over a long period of time, tripping the breakers that
limited draw to the rooms. So far, it didn't fit what the techs knew
about normal computer systems, if that had been what he'd powered up in
the first place. For the time being, it was just another mystery... but
a tantalizing one.

They had a good handle on Method, thanks to what they'd seen. The guy
was a tech head. He was trying to cobble together something to break
into communication networks.

Motive.

What was this guy's motive?

That was harder. Fielding still figured the guy was up to no good, but
he'd recently shifted his personal opinion from 'terrorism' to
'vandalism.' Maybe he wanted to make some kind of political statement?
Maybe he wanted to put himself on TV (like anyone bothered these days,
since getting on youtube was so easy). Maybe he just wanted to make free
calls all the time, any time? ... Maybe he wanted to break into a secure
system to commit corporate or international espionage?

If it really was the latter, then she and Fielding were kind of in over
their heads.

Drifting out to the precinct lobby to get a cup of Joe, Officer
Christianson sighed. All this was just going around and around in her
head and not ending anywhere. They still had so little on the guy. And
they STILL had orders from above to only track and observe. Did
Lieutenant Haynes know something? They technically had enough to bring
this guy in - if they could catch him now - so why were they beating
around the bush? So many of these strange thoughts could be put to rest
if they had just pulled the guy in for questioning a day ago!

"Aw, damnit!"

The voice caught her attention as soon as she entered the room. It was
Sergeant Fuentes, up from the SWAT department. Walking over, curious
now, she saw him glaring down at a crushed paper cup on the floor.
Officer Park was chuckling at the mess, and ripping a few paper towels
free to help. Vicky knew the two of them only in a peripheral way, just
enough to know their names and have a few conversations under her belt.

"What happened?" she asked, looking around the break room and then at
the spill.

She had been looking for some coffee, anyway.

"Nothing," Fuentes insisted, as ark handed him another paper towel. He
tried to soak up the spilt coffee without burning himself by dabbing the
scrunched up paper.

"Another crushed cup," Parks commented with a smile.

"You do that kind of shit on purpose, man!" Fuentes complained, still
cleaning up the mess. With a huff, he stood back up and shook his head.
"Just got back from the range; you know I have the sensitivity on the
hand set high."

He held up his left hand, and Christianson remembered it was actually a
prosthetic. Fuentes had been shot in the hand a couple months back, and
opted for an artificial reconstruction. Dramatic advances in limb
replacement, like most of the medical field, had come in leaps and
bounds over the last half decade or so (along with weapons development,
oddly enough). Things that people had expected to take a decade or more
to reach commercial viability were now yesterday's news. So much so that
most people didn't think of it any more than they did, say, laser eye
surgery.

Fuentes hand reconstruct had varied sensitivity, which helped to control
the translation of impulses. Vicky looked down at his crushed cup and in
her mind's eye, saw that crushed baseball bat. But that... that...

No way.

Was that possible?

There was laser eye surgery, and then there was laser eye surgery that
gave you X-ray vision. No one could have reconstructs powerful enough to
crush an aluminum bat. It was just... no.

And yet...

At six foot something, this guy was supposedly more than 400 pounds.
Really, they expected him to be much more, but had revised it down. The
build was all wrong. He was built like a linebacker, or so they
believed, not a sumo wrestler. What if reconstructs made up all that
extra weight? It was scifi shit. Even the most far-out-there,
singularity-obsessed, construct-freak (and there were a few, this being
New York City and all) couldn't replace that much of himself, especially
with gear that had specs so far outside the norm.

But... the power drain... the lack of finger prints... the fight with
those punks!

No. She was jumping to conclusions and she knew it. There were better,
more grounded, explanations. This mystery man obviously had some high
powered gear with him, and he simply wore gloves. The street gang he had
taken out weren't the most reliable of witnesses in the first place. The
idea that he as some kind of... Terminator or 'cyborg'... that was just
too outlandish.

"Christianson! There you are!" Fielding entered the break room in a
rush, excitement on his features. "Load up! We've got something!"

A short drive later, and she saw it firsthand.

Standing on top of the residential tower, she and Fielding searched the
area while their growing cadre of electricians and field techs examined
the latest 'incident.' It was definitely the work of the mystery man.
Cobbled together electronics, including a commercial satellite dish, had
been rigged up into some sort of gadget. It looked burned out now, but
just a few hours ago...

A few hours ago it had shorted out signals across every building in a
hundred yards and caused an emergency reset in a satellite in orbit.
Just when they had revised their outlook on this guy from terrorist to
nuisance, he went and pulled a trick like this. God knows what he had
done with the satellite uplink in the first place. Hopefully the techs
could figure something out from what was left. They still had to check
for witnesses on the floors below (many of whom had complained earlier),
and review camera footage to see if it had caught this guy in the act.

Christianson had a suspicion, though, that they wouldn't find much solid
evidence, and certainly no prints. It was about 50/50 whether they found
any video records. This perp knew his way around machines, but his
latest stunt had gone too far. They hadn't gotten the order to bring him
in yet, but they would. Oh yes, they would. She could feel it!

The immediate question was, where would he strike next?

Turning towards the setting sun, she saw the Citicorp Building,
silhouetted against the horizon...

- - -

Lieutenant Uehara Daizo was a career beat cop.

He had a little house out in the suburbs, a pair of kids in college, and
he worked the generally quiet streets of Sapporo. 'Drunk and disorderly'
and common theft were the biggest problems he typically had to deal
with, and as age started to catch up, he found himself enjoying the
seniority of running the city's quieter routes. He loved the work - he
did - and the difference he felt he made by showing the colors on the
streets and helping those who needed it.

He just wished it paid better. The ongoing decade long recession and the
ever escalating cost of finances had him in a bit of a pinch. Silently,
secretly, he had started weighing certain options to... aid in his
retirement.

He waffled, though, not particularly eager to stretch his principles
this late in the game. A man needed his pride and self respect as much
as he needed a bank account that wasn't slowly trickling into the red.
It wasn't like he wanted to retire to a life of cruises and vacations...
but it would have been nice to leave the country once at least. The
issue had been a recurring theme in his thoughts for days now.

The last thing he'd expected to interrupt those thoughts was an
emergency at the airport.

"Central BCC to Unit 562."

"562 here." Daizo watched with one eye as the digital screen on his car
lit up, displaying information send from central downtown. To think, he
remembered running with nothing but a radio. Not that he could fault the
convenience of the new technology.

"We have a request for rapid deployment to New Chitose Airport.
Potential terrorist activity. PSIA is running operations, and airport
security have asked for help setting up a perimeter. SWAT is already on
route. Expect briefing on site."

Daizo nodded to himself, and a second later, the rendezvous point
appeared on his nav system.

"I'm on my way. ETA: driving time."

As the siren mounted atop his car wailed, he narrowed his eyes a bit at
one particular but of information: PSIA. Public Security was running
things? Had they been tipped off about a bomb threat or something? It
wasn't like them to call in the dogs like this. It didn't appear that
the shit had quite hit the fan yet, which was the only real silver
lining.

No one wanted a repeat of Flight 61.

He had been working a different beat then, but back in 1999, some loon
had hijacked a Boeing 747 en route to New Chitose Airport from Tokyo
International. By the time ATC was warned, the man had already locked
himself in the cockpit with the captain. Fortunately, the pilot had
managed to turn the tables on the hijacker and land the plane, but
Sapporo had been waiting with hushed rumors as to what could - or would
- happen if the plane crashed.

If PSIA was involved, did that mean there was another similar threat?
Most domestic terrorist groups had been quiet over the last decade, and
this far north it was all but unheard of. It could potentially be any
number of foreign threats, though. North Korean espionage? Al Qaeda?
Some home grown nut job?

Racing towards the airport, Daizo felt the side of his revolver
comfortingly press against his leg through its holster. His old Nambu
M60 .38 Special hadn't let him down yet; he'd only ever had to fire it
once in the line of duty, something for which he was thankful, but the
solid presence was still something he took solace in. Those years in the
JSDF had rubbed off on him, and while he always hoped never to have to
use lethal force, he was well trained and practiced... just in case.
Even in a quiet city, it was never wise to get lulled into a false sense
of security.

Turning into one of the main roads, he turned off his siren to observe
the 'silent approach' outlined by the nav computer. By the time he got
close, he could make out a few other police cars and a few large black
vans, three of them unmarked. They'd already closed off a lane of
traffic and partly circled vehicles. It had to be where they were
conducting the immediate on-site briefing for the reinforcements. A
small number of men in plainclothes - obviously PSIA Intelligence
Department agents - stood in front of a pair of laptops.

Parking quickly, Daizo immediately found a familiar face.

"Suzahara!"

"Uehara!"

Lieutenant Suzahara was a Tokyo transplant and an old friend. Just a
year Daizo's junior, he was a bit taller with a couple fewer creases
around his eyes. The two men nodded respectfully and formed up side by
side to review the rest of those present. A unit of SEAT officers was
already forming up and double checking their gear; another officer was
motioning other police over to suit up in body armor. That was trouble.
It meant they expected return fire, here, at the damn airport.

"Any idea what's going on?" Daizo asked, as the two headed over.

"None," Suzahara admitted. "Here's hoping it's a false alarm or
something."

"Not likely."

"Yeah."

"Plus, if there's something going down inside, why are we out here?"
Daizo surmised. "They're waiting for something."

Suzahara nodded slowly.

The two took identical strap-on body armor, slipping it right on top of
their uniforms. It was a fairly basic heavy kevlar vest, but up-armored.
A combination of nylon straps and Velcro helped to secure it around the
torso and upper arms. A rack of submachine guns was visible inside the
SWAT van, along with a case bearing those new laser pistols that had
started circulating among law enforcement two years ago, but it appeared
they were keeping all those toys to themselves. To Daizo, it implied he
and the others in his position would be used outside of any potential
combat. This wasn't a bad thing if heavily armored terrorists were
involved.

Another car pulled in, the last, allowing two officers from Daizo's
precinct to join the group. Not including the airport security teams,
already inside and working with the PSIA, that left twenty of them
outside waiting for orders. Half of those were SWAT special response. A
tall man with a baklava standing next to a comparatively small black
suited agent motioned the more lightly armed and armored officers over.
It appeared things were about to pick up. Daizo recognized the name on
the man's arm patch as a captain in the city SWAT.

"Everyone listen up," the Captain barked, getting the attention of all
present. He then inclined his head towards the much shorter agent next
to him: a pretty young woman with short brown hair. Next to her was a
man in unfamiliar dirty-white fatigues. It looked military-issue.

"My name is Agent Katsumi," the woman spoke, not really raising her
voice, but clearly and loudly enough to be easily heard by the
assembling men. "The man next to me is Agent Koiso. We will both be
functioning as liaisons with Sapporo law enforcement."

The man looked middle aged, but the woman couldn't be more than twenty
something. Daizo scratched his chin, bemused by the fact that this young
woman - his daughter's age even - would be in charge. Damn strange. But
she wouldn't be in the position she was if she hadn't gone through the
proper channels, so, young or not, she was the one giving orders. The
older man next to her cupped his hands behind his back, clearly willing
to also cede to the young woman.

"Let's get to it," she gestured to one of the tabled laptops, partly
encased in an armored shell, and pressed something in her hand. The
screen was large enough that, even from where he stood, Daizo could
pretty clearly see the picture of a young man and woman.

"Only a couple hours ago, surveillance and facial recognition positively
identified these two subjects, believed to be involved in the bombing
yesterday uptown. The male is approximately eighteen years of age, one
hundred and seventy centimeters in height, Japanese, with black hair and
light brown eyes. Distinguishing characteristics include slightly
pronounced canines, a yellow and black bandanna, and potentially an
umbrella carried on his person. The female is estimated to be eighteen,
one hundred and sixty five centimeters, Caucasian, with a pale
complexion and violet colored hair and eyes. Distinguishing
characteristics beyond that include a small red gem worn on the forehead
and..."

Daizo resisted the urge to sigh, instead dipping the rim of his fedora
to cover his eyes.

These two were just kids.

"There were conflicting accounts from the scene of the bombing itself,
but HQ wants us to move in on this, ASAP. We have confirmed that they
intend to leave the country and our orders are to intercept them before
they can do so. Obviously, we'd like to avoid a fight in the airport
itself, but given the nature of the male subject the best we can do is
keep the area clear while our specialists make the takedown. If we tip
ourselves off too soon, there's no telling what he'll do."

One of the conscripted officers shook his head at that, silent
disbelieving that some kid could be such a threat. Daizo didn't blame
him. I mean: what was it about this kid that was so dangerous? Did he
have a bomb or something that he was going to set off in one of the
terminals? If he did, then what would these 'specialists' do about it?

"Let me make this absolutely clear," Agent Katsumi went on, "We expect
that both these individuals are extremely dangerous.  You are to assume
they are both well armed and extremely dangerous."

Daizo blanched at that.  They actually were after a pair of Al'Qaeda nut
jobs?  What the hell, what were terrorists doing here of all places?  He
was distracted from his ruminations when the young agent referred back
to her pictures before continuing.

"In particular, if you encounter the male of the pair, do not engage
him. Repeat: do not engage. Do not approach him, do not attempt to
apprehend or delay him unless explicitly ordered to do so. Do not point
your weapon at him. This man can, and will, kill you. Not a single one
of you here can stop him by yourself."

Hearing that, Daizo's crinkled eyebrows raised a fraction.  What was
that supposed to mean?  What, was this kid some kind of human killing
machine?  The woman had to be exaggerating, right?

"We have teams specially trained and equipped to deal with the male
target. We know less about the female. She doesn't have any background
here or with Interpol or NSA. Caution is advised should any of you
encounter her. Use of lethal force is authorized for this operation if
necessary for self defense or the protection of civilians."

There it was. It had been retroactively obvious, given the presence of
SWAT, that use of lethal force would be invoked. They'd all needed to
actually hear it said, though. More than a few officers shifted a bit
where they stood, suddenly a little uncomfortable. Especially given the
apparent youth of their potential targets.

"We are going to split up into four fire teams," Agent Katsumi
explained. "Red is our primary engagement force, including Agent Koiso's
men and some... special forces we've brought in. If Red Team is engaging
the enemy, you are to maintain a distance of sixty meters at all times.
Blue Team will consist of those SWAT members present. Their job will be
to contain the incident and act as backup. Green will include all
uniformed police offers. Together with airport security, we need you to
evacuate any civilians from the area and maintain a cordon around the
point of engagement of roughly a hundred meters. No one gets in or out
without authorization, understood?"

Daizo nodded slightly, and so did many others around him. It seemed they
were brought in mostly for crowd control. He wondered, though, why PSIA
was being so secretive. It was just two kids, no matter how dangerous
one of them somehow got a reputation for being. It didn't look like the
kid had a missile launcher or RPG on him... though appearances were
obviously deceiving, considering the bombing attack...  Regardless, it
looked like three rings: cops on the outside, SWAT further in, then the
PSIA specialists in the center.

"Also, note that we will be operating on a very confined communications
frequency. All of you are to switch over to the radios we are supplying.
Otherwise, we will be instituting a complete communications blackout.
ATC has already been informed, and as of this moment we are grounding
all flights from the airport and putting all inbound flights into a
holding pattern. When the operation is over, each of you will return
this equipment. I shouldn't need to explain why."

They were shutting down the entire airport and handing out what was
clearly some kind of secure communications gear?  Sure, it was pretty
standard procedure for a terrorist attack, but these two were so young,
barely older than children.  And yet, here they were, bringing down half
the city's law enforcement down on their heads like it was the end of
the world as they knew it.

What on Earth were these two kids?

- - -

New Chitose Airport

Fude adjusted his shirt as he leaned over to browse through the rest of
the manga stand, paying only a little attention to the twenty-something
woman to his left, leafing through one of the tankoubon on sale. It was
one of the larger bookstores in the airport, and with one flight after
another showing unexpected delays, a goodly number of men and women had
migrated from nearby gates and ticket booths to kill time reading a
magazine or graphic novel.

He quickly skimmed over the selection of manga before moving onto the
doujinshi section. Scratching the persistent stubble on his cheek, he
crossed his arms and inclined his head, looking for a few choice artists
and groups. Doujinshi had always appealed to him, even as an aspiring
young artist. He had even published a few books of his own, years ago.
There was just something about taking established characters and
surprising the readership with them; breaking the mould and branching
out!

But those years were behind him, now.

Drifting back a little closer to the large manga stands, he spotted a
piece that caught his eye. Reaching down to flip through a few pages,
Fude noticed a younger man crouched down, staring at the paperbacks with
mild confusion. He was probably just some college student and Fude went
back to the doujinshi in his hands. The artist had some skill. He double
checked the name on the cover.

"Huh," the young man grumbled, reaching for a book. Fude spared him a
glance and saw his brows scrunch up a bit. Definitely confused.

"Something wrong?" he felt inclined to at least ask. Maybe the young man
couldn't find what he was looking for?

"No. Maybe..." he stood back up, holding out a chapter of Beruseruku.
The latest volume, actually.

Fude wasn't a huge fan of it himself, but he knew it.

"Since when did Volume 31 come out?" he asked, checking a point about
half way into the book, as if to make sure it wasn't somehow mislabeled.
"I've, uh... I've been following it closely, back in the States. When
did all this come out?"

Fude shrugged. "Couple months ago, I think."

"This is really... really weird."

A second later, and the young man had some kind of strange cell phone in
his hand. It looked large and hexagonal, sort of like a stopwatch. Gold
and black trim clearly indicated a more modern design ascetic, however.
Fude quirked an eyebrow at the strange sight.

Then... he realized something.

"Do I know you?" he asked, leaning forward a bit and narrowing his eyes
a fraction.  He couldn't see the young man's face clearly, what with the
down turned baseball cap and sunglasses, but... "I'm certain I know your
voice from somewhere."

"Who, me?" the young man closed the manga volume and gave Fude a long
look. "I don't think so? But, I guess I have run into a lot of
people..."

The older man took a guess, and ran with it. "You wouldn't be... Hibiki-
san, would you?"

"Um..." The young man rubbed the back of his head nervously at the
formal address. "Yeah. Hibiki Ryouga, sir. I'm sorry, but I don't
remember..."

"Fude. Goto Fude." The older man bowed, and Ryouga followed a second
later. "We talked on the phone a few times. You don't remember?"

Ryouga shook his head.

"I sent you that scroll on behalf of the martial arts calligraphy
school?" he tried again, this time by being more precise. "The one on
ink manipulation and animation?"

"Ink manipulation?" the young man still seemed confused. "Why would...?"

"You are the same Hibiki-san who saw the mark of the gods performed,
yes?"

"Yes... that was me... unfortunately."

"You placed inquires with the main branch calligraphy school a few
months ago. I'm an affiliate of theirs," Fude explained, and still saw
only growing perplexity in the younger man's face. "You called about one
of the cursed painting styles. Something about an animated panda drawing
a friend of yours encountered? You said you needed to know how to bind
and animate ink. I'm an authority on the Sakai Style, among others. You
really don't remember?"

Ryouga stood there for a few seconds, shocked silent.

"Why would I...?" he paused clearly searching his memory. "That doesn't
make any sense. Where... do you know where those scrolls were sent?"

"Not exactly," Fude admitted. "I received special government postage and
send them that way. I'm certain it was you, though. I don't understand."

Ryouga shook his head.  "Look, I'm afraid this is some kind of crazy
coincidence.  I can guarantee you that I wouldn't sink down to
intentionally using Martial Arts Calligraphy for any reason.  I already
know the drawbacks of that style a little too well."

Fude muttered an apology, a bit confused himself. This had to be the
same man. He'd even admitted knowing about the Mark of the Gods,
something less than a handful of persons on Earth had knowledge of. It
just had to be him. Now, Fude was a little worried - those scrolls he'd
sent off were extremely valuable. He could scribe new ones himself, of
course, but it wouldn't do for loose information of that sort to
circulate randomly. The art of ink manipulation and animation was
potentially dangerous, both to the practitioner and the bystander. It
was an ancient art meant to entertain, but it could do great harm as
well.

He knew that all too well.

For years, he had obsessed with bringing his one perfect piece of art to
life. He'd dedicated years of occult study into obscure arts in the
pursuit of that dream. Finally, after spending five years learning
traditional martial arts calligraphy, he had been referred to Sakai-
sensei to apprentice in cursed artistry. It was a secret passed down the
line of that family for generations, and while Sakai-sensei's actual
artistic skills were questionable (that hideous panda being one of the
worst examples), he had been able to pass on the knowledge to his
student, having no children of his own.

It was a dangerous art, and Fude had been reluctant to share too many of
the secrets he had learned, even to another student of martial arts
calligraphy. The promise of a government sponsored grant, and a request
from the Office of the Prime Minister had helped to change his mind.
That had been months ago. If this was the same Ryouga Hibiki-san, then
where were his scrolls?

Or... was this just too public a place to discuss them?

That had to be it.

"I see..." he finally replied, and bowed in a quick apology. Walking
away, he noticed a young woman leaving the English-language section of
the book store to approach the young man he had just been talking to. An
American companion? Hibiki-san had mentioned spending time in the
States. Which... also didn't make sense. It had to be a cover story of
some sort.

Either way, he would have to place an inquiry to be sure.

- - -

Ryouga watched the strange man go, then shrugged.  Raven was already
coming back from the washroom, so they could go and see about those
tickets now.

"Heh, you just missed the weirdest thing, Raven."

The violet haired girl wore a puzzled expression to go with her floppy
hat and sundress.  "I don't think that I did ...  I was just browsing a
few magazine covers on my way back. Tell me, do you know if the Japanese
use a different calendar then they do in America?"

Well, that was a very odd question.  Ryouga frowned, scratching the back
of his head - incidentally missing the comforting feeling of his
bandanna, which Raven had yet to give back.

"You mean like how we used to be in the Showa Era and now we're in
Heisei? Why do you ask?"

She mulled over his response for a moment, before shaking her head.
"It's ... probably nothing.  Nothing we need to worry about at this
point, anyway, not until we get home to everyone else."  Raven paused
for a second. "So, what was your weird occurrence, then?"

"Hard to say," Ryouga admitted, "It was like a case of deja vu, or
mistaken identity, or something. Some total stranger mentioned something
about a chapter in my life I'd rather not remember."

"Oh, which one was that?  Getting cursed to turn into P-Chan?"

"No, not that one," Ryouga fumed.

"How about the bread feud?"

"No, not that either."

"The curse-proof soap debacle?"

"No."

"The Cave of Lost Love?"

"No!"

"The Koi Rod incident?"

"NO! Wait, how did you even hear about that!?"

"Oh, how about-"

"No!" Ryouga barked, infuriated at the smirk on the girl's face. "I'm
talking about the Mark of the Gods tattoo."

"You have a tattoo?" Raven asked, surprised.

With a sigh, Ryouga shook his head.  "Not anymore.  Still, that's not
important.  Look can we stop reminiscing about 'the good old days' and
just get out of here?  I forgot how many bad memories I have in this
country."

The girl at least had the decency to hide her smirk behind her hand
before patting him on the shoulder.  "Alright, alright.  Let's go see
how we actually go about buying an airline ticket.  It really is a shame
that neither of us have ever done this before ..."

- - -

"Duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdah!"

Cyborg slipped up onto the roof as silently as he could, before
immediately crouching down as low as possible.  He was decked out all in
black now, even having gone so far as getting himself a classic
burglar's mask!  He hadn't even thought those things were real, he
figured it was just some kind of cartoon gag or something.  Moving
carefully, he crept up to the staircase bunker, quickly darting over to
it and hiding in its shadow.

"Duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdah!"

He was trying his best to be Robin, to get in the munchkin's head. Using
an air conditioning unit for cover, he rolled from the spot to a stand
of large pipes whose function he wasn't exactly sure of. Slowly, but
surely, he made his way across the rooftop.  Now that he had the cover
of night on his side, he was so totally ninja-ing it up. Beast Boy would
die of envy if he knew he was missing out on this ultimate stealth
mission!

"Doodeloo doodeloo 'duhdun'!"

He knew that Robin totally hammed it up like this, too, when the rest of
them weren't around.  Not a doubt in his mind.  He could see why the
little guy enjoyed it so much, going all covert agent was pretty
awesome.  It was too bad that he was a superhero, or else he could be a
pretty badass spy.  He was like Bond and Inspector Gadget in one
bombastic package!

Finally, he reached his destination, perched on the ledge of the roof.
Well, almost his destination. His next destination, the majestic
Citicorp building was actually right across the street from him.  It was
still about a thirty-something story height to the top of the tower, so
really, the hard part lay ahead. The roof jumping and the like had
masked his approach to the building, though, and helped him get close to
attempt a climb without being spotted by people on the ground. Plus,
Ryouga was right; it was a lot more fun than people thought.

Hopefully, it was the perfect insertion point for a little 'after hours'
visitation.

Speaking of which, he switched over to infrared. He could only search
part of the side of the building, but there were still plenty of
artifacts moving around inside. It was long after business hours, so the
population inside had been cut drastically. Most of those left inside
would be guards and cleaning crews... probably. And some night owls, he
supposed. There was still that pesky helicopter floating around,
probably checking out the traffic or something, but he simply waited for
it to circle around again before lifting his arm up once more.

Finishing his scan, he found a corner of the building and took careful
aim. This was where things got tough. He had more than a hundred meters
to cover, all in one go. Regardless, a second later, his internal HUD
blinked as he achieved target lock.  He then turned and grabbed onto the
ledge below him, wrapping his fingers around the concrete protrusion
firmly. Then, turning his attention back to the task at hand ... he
fired.

With a loud 'Pfft!', his right hand fired through the air at tremendous
speed, dragging a high tensile cable behind it. It arched through the
air slowly, making a good impression of a grappling hook, flying across
the distance between his current building and One Court Square. A moment
before impacting the side of the building, the disembodied hand splayed
open and crashed into the glass siding. Actually getting a grip was
harder still, and the fingers slid down the sheer surface before finding
slight purchase on a metal beam and scaffolding that had been used
earlier to support window cleaning.

Testing the strength of the beam and finding it within tolerances,
Cyborg braced himself, took a deep breath, and jumped. With a quiet
whine, the motors in his arms whirred to life.  As his right arm drew
the line in, his left arm let line out, giving him an inverse zip line
ride up to the roof of the building without all the nasty noisiness of
swinging wildly in and smashing through the building's windows. It was
slow going, and he couldn't help but wonder if - in looking up - some
lucky idiot on the ground below might ruin the entire endeavor.

A handful of tense minutes later and Cyborg found himself hanging from
the scaffolding, a little more than half way up to his destination. Just
hanging there for a minute or two, he composed himself, and took aim
again. There were five steps or tiers before the top of the tower, and
his hand arched just over the side of the first one. It managed to grab
hold of some safety railing. Again, testing it, he found it safe enough
and began to climb, using the motors in his arms to slowly scale the
sheer side of the fifty story tower.

Finally reaching the first tier, he paused to look back at the view he
now had, looking out over the city. This was the only really tall
building outside the city's islands - Manhattan it was called - and he
could literally see for miles in every direction. A brief glance down
brought a smile to his face.

Damn, but he was good!

The next couple tiers were all only a few stories high, but he had to
ascend each one individually. Having railing on every roof was a real
boon, though, and by the time he got to the top, he'd managed to make a
quick turnaround of every attempt. Clambering over the last set of
railing onto the roof proper, he performed a quick scan.  There were
cameras present, as he expected ... though a few more than he had been
expecting.  This world sure was paranoid, he had to say.  Heavy
security, random police stake outs, bathroom stalls that required a
quarter to use ... It was madness!

Still, like most of the tech he'd seen so far, it was pretty outdated.
Heck, it was still using actual wire hook ups, as opposed to wireless
relays.  It didn't take him long to follow the wires back to where they
traveled down into the building.  A quick extrapolation with his
internal computer gave him a decent idea of the vision angles of the
cameras.

Scurrying around the ledge, he made his way to the nearest cluster of
wires, making sure to duck under a camera here and there along the way.
Then, with a quick application of his cutting torch, he cut through the
roof to expose the wire housing and then carefully pulled that open. It
didn't take him too long to tap into the feed.  Soon, everything that
the cameras saw was routed directly to his brain.  It was a good thing
he was half mechanical, or a half a dozen points of view would have been
pretty disorienting.  Opening his skull, he pulled out another
transmitter, like the one he'd used on the phone awhile back.

Hooking this one into the video feeds, he quickly did a quick reroute,
so that instead of just viewing the video feed while it transmitted to
the security office, the information was actually fed 'through' his
brain before going down.  All he had to do after that, was record a few
minutes of data, keep the time code a rolling along with a little movie
magic and ... 'bam'!  Instant Hudson Hawk action!

Smirking triumphantly to himself, he quietly slipped over the ledge of
the roof and made his way to the massive Satellite/Transmission station
that sat, tauntingly, at the center of the roof.  Wringing his hands
together a bit worryingly, he could barely contain his excitement.

"Ohhh yeah, baby, you know I like em big."

- - -

Their mystery man was many things, but a career criminal he was not.

The man acted more like James Bond or one of the Ocean's Eleven (or was
that Twelve or Thirteen by this point?). Scaling the side of the
building like that was crazy, and pretty clever, but it wasn't as if
they weren't watching the buildings and exterior of One Court Square.
Fooling cameras was one thing, but the Mark One Eyeball was altogether a
different story. Not when people were actively on stakeout.

They'd then tracked him from a distance using ground spotters until he
cleared the first tier of the tower. As expected, he'd then proceeded to
the top where he started fiddling with the security cameras, savvy
enough not to set off the silent anti-tampering alarms from jacking and
exposing wiring. It was just more evidence for them to use in the
arrest. The DA would have a field day with this guy by the time they
were done letting him incriminate himself.

It was just as expected, given this perp's operational style before.

More worrying was that this guy had made the climb in the first place,
supposedly using some sort of grappling device. Their actual Intel on
him was pretty poor. Officer Christianson double-checked her nine
millimeter and tried to take some solace in the Kevlar vest she'd thrown
on. SWAT technical had already cut the feeds they'd be using to get up
to the roof, and any minute now, they could cut power to everything up
top except the emergency lighting. God knows it wouldn't help to have a
plane crash there to round out the night's activities, all due to a lack
of lighting.

The SWAT sergeant leading the tactical takedown of the operation gave a
signal to the men behind him. It was go time! The lights dimmed, except
for the helmet flashlights, and Christianson felt her heart beat hard
with a rush of adrenalin. The group rushed up the stairs, kicked down
the roof door, and met the light of the police helicopter as it came in,
spotlight on full.

"Freeze! NYPD! Hands in the air! Knees on the ground!" one of the SWAT
yelled as they quickly fanned out around the perp. His Banelli 'super
90' trained on the linebacker sized man trapped on the roof.

"Get down!" she added her voice to the chorus. NYC cops had a
reputation, and she hoped it would help convince the perp in this case
not to make a fight of it. "Down on the ground NOW!"

- - -

Cyborg cursed loudly as the uniformed officers came pouring out onto the
roof and surrounded him.  He'd barely even had a chance to crack the
case on the transmitter, let alone get any actual work done.  There was
no way that he was gonna get a message off at this point.

Sighing to himself, he turned around to regard the police behind him.
They certainly did seem to have a lot of guns aimed at him, and looked
to be pretty perturbed by the situation. What: did they not deal with
people trying to hijack satellite networks that often or something?

"I - uh ... don't suppose that you'll believe me when I say 'This isn't
what it looks like'?"

"Down on the floor!" one of them tried to push him down, but of course
with his knees locked in the upright posture, the fellow may as well
have been trying to tip a car over.

Not exactly in the mood to spend the night in prison - not to mention
the rest of his life for that matter, he turned to regard the officer to
his side and smirked.

"If you insist."  And then he dropped to his knees - hard.  Instantly,
the concrete beneath his knees cracked and buckled loudly, and a single,
rapid jab finished the job, shattering the ground under him and dropping
him down to the next floor.  His next landing was even harder, and he
barely even needed the extra help to smash through that floor as well.

After he'd dropped down to the next floor, he picked himself up out of
the shallow crater, smiled madly to himself and tore off to the nearest
staircase.  Even as he booted the door down and began his rapid descent,
he could already hear people coming down the stairs, still a story or
two above him. Taking another page from Robin's books, he simply leapt
over the railing and dropped down the stairwell - after leaving his hand
latched to the guard rail and a tether trailing wildly behind him. Ten
stories in as many seconds and the line pulled taught, and he was
launched to the side, smashing through another door and coming popping
out into an office on floor 30-something or other.

He'd made good time, but he needed to do better.  Instead of heading
back into the stairwell, he charged over to the elevator bank.  Of
course, it wasn't working, but he pulled the door open easily and simply
grabbed onto the cables at the center of the shaft. Sparks flew
everywhere as he slid downwards at breakneck speed and he dropped down
another twenty stories before he stopped and burst back out of the
elevator shaft.

He didn't want to go to the ground floor, if there were cops up here,
there would obviously be more downstairs and outside the building.
Taking a moment to analyze his situation ... he looked out the large
back of windows. Slowly, a wide grin began to grow on his face.  The
very same building he had used as an insertion point to get to this
building was standing proudly though the large bay of windows before
him.

- - -

"...I mean we lost him! Went right through the ground!" Fielding was
already yelling into the radio strapped to his tactical vest. "The
bastard's tearing through the building as we speak!"

"If he gets out..." his partner warned, stepping over to the edge of the
roof. Only for her eyes to widen in shock as an explosion of glass some
thirty stories down heralded a black comet soaring from the building
trailing a lengthy tail of shattered debris and white smoke!

She could only stare in wide eyed wonder as the criminal seemed to float
through the air, arms flailing for balance.  It was almost surreal, the
world slowing down around her as her brain tried to process the
impossible feat of someone 'leaping' from one sky scraper to another...

And - and what were those flashes of blue light coming from the perp's
feet?

Still, regardless of the utter disdain for gravity that the escapee was
showing, he eventually began to fall victim to its clutches once more.
It looked like he was going to fall short by at least twenty meters, and
it was a looooong way down, when suddenly he was swinging forward again,
following a sharp arc. Clearly, he must have used his odd grappling
device again! They'd been up close with him just seconds before, and
she'd gotten a fairly good look at him as they started to pat him down.

There was no way he had some kind of hidden grappling hook. It had to
be...!

The perp's arc carried him right into the face of the adjacent building.
He might as well have been a human wrecking ball for the amount of
damage he did to the building face as he smashed through the wall of
glass and steel and disappeared into the depths of the office building.

"We'll need a full APB," Fielding growled, having also witnessed the
spectacle. "Every available unit. He's on foot, but..."

"He's an almost full-body reconstruct. No human could do that."

"You sure?"

"You saw the size of him! He punched through the floor! Look at that!"
She gestured down to the buildings below. "You tell me if you've ever
seen something like that?"

Fielding's frown deepened, and he turned around to head back down.

"Come on," he said, and the two headed back inside.

- - -

Mousse adjusted his dark glasses with the tip of his middle finger.

The two targets were approaching one of the automated teller machines
for All Nippon Airways. He could hear their back and forth banter, even
from the other side of the terminal, thanks to strategically positioned
laser microphones. They appeared to have no idea anyone was after them.
Stranger still - much stranger - was how casual the two were. They were
acting... like people.

Was the girl a dupe?

The Ryouga clone was obviously another damned alien Doppleganger.
Fortunately, this one wasn't spewing malevolent ki all over the airport,
at least at the moment, but it was clearly another vile copy. The
explosion yesterday may have been a trial run, or maybe a result of a
technique going off wrong, or activating prematurely. Maybe he and this
girl were supposed to combine techniques somehow... like a psionic boost
to a breaking point? And the result was unstable? It would be nice to
give the girl at least the benefit of the doubt, but it was just too
risky. Her sudden appearance, lack of any ID in any country, and unusual
appearance... it was too much.

They'd have to take her down quickly, but hopefully gently, just in
case.

'Damn! If only we'd been able to stake them out for a while... as it is,
we can't even risk using a mind probe without tipping them off.'

They'd have to distract it and hit hard to make sure none of the civvies
got involved. It wasn't ideal to begin with. They'd been too slow on the
intercept, and the two had spent all morning hanging around populated
areas. Any attempt to draw them off into a better, more isolated ambush
site was also likely to set off the Doppleganger's sakkijutsu, and send
it on a rampage. To say nothing of how dubious it was to trick a
psychic. APS believed they could evac the terminal in twenty four
seconds. Mousse hoped they could do better, since by the look of things,
business was about to pick up.

Mousse leaned casually against a pillar, watching, listening.

"So we'll need a connection flight? Are you sure?"

"That's what it looks like. There don't seem to be any flights to Jump
City, though."

"Let me see..."

"Go ahead. Nothing. They even have flights to Seattle and Oakland, but
not Jump."

"What about LA? We could take a train from there?"

Mousse crept a little closer, well aware of the distance between himself
and the pair. Ryouga's sakkijutsu was most sensitive within a radius of
twenty four meters. Outside that, Mousse was confident he could stay in
sight but undetected by the martial artist's sixth sense. It helped that
he was reining in his aura and fighting intent. It was exactly why he
was here. Ryu had poor control over his murderous fighting intent, and
Kuno was simply too impetuous.

Still: there was something odd about the two of them.

Why would they be trying to leave the country? Surely, this Ryouga was a
terror agent of some sort, considering his explosive demonstration
earlier.  But its actions after the incident didn't make any sense at
all.  After the initial attack, it had immediately gone to ground,
trying its best to blend in and hide from view, as opposed to say, going
on a murderous rampage across the city.  Hell, it had only be a string
of lucky breaks with a few random security cameras across the city that
had let them find the duo again after they had changed outfits.

Which only confused him more.  After going to all of the trouble to stay
out of view, why had they come straight here?  The aliens knew that
UNETCO and Echelon monitored public places like this. Was it planning to
set up an in-flight attack?  Maybe blow up an entire 747 right over the
city, or something extreme like that.  This double obviously had the
fire power to do so, easily, judging from the earlier destruction.

"Snipers in position, sir," a voice spoke into Mousse's ear.

"I'm sending in Blue," this speaker was Nabiki. Mousse tensed. "Lockdown
in 30 seconds. Hold positions, Red. Remember. Alive and unharmed, if
possible."

It was starting.

Mousse smirked, slowly stepping out of hiding. He was the vanguard, and
that meant he had first strike. Discretely, he clicked the base of one
of his suit's cufflinks with his middle finger. A hidden mechanism
activated with a soft click. Along a balcony overlooking the terminal,
pairs of officers took up positions. The crowd continued to mill about.
Only a few noted the increased police presence, muttering and pointing.

"Suppression device... active..." Nabiki paused a second. "Now. Go."

With an audible whine, the lights dimmed.

Across the crowd, cell phones abruptly shut down. Digital cameras lost
power. Sensitive electronics across the spectrum were jammed. It was
alien derived technology at its finest, just skirting the Section Seven
restriction. A red light flashed, and a hushed panicked silence engulfed
the terminal for all of a second.

"This is an emergency evacuation notice!" an announcement shattered the
tension before it could erupt into screams and chaos. "Please follow
security personnel and uniformed officers to designated safe areas."

"Nobody panic!" "This way!" "Move it!"

The officers and airport security were already in the crowd - many
plainclothes officers just now donning security hats and holding badges
up in the air. Mouse ignored them. Green and the others would handle the
civvies. This was no worse than the trouble they'd raised back when
India had retrieved Kodachi. In fact, as he stalked closer, he was
getting the same vibe now as then.

The two targets seemed agitated, but not afraid. They were looking
around, probably for... what? They had to know they'd been caught.
Either way, it was too late. There was nowhere to run; nowhere to hide.
They wouldn't have time to hit the civvies. Mousse smirked.

And held out his hands.

- - -

Raven turned to Ryouga.  "An emergency evacuation?"

Ryouga shrugged.  "Who knows?  Still, we should do what they said.  We
don't want to get in the way of whatever is going on."

The dark Titan nodded quickly.  "You're right.  We can't afford to draw
attention to ourselves by helping out.  Let's just move with the crowd."

That in mind, Ryouga gently dropped a hand on her shoulder, making sure
that he wouldn't get separated as they moved to the crowd of people.
There were only a few others around, and most of those people were
already hustling towards one of the officers. Forgetting the machine for
now, they turned to follow...

It was a split second later, the moment after they turned their backs,
that the lost boy felt a spike of killing intent. No: not quite killing,
but definitely provocative. It was from the very outermost edge of what
he knew his sixth sense to operate at. Engrained instinct kicked in, and
he grabbed Raven around the waist and jumped. Simply jumped.

Below, something almost invisible jammed into the ground.

The intent shifted, and still holding the stunned but unresisting Raven
in his arms, he twisted to shield her from the brunt of whatever was
bearing down on them. The initial attack had been a ruse. He realized it
the moment he acted. They should have gone into the crowd, not over it,
where he'd just made them a sitting - flying - duck. Then again, using
the crowd as cover wasn't exactly something either of them would have
done, anyway.

Suddenly, a spray of tiny objects descended on them, trailing barely
visible wires. In a heartbeat, Ryouga counted at least sixty, homing in
on them from a half sphere. In that same split second, as the world
slowed, he saw the source of the attack: a man in a black suit, his arms
up and pointing in their direction. The sleeves of his suit jacket were
clearly shredded.

Ryouga frantically tried to come up with an escape from the all
encompassing attack-

When, without warning, a translucent black sphere sprang up around them.
The numerous little tazer needles bounced off of the impenetrable
barrier with sharp 'tings' before dropping harmlessly to the ground.
Ryouga looked to the girl that was now standing beside him, feet planted
firmly on the bottom of the bubble.  Rather than stare back at him, her
vision was firmly set elsewhere.

Even as they floated in the air, Raven glared darkly at the man who had
just attacked them.

"It's ... Mousse," she growled in a low voice.

Ryouga's eyes widened.  She - she was right!  He was surprised she'd
recognized him first.  "Mousse?  What the hell is he doing attacking us?
Shouldn't duck boy be on the Justice League Watchtower?"

- - -

Down on the ground, Mousse stared gob smacked at the black sphere that
enveloped the two targets. His mind raced. The others monitoring the
fight would see it, too, but he was the closest on hand. They were
relying on him, not only to flush the targets out, but to test for any
strange new abilities. India Squad would not get caught in another
'Indiscriminate Blindness' attack like before.

His arms lowered to his sides.

"Telekinetic barrier," he said, speaking to the rest of the 'special
operations' squad. "The girl. Her hands are glowing."

"Upgrading her to alpha level threat," Nabiki quickly replied. "Engage
as appropriate, Mousse."

A grin grew on his face, revealing perfect white teeth.

"Good. Just the way I like it! Don't worry, I'll be gentle." Splaying
his fingers wide, Mousse's suit's sleeves continued to tear, this time
as chains ripped free of the material. He started to run, passing by the
once dense crowd as it fled in the opposite direction. Flinging his
right hand forward, the chains leapt like segmented snakes towards the
black bubble in the air.

It took only a second for the first to hit.

...

Instead of bouncing cleanly off, the end of the chains snapped, and
something round and disk-like adhered to the shield.  From within, it
looked less than encouraging. They looked like small, pancake shaped
bombs. Four more chains swing in to tag the black barrier.

"Raven, be careful!" Ryouga barked.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt him ... too much," Raven replied with a dark
smirk. Ryouga could guess just from her tone of voice that she had been
waiting a long time for a proper rematch with the half blind martial
artist. After all, she had been denied before, what with duck-boy's
abrupt about-face after he broke free from the Headmaster's control.

As soon as the chains began to slacken, but before the explosives had a
chance to detonate, Raven quickly drew her shield into a small orb
before her, sucking all the bombs into it, and fired it straight back at
the sleeveless martial artist at surprising speed.  A moment later,
Ryouga caught her as they landed on the ground, and the pair of them
dropped into fighting stances, preparing for whatever else might happen.

But to their mutual surprise, the ball o' bombs stopped at Mousse's
feet, completely inert.

"That shield thing. It's a nice trick," Mousse admitted, taking the time
to adjust his glasses.

"Mousse!" Ryouga yelled. "What the hell are you...?"

"FREEZE!"

The loud cry did just that: even Ryouga froze at the sound, as it
momentarily induced an instant paralysis. A moment later, and something
slammed into his back, sending him crashing into a teller machine and
then back, even further, into a wall. From the force alone he could tell
it hadn't been the blind male Amazon. Mousse just didn't pack quite that
much power.

Rolling onto his feet and backhanding a slab of concrete, he saw another
man, this one in white and gray combat fatigues, stepping through the
hole he'd just made in the wall with Ryouga's body. He looked to be
about the lost boy's age and build, but slightly glossier hair and a
long white bandanna.

"Don't worry, Lieutenant," he said, clearly talking into some sort of
concealed radio. "I'll take care of this."

Dusting off his shirt, Ryouga frowned at the new comer. He didn't
recognize him, but he was obviously a martial artist of some sort or
another.

"You'll take care of what?"  He then called over the man's shoulder.
"Raven, are you alright?  These two aren't playing around!"

He could see her through the hole, but she met his concerned look with a
confident glance.  "Don't worry, I have Mousse under control.  You just
deal with Ryu.  Try not to hurt him too much, though, Ranma will likely
be furious if you maim his subordinate."

Ryouga started at that.  Ah, that explained it all!  Ranma was a cop,
and apparently one of the wandering martial artists that had tried to
kill him before had joined him.  Now it made perfect sense!  The
evacuation had been because of them.  These guys thought they were
terrorists, and were here to stop them from escaping the country.

Ryouga nearly slapped himself upside the head.

'Crap, we didn't do nearly as good a job of laying low as I'd hoped.
There's no way this is going to end well.'

A moment later, he fired an apologetic grimace at Ryu.  "I'm sorry about
all of this.  Unfortunately, there's no way that you'll believe me when
I tell you that this isn't what it looks like, but I can't let you stop
us now."  He couldn't help himself, though, as he felt a vindictive grin
slide on to his lips.  "Considering that hit of yours felt like getting
kicked by a baby, at least this will be over quick."

Ryu cracked his knuckles. "You're still using that old line?"

- - -

While the two bruisers went at it, Mousse watched his opponent: cute
girl that she was.

Not as cute as Shampoo, of course, not nearly, but still.

"Raven," he said, slowly, having heard her name used even before the
fight. Strange name, even for an American. The girl must've had peculiar
parents. Hippies. "I have authorization to use deadly force against
you," he continued. "I don't know what that thing back there has on you,
but it isn't too late to give up and turn yourself in. I will only ask
once."

Raven's eyes narrowed at the man's words.  "Deadly force?  What is this
about, Mousse?  You're being ridiculous.  We're not terrorists, we're
your friends."  Not lowering her guard for a second, she dropped a fist
onto her hip.  "Look, just call Ranma.  Unlike you, he's not a
psychopath most of the time, and we'll be able to sort this out."

Rather than reply, the Chinese weapons master held out his arms.

With one great tearing sound, like heaving a rug ripped in half, his
black suit very nearly exploded outward. Scraps of cloth fell to the
floor around his feet. In place of the black suit was a white robe,
incomprehensibly concealed beneath the jacket. Of course, he would dress
in layers.

Tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robes, when they parted, his
right hand slowly withdrew what looked to be a wooden staff. Impossibly
to a more mundane observer, the weapon just kept going on and on as he
pulled it out of the dark sleeve. By the time the pointed spear tip
appeared, the blind martial artist had somehow withdrawn at least five
feet of wood and steel from a foot and a half of fabric.

"I have really have the patience for pre-fight banter." He leveled the
spear at her. "I have my orders, and I will carry them out to the
letter. If you think you know me, then you are obviously in league with
the enemy: another brainwashed pawn. In which case...!"

He rushed at her.

...

A black shield sprang up between them. Raven had done this dance before.
Mousse wouldn't be able to punch through her barriers, so he'd try and
distract or misdirect her, or use the terrain to his advantage. Whatever
he was talking about - it made no sense - they'd have to sort it out
later. The tip of his spear crashed into the black barrier, head on.

Only to wrench away at the last instant as the staff broke apart.

Raven gritted her teeth, bending the barrier around to chase the
weapon's new heading. The black oval warped and stretched, racing the
metal point nearly faster than the eye could follow. Raven almost,
almost, let it distract her. Jumping to the side, she barely avoided a
weighted chain that flew in from a blind spot behind and overhead.
Violet eyes shot back and forth, catching a flash of white.

Uprooting a section of tiled floor, she prepared to throw it...

Too late. He was inside and nearly at melee range already. Another black
shield sprang up, just in time to intercept the three claws of some kind
of bladed glove. The tips came to an abrupt halt just inches from her
nose, scratching across the surface of the black barrier. On the other
side, Mousse regarded her with a neutral expression.

Raven met his neutral expression with a bland expression of her own.

"Bored now."

He realized his mistake too late.  Instantly, black energy ran down the
claws seeking to ensnare his hand. A hidden latch ejected the weapon
from the glove, and the martial artist skipped back a step, only to
freeze. Masked among the black and white tiles that made up the floor,
Raven's black energy quickly ran up his leg and across his body,
cocooning him in less than a second.  Snapping his arms and legs tightly
to his side, and eliciting a pained grunt as she added pressure beyond
what was strictly necessary, she then pushed him back several yards to
hang in the air.

"Listen, Mousse.  The only one with a penchant for being a mind
controlled minion here is you.  As you can see, I could easily destroy
you if I wanted, but I choose not to.  Tell me, which one of us comes
across as the evil one when you're the one willing to kill and I am
not?"

Still, she did not lower her guard, making sure to scan her surroundings
out of the corner of her eyes in case he had any more companions.  Maybe
Ranma was already here?  If he was, though, was that a good thing?
Mousse was acting insane ... maybe something sinister had happened to
Ranma and all of his friends since last she spoke to him?

The sound of an explosion, from above, drew her eyes up.

Of course. His chains...! He hadn't just hit her shield with them. He'd
hit the floor, the ceiling, the walls... and if they didn't explode when
she tossed them back at him, then he could probably control whether they
went off or not. As sections of ceiling crashed down, she quickly
generated more black energy to protect herself, but it did cause her
concentration to slip and she felt him slip out of her black cocoon.

"Those are some interesting abilities," she heard him comment, from
somewhere among the rubble and dust falling all around them. "But it
doesn't pay to count me out."

She spun towards the sound of the voice, erecting a shield.

Only to realize her mistake, and switch her defense back in the opposite
direction. This opponent would never attack from an obvious angle, not
when he knew she could block what he hit her with. A flurry of bladed
knives rammed into the black shield. Stepping back, she narrowed her
eyes in suspicion. Was that it?

It was then that her eyes began to burn.

'Tear gas!' she realized, pulling together another spherical bubble.

It was too late. The stuff was already inside. Though the black tinted
barrier she could just see a shadow emerging from the smoke.  It burned,
but rather than fight to keep her eyes open, she closed them straight
away, trying to force tears to clear out the stinging gas.

"That shield of yours is annoying," Mousse's voice was slightly muffled,
likely wearing a mask of some sort.  "Don't worry, it's just tear gas. I
wouldn't use anything really dangerous in a public place like this."

Through the stinging pain, Raven smirked.  He thought he had
incapacitated her; that she was blind and helpless. She would think that
he, of all people, would realize the folly in assuming his opponent
would rely solely on their eyes. She made no move to dissuade him of his
confidence, though, continuing to rub her swollen eyes and spin around
uncertainly. Her nose and mouth burned, too, but she pushed past the
pain and irritation.

With her eyes closed, and absolute darkness surrounding her ... Raven's
vision began to fill with color.  With practiced ease, the chi inherent
in all things began to glow all around her, painting a vivid, if
somewhat abstract painting of the world.  Swirling currents and eddies
of energy, flowing to and fro combined together to form the familiar
figure of Mousse behind her.  She could sense his confidence, and the
ease with which he moved.  She didn't even turn to face him as he
extended an arm, and gradually, a long baton the length of her leg
extended from the sleeve while the other produced a flanged mace the
size of her body.

Mousse handled the weapons with ease and raced towards her. His intent
and energy came together, informing her exactly what his move would be
... though, in this case it was hardly necessary.

Hiding her pained grin, she braced for the impact, and when it came, she
let the integrity of the bubble waver to feed his confidence.  After one
more titanic pounding, she jumped forward, ripping up sections of floor
to hurl at her assailant to gain some space.  Even without her sight,
she 'saw' Mousse leap high into the air above her, arms held up high.
He then swung his arms forward savagely.

A flurry of knives fell, this time all around her, rather than at her.

"White Feather Trap!" Mousse yelled, pulling back one hand as he landed
nearby. "Got you!"

Instantly, the fine wires began to snap in around her.  Even with the
forewarning, it was too fast for her to avoid; she was only able to form
a shield to protect herself, though this one she discretely formed as a
nearly skin tight layer beneath the sundress she wore, from the high
collar down to the hem of the dress. It was a true testament to how far
she had come with her powers; she hardly ever even needed to utter her
keywords anymore. A half second later, the wires pulled taught around
her, catching her arms and binding them to her chest, a loop even
wrapped around her throat, thankfully coming to rest over her protective
barrier.

"This is actually memory metal razor wire," Mousse explained, still
holding one hand clenched into a fist. "I can make it sharp or keep it
dull, and if I flex it just so, you can probably guess what this
technique does to a human body..."

"Ugh!" Raven gritted her teeth. "You - you wouldn't do something so
dastardly to a helpless girl, would you?"

She couldn't quite get a mental grip on him, himself, but the inanimate
wire was fair game. With the strands already glowing faintly to her
mind's eye, and with her excruciating practice working with Terra -
these wires might as well have been bridges compared to the mono
filament probes which had assimilated into the unfortunate girl's skin -
she traced her power back along the wires.

"Helpless girl, yeah, right. Now, surrender yourself or I'll... what
the...?" Mousse's hand twitched, and a faint black outline started to
color the nearly invisible strands of wire. "Oh? I see."

Finally, his battle aura flared up: a pale, pale blue.

Raven could feel it, amazingly fighting against her hold on the wire.
She hadn't expected that, and, frankly, wasn't interested in testing the
limits of this unusual new power he was displaying.  His power was only
extending a few inches from his hands, after all, while her power
encompassed several yards of the wire.  So, rather than struggle to
control those last several inches, she simply pulled back with unearthly
force.

...

Loud 'twangs' like the snapping of piano wire filled the air as the
numerous wires were severed by her power.  An instant later, the wires
rose up at her bidding, like an entire nest of hissing serpents.  A
second later, those razor sharp serpents surged forward, intent on
entrapping the very person that had been their master instants before.
Mousse's right arm blurred as he struggled to catch some of the stray
wires, wrapping them around his arm in his haste. The razor wire snapped
taunt, but couldn't cut through the reinforced material of the hidden
weapons' master's robe.

'Ugh. Maybe I should've used the Black Feather trap instead of the
White. What kind of weird power does this girl have?'

What few realized, even in their small martial arts clique, was that he
had the third strongest defense of anyone in the two squads. The lost
boy's nigh-indestructible hide was hard to top, especially these days,
and Ukyou's new spatula techniques were impressive, but few realized
that Mousse's Junyoken (Wandering/Peregrine Falcon Fist) was both a
passive defense and offense. Shifting the coils of alien alloy within
his robes was well within his means, allowing him to block near any
attack.

'Still, a telekinetic of this caliber..!' he watched the girl, cloaked
in black energy, as she effortlessly began to lift him into the air with
the wires. She very much resembled an Ethereal.

Suddenly, his eyes widened. 'An Ethereal. Could it be...?!'

The aliens had already used Jyusenkyou to turn Sectoids into humans for
infiltration. Then...!!

"So that's what you are!" he snarled, bearing his teeth as he unleashed
the full force of his battle aura. "DIE!!"