Heeelllloooo~!! Greetings to all you people out there in fanfic land. I am your
host for this exciting episode! That's right, the sexiest woman you'll never get
to sleep with, Angel! *wink*

Aside from being hot and awesome, I was also a major character last chapter. You
may remember my tragic story... (cue violins) Orphaned at a young age by the
dreaded monsters of Chronos, I was saved by Chris, who then gave me the chance
to travel with him while I tried to repay him and make a difference. To this
end, I was shuttled around the world, (almost) never able to stay in one place
long enough to have friends, always learning new martial arts styles and the art
of fighting. Then, he revealed to me his plan to create the Perfect Possible
Future (tm, all rights reserved) and I became his real ally! Now, I... uh...
well, kill people for him, mainly.

But last chapter I didn't have to do that! Instead, I met this nice girl named
Akira. She's a martial artist like me and we met in Stockholm where she was
looking for this really hedonistic guy named Zoicite. Turns out Zoicite knew
something big and secret about Akira's old friend who had vanished seven years
ago.

After, we met this crazy bitch called Cologne and her four lolicon commandos and
she beat up Akira and then tried to capture me to get at Chris. Turns out she's
really this old bag who got de-aged when she joined up with Chronos and wants
to get back at Chris for murdering her granddaughter. Which is kinda sad, but...
he's the only hope for the future, so I kinda had to give her the slip, and also
saved Akira in the process.

So, following my orders, I tagged along on Akira's quest, helping her intimidate
Zoicite (who, despite being evil, has great taste in beefcake) and then we set
off to learn more about Ukyou. Akira and I are kinda becoming friends, though
between you and me, she's a bit butch and gloomy. Maybe I should
introduce her to Remy, he has a way with women, ya know. Anyway, we never got
all the way to the place we were going, because we were attacked in Russia by...

DUM DUM DUM

Ukyou! Or, as it turns out, this assassin named Lotus Infinite that just happens
to be Ukyou, minus all the things like memories and morals and desire not to
kill her friend (and her friend's hot Mexican companions). Worse part was that
Lotus Infinite had the ability to walk through walls (well, so do I, but I leave
holes) and had this weapon that could annihilate anything it touched, so we were
in bad straits.

Then this crazy German vampire chick shows up and starts attacking us with
thousands of bullets at once, all of which she can control... with the power of
her mind! Geez, and this is the world I live in. Sounds like something out of a
bad pulp novel. Anyway... crazy German vampire chick wasn't that interested in
us, so her and Lotus Infinite had a throwdown that sorta ended in a tie and we
escaped.

So, yay us?

But now Akira is pissed, because it turns out that Nabiki (telepathic queen of
the underworld) originally sent her on this mission as a trap so she's gonna
make Nabiki pay, or something.

Oh, and Nabiki also has a sister named Akane. Turns out Akane used to be one of
Chris' friends before I met him and she turned her back on him seven years ago.
Now she runs the Japanese resistance to Chronos, and is hunted by their most
powerful zoalord, Reichmann Gyro. Scary!

So that's all my time for today, fanboys and girls. Remember to keep reading,
because there's the possibility of hawt lesbian luvluv!

Or not. But hey, whatever moves product!



                              C&A Productions Presents

                          A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion


                                   Hybrid Theory


                             Chapter 23: From The Inside



	"IS IT FINALLY HAPPENING?"
	That's what the newspaper said, in large block letters at the very top
of the page. The same refrain, or something close to it, was being said by every
other paper in Hong Kong. Probably every other paper in the entire world.
	"Zoalords Waferdanos and Khan chased the Millennium agent out of Moscow
but only at the cost of thousands of lives and property damage estimated in the
billions. In response to the unprovoked attack Zoalord Khan retaliated against
the Millennium garrison not far from the city..."
	Nabiki crumbled the paper in her hands, making a small annoyed sound.
The last thing the world needed now was open warfare between the Major and
Chronos. Why couldn't the peace have lasted? For seven years the two powers had
been at detente. Certainly the Major unleashed the occasional horror on Chronos,
but it wasn't like Chronos didn't retaliate with its own abominations. If you
drove two hours out of Hong Kong you ended up in the middle of a place that was
a warzone in everything but name. Until now, they'd been more than content to
snipe at each other from the shadows.
	So why now?
	Then Nabiki chuckled.
	Of course.
	"Heh. So I guess she found you after all..." she whispered. The door to
the elevator opened with a pleasant chime. Yun adjusted his cap and glanced at
her as his brother stepped out into the hallway to make certain it was clear.
Nabiki knew that it really wasn't necessary. She would have sensed any intruders
long before the boys would. But she let them have their illusions. It made them
think they were important and helping her instead of being a drain on her
resources.
	She actually found it kind of endearing.
	"What's your problem today?" Yun asked directly. Nabiki smiled a bit at
him. He really did remind her of Ranma, right down to the same direct manner.
	"Nothing." Nabiki took a step forward and paused. "Listen, why don't the
two of you take the morning off?"
	"What's up?" Yang asked, his enormous bangs preceding him into the
elevator.
	"Nabiki's tryin' to get rid of us," Yun pointed out dryly. Yang frowned
at her. Nabiki frowned right back.
	"If you two don't want to take the offer, I could make it an order."
	Yang's frown only deepened. Then he sighed and stepped aside to let her
out into the hallway. "We don't make very good bodyguards if you never let us do
our job."
	"If it'll make you feel better, there's some death cultists in Kowloon.
You could always go beat them up."
	Yun's face immediately brightened and he looked at his brother
imploringly. Yang sighed and shrugged. A moment later the door slid closed and
Nabiki allowed her frown to return. She walked the short distance to the door to
her office. Her hand rested on the expensive wood.
	She could feel it inside. Not a mind. Nothing nearly so complex. It was
more like an instinct. No more of a brain than an insect, really. But the power
of it was far beyond what any normal insect could have created. Nabiki's fingers
curled into a fist and she felt her lips peel away from her teeth. She rested
her knuckles on the wood for a moment longer, drawing up the courage to walk
inside.
	When she finally did, there was no hint of frustration on her features.
She barely even gave her guest a second glance as she walked towards the desk
and calmly placed the paper on the polished black opal surface.
	"And a good morning to you as well, Nabiki Tendo," her guest said with
obvious irony. Nabiki glanced over her shoulder. Her guest was lounging on one
of the couches scattered about the room, her feet jauntily perched on a table.
In her hand was a cup of water which she sipped while Nabiki turned fully to
face her. Nabiki decided to get this over with and turned around, leaning back
and placing her hands on the table. The sword hung neatly at her side as she
brought her full attention to her guest. "I won't even hazard a guess as to how
much that thing cost," the woman said, indicating the desk with a nod of her
head.
	"You know I don't like to talk to puppets," Nabiki informed Link. The
thing in front of her didn't really smile. Its face was human, but not really
well suited to smiling. Nabiki sometimes wondered if that was a design flaw or a
feature that Link had implemented. "What does Chris want this time?"
	The thing on the couch sipped her water again before responding. "Well
that's the thing, isn't it? I guess you could say this is more a matter of what
Chris didn't get than what Chris wanted."
	"You've been spending too much time with him. Get to the point."
	"Oh Nabiki, you misunderstand. I'm not trying to pretentiously sound
intelligent. I'm merely savouring this moment." She took another sip of her
water, that not quite smile on her face again.
	Nabiki resisted the urge to hit the thing with the telepathic equivalent
of a roundhouse punch. It's not like it would have done any good anyway.
Certainly it might have snapped the tiny little brain of the doppleganger like a
twig, but the real Link would not be fazed in the slightest. Nabiki felt the
mental frequency of the thing shift again. Four times so far. Link was being
more cautious than normal. Usually she felt content to allow a single
transmitter to carry her mental commands to her puppet-bodies for a little
longer. Nabiki had, however, long since given up on trying to trace back the
signal.
	"Well, when you're finished savouring, let me know. I have important
work to do." Nabiki slid off the desk and made her way around to her chair.
Besides, you could only pose like that for so long before your legs started to
go to sleep.
	Link sighed. "Very well. Since you're apparently not a morning person,
I'll get to the point." Nabiki just sat down and stared at her. She didn't like
giving Link the satisfaction of a response. "Your message to Chris was that one
Akira Kazama had a lead on how to find Ukyou."
	"Yes. I believe he did ask me to keep an eye out for that kind of
thing," Nabiki replied acidly.
	"Indeed. And certainly Akira did have a lead. But the interesting thing
appears when one examines exactly what kind of lead she had. Specifically that
she knew to investigate the Dark General Zoicite concerning Ukyou's
whereabouts."
	Nabiki had bluffed down Arkanphel and the Major. She didn't so much as
bat an eye. But under the desk her hand slid fractionally closer to the sword.
	"Now. Akira Kazama didn't even know who Zoicite was. So how could she
possibly know to ask him about Ukyou? Well, it turns out that she got this lead
from your friend and mine, resistance leader Akane Tendo." Link paused. "And
here is where the plot, so to speak, thickens.
	"Akane has not been looking for Ukyou. Akane really sort of has her
hands full with Chronos. Also, she has no idea who Zoicite is. She is not
looking into the matter. Nor has she met with anybody who has in the last year."
	"I'm glad to hear you're keeping tabs on my sister," Nabiki informed the
woman on the other end of this puppet. But Link chose to ignore the comment.
	"So how could Akane have learned this? Well, interestingly enough, it
just so happens that you, or so sources tell me, happened to be absent from Hong
Kong just before Akane learned about this little piece of information she could
not possibly have picked up through ordinary means."
	"You're going somewhere with this?" Nabiki replied flatly. Her fingers
began to itch. She reached out with her mind and found nothing else of any
danger nearby. But then again, she wouldn't. She would never sense him. Never
touch him. Not until it was too late.
	"So let's... speculate that perhaps it was you who told Akane to tell
Akira where to find Ukyou."
	"Is that what you're accusing me of?" Nabiki smirked and leaned back in
her chair. "What makes you think I even know anything about where Ukyou is?"
	"It really doesn't matter if you do or not. What matters is that instead
of telling Chris directly where to go, you told him about the person you'd
already involved in the manner. In other words, by selectively withholding
information you got Akira Kazama involved in a situation Chris would have long
since resolved before she ever arrived in Sweden."
	"I see." Nabiki cocked her head to the side. "I didn't know omniscience
was one of your new talents. Or perhaps being stuck in a cave with no one to
talk to but Chris has allowed your imagination to flourish."
	"So being completely innocent of all wrongdoing, I suppose you won't be
bothered by me telling Chris about this sequence of events and allowing him to
clear up any... misunderstanding himself?"
	Nabiki didn't freeze. She had far too much self-control to do that. But
her mind immediately flashed back to the one time she had met Chris since she
had received her powers. He had simply stepped out of the shadows, wearing the
body of a woman that had once been Nabiki's secretary. He hadn't threatened her.
He hadn't even raised his voice. He had just told her that he was willing to do
business with her. He was also interested in making certain that his secrets
remain secret. Only at the end, when he had been leaving, had he casually asked
Nabiki about her new telepathic powers.
	Nabiki hadn't said anything to him. She hadn't even made a sound. He
looked at her and smiled. The eyes he looked at her with were lifeless and
emotionless, but his smile told her that he knew. He knew that she had spent the
entire conversation trying to read him. Trying to read anything off him. But
there was nothing there. Nothing.
	Nabiki hadn't slept for a week afterward. There hadn't been a single
threat, but the message was clear. If Chris wanted her dead, she was dead. And
there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
	"I could just head over to his room. It's only a few minutes walk from
me at the moment..." the puppet said in Link's voice.
	"What do you want?" Nabiki said through clenched teeth.
	"What do I always want, Nabiki? Information." Nabiki noticed that Link
was chuckling deep in her throat, a sound her puppet replicated mindlessly from
however many thousands of kilometers away. The eyes of the doppleganger danced
with mirth as they watched Nabiki stare at her in impotent fury. Nabiki had been
dealing with these things long enough to know that unless Link allowed it to
happen deliberately, the doppleganger did not show much of her actual emotion.
	The bitch was taunting her. Allowing her to know how much she enjoyed
backing Nabiki into a corner. Nabiki felt the corner of her eyes tighten as she
thought about it. She knew that even that small reaction would make Link happy,
but she couldn't help it. Link was one of exactly three people who could force a
reaction out of her. She had earned that privilege by being Nabiki's rival for
years. A twisted, spiteful rival. Nabiki had never figured out why Link hated
her so much, though she had a few guesses. But even though the two had never
actually met face to face for seven years, Nabiki had developed a healthy
distaste of her own.
	"Stop toying around," Nabiki demanded.
	"I'm glad to see we both know where we stand," Link said smoothly, and
in the moment between finishing that sentence and her starting her request
Nabiki suddenly did know exactly where they stood. Because why was Link even
here? She had Nabiki by the throat. She should have just walked right up to
Chris and told him what Nabiki had done. She didn't know what Nabiki was really
up to. She couldn't. If either of them even suspected what Nabiki's actual plan
was, she would already be dead. So why was Link here, instead of getting her
hated rival into a world of trouble with the one person she feared above all
others?
	Because she wasn't supposed to be here. Because Chris didn't know she
was here. Because whatever information Link was after this time, it was
information she did not want Chris to have.
	To her credit, Nabiki didn't smile. In fact, she managed to look even
more angry as Link began her request.
	"I want you to tell me where the Death Messiah is."
	All the moisture in Nabiki's mouth evaporated. Her eyes widened and she
backed away a bit. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe she had
misheard.
	"But that isn't all. I also want you to tell me everything you know
about the Death Messiah. Her strengths, weaknesses, habits..." Link's
doppleganger paused and tapped its lip. "Also any information you have about her
companion, that bodyguard of hers..."
	"Ryouga..." Nabiki hissed.
	"Yes, that's his name."
	Nabiki closed her eyes. Ryouga. The eternal man. The unkillable man. The
only person able to survive against the Death Messiah. Nabiki's hand clutched
onto the sword at her hip. Link's puppet raised an eyebrow. She had seen the
motion. But Nabiki couldn't help it. She stared at Link. Stared at her hard.
	Link's clone suddenly looked blank. The woman at the other end of the
complex network of psychic transmitters wasn't transmitting anymore. Nabiki
wondered for a moment if she was afraid. Nabiki could certainly believe that her
anger could be seen plainly. She could believe that the threat was implicit.
	It took every ounce of Nabiki's willpower not to say the words. She
slowly pulled her hand away from the sword. The wish died in her throat. Link
got to live. Then suddenly the doppleganger began to act again. It didn't quite
smile, and it looked at Nabiki cockily once more.
	What had Nabiki been thinking? Wasting her last wish on something so
petty? No. That wasn't necessary. Only one person had ever survived a
confrontation with the Death Messiah, and that was the man who could not be
killed. Well... him and one other...
	So if Link wanted to throw her life away, Nabiki wasn't about to stop
her. Nabiki grimly turned to her computer and began to type. Link would get
everything she knew. Which would hopefully be just enough for her to hang
herself with.

*

	The room was luxuriously appointed. There was a single central pillar,
extending from floor to ceiling and painted the colour of warm honey. On this
pillar were four mirrors, arrayed so that they faced the four beds that were set
about the room at positions a quarter turn out of sync with the cardinal
directions. The walls of this place seemed to fade away, not really being there.
Instead, diaphanous pink curtains billowed around the area, forming the default
borders of the space the four of them shared.
	JunJun was rolling her green orb back and forth, sending it out past the
borders of their room beyond the pink veils. Then it would come back. Sometimes
from the same angle, sometimes from a different one. She never really looked up
while she did this, and kept her back firmly against the central pillar.
	"Would you stop that?" CereCere asked shortly. JunJun looked over. Her
fellow Amazoness was lying on her bed face down, clad only in a towel from the
waist down. A tuxedo hovered just beside her, its form falling as if there
should be a person inside, but there was none. Its immaculate white gloves,
lacking any human fingers inside them, were nonetheless doing a thorough job of
massaging her back. The thing moved with a strange rhythm and made a sound
almost like chanting as it worked.
	It was a useful construct, one that CereCere had developed... JunJun
didn't know how long ago. Really, there was only three times she was aware of.
There was Before Nehelenia. There was With Nehelenia. And there was After
Nehelenia. Which included now, she supposed. She didn't remember CereCere ever
teaching her or the others the shaping necessary for the construct, but she knew
the girl had, at some point.
	"Well?"
	"Well, what?" JunJun shot back, suddenly feeling a desire to be rude to
the pink-haired girl. CereCere's pretty face frowned.
	"It annoys me," she informed JunJun, shaking her head so her pink curls
swayed slightly. She couldn't quite lift her nose in the position she was in,
but she clearly wanted to.
	"And this is my problem?" JunJun shot back. She didn't really know why
she was being so hard about this, she just was. Really, the game had grown
boring a long time ago. No matter how hard she pushed the ball away, it always
came back.
	CereCere looked like she was about to snap something rude back, but then
she took a deep breath and sighed. JunJun looked away. CereCere was no fun
anymore. She used to be the easiest to rile up. She was always concerned with
her hair and her dresses and her makeup. JunJun didn't like makeup. She didn't
much like anything CereCere liked. But CereCere wasn't as easy to get a rise out
of anymore. She had been spending too much time with the old man.
	"Lord Purgstall doesn't want us to fight." CereCere was speaking softly
now, her tone reasonable. "He says that we tend to ruin the Pillars."
	"What if I want to fight?" JunJun growled and rolled her ball away
again.
	"There are plenty of zoanoids. Or you could find one of the martial
artists training for the neo-zoanoid program. They're always looking to prove
themselves."
	"Martial artists..." JunJun hissed. Her ball rolled back into her hands
and she gripped it so hard her knuckles turned white. The bright green surface
of the orb didn't react in the slightest. The light gleamed along the length of
the sphere.
	"Oh..." CereCere snickered behind her hand.
	"Oh what?" JunJun snapped at her.
	"I see, that's it. What has you so upset."
	"I am not upset!" JunJun leapt to her feet.
	CereCere laughed lightly and waved for her to sit down. "You're just mad
you met one who could beat you in a straight fight." She smirked behind her
hand. "Seven years of training under Lady Cologne and you still haven't improved
nearly as much as you would like, have you?"
	"I have too!" JunJun stepped forward, raising her fist in front of her.
"I'm a lot stronger now!"
	"Really?" CereCere yawned. "I don't see it. All this hard work, it
doesn't get you anywhere. Those girls in Stockholm, they could have defeated you
with ease. You're really not very much compared to them at all. Now, for a
circus acrobat, you're very good..."
	"I'm the best!"
	"...but for a martial artist?" CereCere laughed behind her hand again.
	"Damn..." JunJun turned away, clutching her magical sphere close to her
chest. She hated this because CereCere was right. She hadn't really gotten
better since Cologne had started training her. She looked down at the orb. It
was the source of her magic, just the same as her sisters. Without it, she
couldn't have shaped even the simplest spell. From it she drew great magic. But
it had been a gift from Nehelenia. With Nehelenia destroyed... sealed away
forever by Purgstall in Elysium... Shouldn't it have stopped working by now?
If she wasn't dead, shouldn't Nehelenia tried to contact them at least once?
	"It isn't that," JunJun said, trying to distract herself. "It's how they
hurt VesVes."
	CereCere went silent. She might have been the most self-involved of the
Amazoness Quartet, but they were all sisters. JunJun couldn't remember if there
were any blood ties between the four of them, but she knew that the other three
were her sisters regardless. The bond between them went deeper than blood.
	"Yes. I would like to get back at them for that. But what can we do?"
CereCere sighed. "They're both strong. The one girl is very hard for even the
four of us to pin down with our magic. The other..." Here CereCere paused.
	"The other has true power."
	They both turned to see that PallaPalla had joined them at some point.
The girl was sitting idly on her magical sphere, levitating in mid-air. Her
hands were gripping the sides of the orb and her legs kicked idly while she
rocked her head back and forth. The blue dangles on her head swayed softly as
she moved.
	"True power?" CereCere asked.
	"Couldn't you feel it?" PallaPalla asked innocently.
	"Of course!" CereCere snapped.
	"Damn right!" JunJun lied. The truth was that sometimes PallaPalla
scared them. It wasn't just the fact that her magic certainly outstripped either
of theirs. It was how casually she used that magic. Most of the shapings and
spells JunJun had learned had been developed first by their youngest sister.
PallaPalla never seemed to notice this. She would often compliment them on a
particular shaping they displayed weeks after she had first used it in front of
them. And the smile that appeared on her face at their declarations showed she
had bought their lies with the same casual acceptance.
	"Yeah. That kind of power is really rare." She cocked her head to the
side and pouted, placing a finger against her bottom lip. "Mm. But I think it
may be even stronger than our magic."
	"What kind of magic is it?" JunJun asked. "She certainly wasn't
shaping."
	"The tattoos." PallaPalla shrugged. "There something powerful about
them. It's like... the heart of a star. The heart of an entire galaxy. It shines
through her body so brightly, I wonder if she can even notice it?"
	"Huh..." JunJun kicked idly at the floor. That didn't bode well. If that
girl had magic even stronger than theirs... then there would be no hope of
getting to her. Even without martial arts, JunJun knew they outclassed most
people in this world.
	"She reminds me of the scary lady..." PallaPalla murmured, floating
away.
	"Scary lady?" JunJun asked sharply.
	"Yeah, you know... the one that the grumpy man is always talking to?"
	JunJun frowned. She knew who the grumpy man was. That was Gyro. The
other zoalord. She had only met him once and in that meeting had made the
mistake of cracking a joke about how he looked like he was going bald. It had
taken her shoulder a week to heal, even with magical aid. If Mr. Purgstall
hadn't stepped in when he had...
	"I thought Cologne asked us to leave Gyro alone?" CereCere murmured.
	"She did," JunJun answered, looking at PallaPalla with a raised eyebrow.
	The smallest of the Amazoness Quartet had the decency to blush in
embarrassment, like a kid who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"Well, I just couldn't resist. I had to find out what all the magic was. It was
so... so bright and dark at the same time. It was like a shine that taints. A...
something that tarnishes other things just by being so pure, you know?"
	JunJun had no idea what she was talking about, but nodded. "So, that was
the scary lady? Who was she?"
	"I don't know..." She tapped her chin. "She was tall. Taller even then
VesVes, but not as tall as the grumpy man. Not as tall as Lady Cologne either.
She wore gold, bright gold that glittered with that non-light. Her skin was
black and her eyes were red." She shivered, clutching her shoulders. "She's
scary."
	"We've established that," CereCere pointed out. "But what were she and
Gyro doing?"
	"She was... asking him about something called Star Seeds." PallaPalla
nodded. "Yes, something about that. He was telling her about that girl he's
looking for. The one that killed Martial Artist Hunter Zoaman's sister?"
	"Akane..." JunJun said quickly. CereCere glanced at her and JunJun
looked away, blushing. She had started watching the show because PallaPalla
liked it so much and... She shook her head.
	"That's her. He said-" And here PallaPalla's voice changed. She leaned
forward, dark shadows creeping up on her face and her expression forming into an
exaggerated scowl. Her voice growled and rasped at the same time as she spoke.
"'Do not worry, Lady Galaxia. I know exactly who has the Star Seeds you seek.
And with the power you have given me, I will have them in your possession soon!
MWA HA HA!'"
	CereCere broke out into a fit of helpless giggles, completely forgetting
herself as she rolled back and forth on her bed. "That's him! That's so
perfectly him!"
	JunJun sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Probably just some other
zoalord." She glanced down at the ball in her hands. Then she placed it
deliberately on her bed and walked towards the mundane exit from the bedchamber.
"I'm going training."

*

	"So, you really don't have a problem with this?"
	Akira looked up from her bike, the screwdriver hovering a few
centimeters from the engine she was adjusting. "Yeah. Go on. Have some fun or
something."
	Angel frowned and fidgeted, her hand playing with the hilt of the sword
tied to her thigh. "It's not that I'm abandoning you..."
	"No. We'll meet up after I have a... chat with Nabiki," Akira murmured,
waving aside the white-haired girl's objections.
	"It's just, I don't really want somebody probing around in my brain... I
just... I have private thoughts..."
	"Angel." The girl started a bit at the authoritative tone Akira said the
name with. "I don't mind. Besides, this is your first visit to Hong Kong, isn't
it?"
	"Yeah."
	"Go have some fun then." Akira stood up, pulling a cloth from her belt
so she could wipe the grease off her hands. It was getting harder and harder to
maintain her bike. Just not enough parts for these old gasburner models around
anymore. And she didn't have time, or a proper shop, to tool up some custom
replacements. "This is Hong Kong, the city of a thousand wonders." Akira smiled
and spun around a little, stretching her arms out and taking in all the
buildings that surrounded them. "The last free place on Earth. The place where
anything you can imagine you can have... for a price."
	"You sound like a tourbook," Angel said with a snort.
	"And you are a tourist, so listen to the tourbook." She pushed Angel's
shoulder lightly, sending her stumbling back. "Now, for the last time: go and
have some fun."
	Angel looked at Akira for another long moment and then threw up her
arms. She walked away, muttering something under her breath in Spanish. Akira
shook her head and went about placing all her tools back in their cases. She
looked at her bike. It had gotten them this far, taking them all the way across
most of Asia. It had been a long trip.
	Nearly a month of traveling, the countryside whipping by on either side.
Laughter filling the air as the two of them chatted about unimportant things.
The trip had taken them through the backroads of Russia, most of which were in
terrible shape. They had spent their time dodging Chronos patrols and the
occasional pack of darkstalkers. There had been camps in the evening, where
Akira and Angel had talked a little bit about their lives, watching the sunset
and eating trail rations. Angel, she had learned, had spent most of her life
moving from one place to another, finding herself masters of the martial arts to
teach her things. But she was reluctant to talk much about who she trained with
or what she had learned, which left Akira to pick up the slack.
	Akira reflected that she had never really been a talkative person as she
packed away the last of the tools and began to stroll out of the small garage
that she had found to stash her bike in. It had been odd, at first, to tell the
tales of her adventures. She didn't even really think of them as adventures.
She was just wandering and searching and doing what needed doing along the way.
She had no idea how she had become famous.
	The street was full of hundreds of people, even this late at night. The
two of them had gotten into Hong Kong when the sun was setting, and if anything
the crowds had grown since then. The people of this city had a frantic energy to
them. It was contagious. You couldn't help but find your pace increasing,
couldn't help but focus on your goal. The people of Hong Kong, she reflected,
must lead very tense lives.
	You tried to forget that you were surrounded on all sides by forces that
wanted to consume you. You focused on your job, on your bottom line, on feeding
your family for the day. In the alleys and the brothels you found the releases
you needed. Drugs, sex and more exotic delights were everywhere. Not a day
passed without a festival or a show or a grand performance. Here, in the city of
a thousand wonders, you could find something to occupy you, to keep your mind
off the rest of the world.
	Akira paused as she passed a small sign on the street. It was so small
she almost didn't see it. The sign was attached to a store that you accessed by
walking down a short flight of stairs to a dark door. But even this late there
was still a light on under the door and the 'open' sign was in full view. Akira
paused for a long moment at the top of the stairs.
	She had a meeting she had to get to. Nabiki had to learn a thing or two
about jerking Akira around like a puppet. The woman had deliberately set her up.
It was the only conclusion Akira could reach. She had been sent off to find
Ukyou, on a mission that was obviously a fool's errand. Because it had turned
out that she had been the target of... Lotus Infinite. Akira clenched her fists.
	She had seen this all before. She had fought Bison's Dolls, his
augmented female super-soldiers, in the past. He didn't just brainwash them. He
erased them. He hollowed out their souls and poured his malice and bitter chi
inside. He shaped them, broke them and left nothing of the original behind. Even
if you wanted to save them, it was no use. Breaking Bison's control over them
was a death sentence.
	The only person who had ever saved any of them from their fate was
Ukyou.
	"No..." Akira loosened her hands. "I can save her."
	"Can you?"
	Akira looked up sharply, but there was no one there. She glanced around
the street and as she did a strange feeling began to creep up her spine. She
took a few steps, but found her momentum petering out. The wind was suddenly
chill, cutting through her riding leathers, cutting through her flesh and
sinking into her bones. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her mouth
was dry, like she hadn't drank in days. There was laughter in the distance, a
hollow echo of the laughter of a child.
	This feeling she had, it was loneliness. She turned around, staring into
the crowd. She could reach out and touch them, but they seemed a million miles
away. For some reason, she couldn't focus on their faces. She could see their
smiles, but couldn't tell what colour their eyes were. They just moved around
her, an undifferentiated mass of humanity. The garish lights of the neon signs
up and down the street seemed to shine from far away. And still the laughter
continued.
	"I think I can," Akira said, then blinked. She hadn't meant to say that.
But she understood why she had. She was answering the question, after all.
	"Why do you think you can save her, Ahura Mazda?"
	"I..." Akira had no idea who Ahura Mazda was, but she could tell that
the voice was referring to her. It was female, young, almost immature-sounding.
It spoke perfect Japanese, but it was like the voice's words rung around her.
She spun again, trying to get a good view of this strange girl.
	"Is it hope that keeps you driving, on all those cold lonely nights?"
	"No." Again Akira was surprised by her response. She had meant to demand
who she was talking to. But the word just felt right. It felt true. It was the
only correct answer to the questions she had been asked.
	"Is it love that makes you look for a person you know will never return
your affections? Do you desire her heart, even though she has already given her
heart to another?"
	"Yes," Akira said but she heard herself say, at the same time, "No." The
two words echoed off each other. She started. The voice giggled, the sound
merging into the background sound of the child's laughter. There was a sharp
hissing buzz, and Akira turned around.
	The young girl was sitting just above her. Her legs were crossed
daintily, as she dangled them off the edge of the neon sign she was using as a
stool. She wore a tight white body-stocking that hugged her almost scandalously,
but her body was that of a young girl. She had short white hair that came down
on both sides of her face like feathers. Her complexion was dark. Akira couldn't
tell what colour her eyes were.
	"You sound so certain, Ahura Mazda," the girl said with a teasing smile.
	"I guess you can never be certain about these things." Akira felt
strange. She knew she was talking. She knew exactly why she was saying these
things. But until the words left her mouth, she had no idea what they were going
to be.
	"No." The girl raised her arm slowly.  She wore a fingerless black
gauntlet that covered her wrist and hand, and inset on the back of it was a
large red jewel. The light of the street gleamed and fractured off that jewel,
like a prism. A million rainbows cascaded down into the street. "There are so
many ways for things to go. So many reasons and purposes and whys and answers.
How can you pick just one?"
	"Because it's the only one I know." Akira squinted, shielding her eyes
from the lightshow above her.
	"Touché." Akira blinked and when her eyes opened again, the girl was
gone. But a light touch on her shoulder let her know where the girl had gone.
Akira froze. The touch had sent a deep shiver through her body, a shiver that
echoed through her soul. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. It was as
light as a feather, yet as strong as steel. It was as warm as a cat curled up in
her lap, and as shocking as a plunge into an arctic spring. "People in this
world are so limited by their lack of perception."
	"We see the world around us," Akira insisted.
	She felt the girl press herself into Akira's back. Akira felt the press
of her small breasts through the thick fabric of her jacket. But her body felt
lighter than air. One of the girl's arms encircled Akira's waist, the other
draped itself around her shoulders. When next she spoke, her breath tickled
across the lobe of Akira's ear.
	"You see shadows on the wall, Ahura Mazda."
	"What are you talking about?" The question came out feeling more
genuine than anything Akira had said since this conversation had begun.
	"In good time, my counterpart." The girl giggled and the sound made the
flesh on Akira's neck crawl. "If I told you now, it would defeat the purpose of
telling you. To know, is to not know."
	"I prefer to know."
	"Do you?" The hand around her waist began to rise higher, inch by inch,
scarlet fingers climbing up her body like the thick legs of some horrific
spider. "Does knowing really make you happy? Does knowing that Ukyou is gone
forever fill you with joy? Does knowing Bison tore out her soul, erased her
mind, broke her spirit until there was nothing left... does that make you feel
complete?"
	"That isn't true!" Akira growled.
	"It is the truth," the girl explained in her sickeningly happy tone. "It
is the only truth. For anybody else, there might be many truths. But for Ukyou,
there is only one truth. The one she chooses. She chose to cease to be. She
chose oblivion. There is no coming back for her now. Your quest... is doomed."
	"I don't accept that!" Akira yelled. She wanted to throw the girl off.
She wanted to spin around and strike her. She wanted to do anything but what she
did next. Her back arched as the girl pressed herself further into Akira. Her
defiant yell trailed off into a soft gasp as the hand reached her left breast.
It came to a stop, pressing gently against Akira's rapidly beating heart.
	"Shadows on the wall, Ahura Mazda." the girl said throatily into her
ear. The warm breath drained the heat from Akira and brought a burning flush to
her cheeks. "All you see is shadows on the wall. But to see the source, all you
have to do... is turn around."
	"Let me go!" Akira shouted and spun, slashing her arm in a vicious chop.
A young man screamed and fell back, toppling almost comically onto his behind.
He stared up at her in abject terror. She looked down. She was glowing faintly
blue. The sidewalk at her feet had cracked. The people on the street had stopped
and were staring at her now.
	The buzz of the street signs. The sounds of murmured words in Cantonese
and the shuffle of many footsteps. Eyes the colour of black pearls and emeralds
and soft forest loam. The air here was fetid with the scent of the city, a warm
mix of urine and smog. Akira looked down at her hand, curling and uncurling her
fingers.
	It was... like a dream. She looked around slowly. There was no sign that
anybody had been here. No clue as to who that young girl had been was to be
found. Not even her enhanced senses picked up any trace of anything unusual. Had
she daydreamed the whole thing?
	She looked at the sign to the shop she had stopped in front of. The one
that had started her thinking about Ukyou in the first place. It was a card
shop. She had broached the subject once with Angel. They'd talked a lot about
that show, the one with that card game that Angel kept trying to get her to
play. Akira had asked, almost casually, if they'd ever done an Ukyou card. Angel
had seemed doubtful, but she had thought there might have been a card done in
the first series. Ukyou was still the first metahuman to receive international
exposure, after all. They had been at a loss for characters for the cards at
first. Even so it would have been very rare card.
	Akira looked at the small door at the bottom of the stairs. Then she
smiled and shook her head. She started down the street again, thrusting her
hands into her pockets. She didn't have any need for some artist's vision of
Ukyou. She would find the real thing soon enough.
	And strange daydreams would not stop her. Neither would Bison, or the
parody of a human being that was Lotus Infinite. Nobody would stop her.

*

	Over the years the room had become both more comfortable and more alien.
The shelves were full of books, leather-bound tomes that filled the room with a
pleasant musty smell. But between those books were... things. Here a desiccated
human hand, there a green crystal that moaned softly like a damned soul. The
desk was modern, a computer built right into the oak top one on side and a ball
full of twisting inhuman shadows on the other. The chair was prosaic leather,
soft and well-worn, but it floated without the need for legs. A minor bit of
magic.
	Tethys was leaned back in this chair now, her fingers laced in front of
her mouth. Her foot tapped out an irregular rhythm on the floor. Scattered
across her desk was the day's business, the reports from her field agents, the
stories from a dozen reliable papers the world over. None of it was good news.
	Millennium openly attacking Chronos. Chronos responding in kind.
Zoalords deployed to the front lines for the first time since... ever. At the
beginning of the summer the Americans had graduated the first classes from their
little academies. Her sources told her they had an army of almost one thousand
martial artists, each highly trained. Each deadlier than a hundred zoanoids.
Touga had sent her reports from Jurai. The royal family had finally had enough.
They were launching the first large-scale assault on Galaxia. All of the free
worlds were joining in.
	For seven years, there had been relative peace. Oh certainly, there had
been skirmishes and dirty little battles. There had been displays of naked
power, assassinations in the dark and acts of terrorism committed by all sides.
But now...
	"It's all starting up again, isn't it?" Tethys murmured into her hands.
"Seven years of waiting... and now it's starting up again."
	There was a knock on her door. Tethys gestured gently and the door
opened with a soft click. Three figures walked in. Well, to be more accurate,
two walked in and the third was dragged between them and thrown unceremoniously
onto the floor.
	"Lady Tethys, I protest this treatment!" Zoicite snapped as he rose to
his knees. Tethys said nothing, merely kept her eyes level and most of her face
hidden behind her fingers.
	"Pluto, Rose... I take it you have a good reason for this?" she said
slowly.
	Rose's expression didn't change, it was as cold and hard as always. She
had proven to be a most efficient and powerful ally. Tethys sometimes wished she
could have convinced her to undergo the fusion process with one of her youma.
She knew several who could have enhanced her already considerable talents a
great deal. But like Pluto, she had insisted on retaining her 'humanity'. Tethys
smiled, an expression that was hidden behind her hands. It was so adorably
naive.
	Pluto stepped forward, adjusting a green hair behind her ear as she did
so. As usual she wore her Senshi uniform, a tight white leotard with a short
black skirt straight out of some fetish schoolgirl fantasy. Tethys knew this
personally, since she remembered all of Hayato's daydreams.
	"Zoicite's been talking around behind your back," Pluto said sternly.
Tethys glanced at her sharply. The woman's red eyes did not flinch in the
slightest on meeting the aqua depths of Tethys' gaze. They never had. In all the
time that Pluto had lived under Tethys protection, she had always met her gaze
as an equal.
	"I have not!" Zoicite protested sharply.
	"He's lying," Rose informed them needlessly.
	"Stay out of my head, witch!" Zoicite hissed. He rose to his full
height, a swirl of rose petals beginning to form an anima around his body.
	"Zoicite," Tethys chided softly. The power he had been gathering winked
out and the man turned slowly to look at her. "I'm disappointed. I gave you
everything. Power. Prestige. All the men your horny little posterior could
handle. For seven years you've served me faithfully. You've grown stronger and
smarter under my banner. I must say, I am very disappointed."
	"I... Queen Tethys! I can explain!" a note of desperation crept into his
voice.
	"It had better be the truth," Rose informed him. "I will sense if you
lie." That wasn't, strictly speaking, true. Tethys knew the limits of Rose's
psychic powers. She was far better at divination and clairvoyance than mundane
telepathy. But this was a fact none of the three decided to share with Zoicite.
	"It... it..." Zoicite looked back and forth between the three of them
uneasily. Sweat began to pour down his brow and Tethys could see his teeth
grinding under his lips. "It was... it was... that Tendo woman!" he said with
such force that he couldn't have done anything but thought of the answer a
moment before he blurted it out.
	"Oh?" Tethys murmured.
	"She dragged the information out of my mind. I never meant to tell her
about Ukyou! But how can I resist her? She's a monster!" The room had gone
silent at the mention of that name. It was a name they had avoided saying out
loud for years.
	"Go on," Tethys prompted icily.
	"Then she made me give the information to that girl... that little biker
brat Akira! That animal woman practically beat the information out of me as
well! She's a barbarian."
	"Akira?" Tethys murmured. She frowned and she saw Zoicite wince. Perhaps
he was remembering the history Tethys and Akira shared. Perhaps he was
regretting his choice of words. Tethys' knuckles turned white as she thought
about Akira. That... was a regret. Letting her go had perhaps been the
stupidest thing she had ever done.
	Now, Akira was one step ahead of her in perhaps the only race that
mattered.
	"Very well." Tethys leaned forward, unlacing her fingers. "You're
dismissed, Zoicite."
	"Please don't kill... what?"
	"I said you're dismissed. Return to Stockholm," Tethys informed him
again.
	"But..."
	"Zoicite... I told you I'm disappointed in you. Seven years and it took
you this long to finally betray me? I suppose I must have scared you more than I
thought. I would have expected something more... dramatic after this long a
wait." Zoicite was speechless. "But now you know that even small things like
this don't escape my notice. Now you know that any attempt to subvert me is
doomed before it starts. Frankly... I need devious bastards like you, Zoicite,
and I don't feel like taking seven years to train a replacement. Go back to your
duties." She paused. "And never forget."
	"Y-yes, Queen Tethys!" Zoicite bowed hastily then vanished into a swirl
of pink rose petals.
	Once the signature of his teleport spell faded, Tethys turned to her two
remaining guests. "Seven years. All good things, I suppose."
	"Why are you so worried about this?" Rose asked. "Akira is just a girl.
A powerful martial artist, true, but no real match for Lotus Infinite, much less
Bison." She pulled a tarot card from her suit and consulted it. "The Tower. This
is her future. Disaster."
	"Pluto." The woman inclined her head at Tethys' prompting. "You still
have the dreams?"
	"Yes."
	Tethys nodded. "Don't underestimate Akira Kazama. She has a core of
willpower that has not yet really been tested. She has in her... the strength to
defy any power." Tethys couldn't keep all the bitterness out of her tone, but
the other two either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge it. "I think it's time
you two paid me back for my gracious hospitality. One way or another, things are
going to change. Seven years of waiting is over. Either way, you know what to
do."
	She dismissed them with a wave and watched as they walked out of the
door.
	"Ukyou... my old nemesis..." Tethys' smile was vicious and dark. "How
will you respond to this, I wonder?"

*

	Akira gently pushed open the door with her toe and walked into the room.
She glanced around. It was a nice set-up. The top floor of one of the tallest
buildings in Hong Kong, with an entire wall made up of a single pane of glass
that gave a spectacular view of the city falling away beneath them to the ocean.
There were dark green exotic-looking plants in the corners and inviting leather
couches along both walls. At the far end of the room, Nabiki sat behind a jet
black desk, shuffling papers silently.
	She looked up as Akira walked in and the corners of her mouth turned
down slightly. "Was that really necessary?" she asked.
	Akira shrugged and let go of the young man who slumped bonelessly to the
floor. She dropped the other from her shoulder letting him land with a thud on
the wood-panelled floor. "They tried to get in my way."
	"You could have asked for an appointment. I would have made time in my
schedule for such an old friend." Nabiki smiled, a venomous smile.
	Akira felt her cheeks burning. But she swallowed her rage. No doubt
Nabiki had picked up on it long ago, but Akira doubted shouting would accomplish
much here. "Can we skip the bullshit, okay?" Akira stepped further into the
room. "You. Set. Me. Up." Each word was punctuated by a steadily louder rise in
Akira's voice.
	"What makes you think that?" Nabiki slipped the papers on her desk to
the side. "I believe I gave you exactly what you said you always wanted. You
found out what happened to Ukyou, all those years ago. Didn't you?"
	"You knew," Akira accused. She realised she was losing her grip on her
temper but couldn't seem to care. "You knew and you never said anything."
	Nabiki snorted and stood up. "Of course I knew, Akira. I make it my
business to know these things. I'm probably the single most well-informed person
on this planet."
	"You... BITCH!"
	Akira moved so fast the air cracked. She vaulted the desk in a single
fluid motion, catching Nabiki by the throat at the same time. The wall of the
office shuddered as Akira slammed Nabiki into it with enough force to crack the
gyprock. The woman hissed slightly, her brown hair flowing around her mature
features.
	"You sent me out there to get killed! It was you who told Zoicite. It
was you who fed him the story about Saffron. All so that Bison would see me as a
threat, see me as somebody who was beginning to unravel his hold on Ukyou. Then
he sent her to kill me." Akira pulled her face in close to Nabiki's. "And it was
you who warned Millennium as well, wasn't it? You told that monster assassin
about me and had her follow me. I knew I was being followed, but didn't know by
who. It was a trick, to lure Lo... Ukyou into the open so that that monster
could kill her!"
	Nabiki's painful grimace turned into a triumphant smile as Akira talked.
Akira snarled, wanting to put her head through the wall. Nabiki had used her.
	"Of course I used you," Nabiki answered the thought. "Now... if you'll
kindly let go?"
	"No..." But her grip on Nabiki's neck released and the girl slid lightly
down the wall to land on her heels. Akira could only stare as her arm pulled
back and she started to step backwards away from the girl. She tried to resist,
but it was like somebody had pulled on her hand like a glove. Her fingers were
no more than empty shells to be turned to whatever purpose the unseen force
wanted. A shiver of disgust ran up her spine as Nabiki forced her back step by
step. The woman wasn't even straining. Akira could see it in her eyes. To
Nabiki, this was nothing.
	Finally Akira had been marched back around the other side of the desk,
where she sat down in a chair stiffly. Nabiki was rubbing her neck as she
righted her own chair and sat down. "I trust I've made my point perfectly clear
here, Akira?"
	"If you think this will stop me..."
	Nabiki sighed and ran her fingers along her forehead. "Some people are
slow learners." She looked up. "If I wanted to, Akira, I could have you leap out
that window. The fall is over sixty stories. You might survive. But not if I
force you to take the fall head-first with all your precious martial arts
techniques nullified. Quite frankly, there is nothing you can do to threaten me.
So, as you so eloquently put it earlier, let's 'skip the bullshit' and get down
to business."
	Akira closed her eyes and nodded once, sharply. Instantly she felt
control return to her limbs. She shuddered and stood up, stretching and waving
her fingers. When she was finished she looked down at Nabiki, who was once again
working on the papers on her desk.
	"Why?" Akira asked.
	"Decided to calm down?"
	"I guess I don't have any choice in the matter."
	Nabiki chuckled. "Not really. Not many people have much of a choice in
the matter at all. I'm glad you realise that, Akira." She flicked her hand,
skimming a piece of paper across the desk. Akira slammed her hand on it to keep
it from flying off the end and pulled it up.
	"What is this?" she asked, but she could see very well what it was. It
was a picture of her, high quality and a recent shot too. She hadn't started
wearing her hair this long until a few years ago. On the top of the page was the
winged skull emblem of Shadowloo. Underneath it was some script. The word
'TERMINATE' was written in large red block letters.
	"Your death sentence. Bison wants you gone." Nabiki leaned back in her
chair. "It's been sent out to every Shadowloo operative by now. They'll hunt you
to the ends of the Earth. The orders are to report your location once you are
found, then to engage with all available force." Nabiki smiled.
"Congratulations, Akira. Lord M Bison thinks you are the most dangerous human
being on the planet."
	"Why would he think that?"
	"Because you know." Nabiki stood up. "You know about his special pet
project. The one he's been working on for seven years. His trump card in this
little game of powers he's been forced to play."
	"Ukyou?" Akira said softly. "Because I know about her, he plans on
killing me? But what about you, and that assassin woman..."
	"Rip Van Winkle?" Nabiki chuckled. "He knows about her. He doesn't
consider her a threat. She's a test bed. He and the Major have been playing a
dangerous game, improving their weapons at every turn. Refining them and playing
them against each other. So far, in every test, Bison's weapon has proven
superior."
	"She isn't a weapon!" Akira snarled, crumpling the poster into a ball
and throwing it into the floor with enough force to crack the boards. "She's a
human being!"
	"Not anymore." Nabiki replied. She turned and walked over to the window,
splaying her hand against the thin glass. "You're going to have to face the
facts here, Akira. Ukyou is gone. Bison erased her like you might a bad spelling
mistake. Rewrote her from the ground up."
	"I refuse to believe that," Akira hissed. She took a few deep breaths.
Anger wouldn't serve her here. She needed to think clearly. "This is a familiar
game, Nabiki. You didn't convince me the first time. You won't convince me this
time."
	"The first time?" Nabiki turned around, her words coming out slowly.
Either she was genuinely surprised by the statement, or a very good actor. "What
first time?"
	Akira frowned. "I don't like being played with, Nabiki." The woman
frowned and Akira sighed. "On the street, a few hours ago. The dream with the
strange little girl? You were trying to convince me of..." Akira wasn't certain
what the vision had meant, so she trailed off. "Well, it didn't work then, and
it won't work now."
	"On the street..." Nabiki walked over to Akira and Akira stiffened as
she approached. There was something dangerous in her eyes. Something powerful.
She reached up and placed her palm against Akira's temple. Akira considered
resisting, but then dismissed the idea. Let her see if she wanted.
	"There's... nothing there..." Nabiki said softly.
	"What?"
	She looked up at Akira. Akira squirmed uncomfortably. She wasn't used to
being so tall compared to everyone else. Too much time on the road and hanging
around westerners, she supposed.
	"Describe this dream to me," Nabiki ordered.
	"I..." Akira shrugged and did so. It was hard to describe it easily. It
was rather straightforward, but her words didn't seem to catch the utter
alienness of it. Her unpoetic explanation somehow seemed unsuited to telling
Nabiki what she had experienced. When she was finished, Nabiki had turned around
to look out the window again. Akira could see her expression reflected in the
glass. It was worried.
	"You remember all this clearly?" she asked.
	"Yes."
	"And believe it all happened."
	"Maybe... it was very... dreamlike."
	"It isn't there. Not a single sign of it." Nabiki crossed her arms. "The
memories of your encounter... as far as my talent is concerned, they don't
exist."
	"I'm telling you-" Nabiki cut off Akira with a sharp gesture.
	"I believe you." She took a long breath. "Well, this just moves up the
time table." She looked over her shoulder at Akira. "Tell me, Akira. Have you
ever heard of the Third Circle?"
	"Third Circle?" Akira frowned. Hadn't Lotus... hadn't Ukyou said
something about that during the fight? Otherwise she had no idea what the term
meant.
	Obviously sensing Akira's answer before she could say it, Nabiki moved
on. "It's really very simple. In this universe, there are physical laws.
Gravity. Entropy. Nuclear forces. They make up the world we experience, and for
most people they are as unbending as iron bars." Nabiki turned around. "But for
people like you and me, the physical laws are not nearly so defining. You have
the power to summon up your spiritual energy, your chi. By channelling it
through your chakras you can harness forces that allow you to defy the physical
laws for a short time. You can run faster, hit harder, sharpen your senses to a
superhuman degree. This power is what we call the First Circle.
	"Then there are people like me," Nabiki continued, beginning to walk
around the room. She reached down and grabbed the simple sword that hung at her
waist. "People and objects that don't just defy the physical laws but define
them. People call this magic, but a few more informed people call it the Second
Circle. It allows us to gain access to abilities that would be otherwise
impossible. Creating matter from nothing. Reading thoughts. Restoring youth or
staving off death. The Second Circle can work many miracles.
	"But even it has limits." Nabiki had circled the room back to her desk
now. "Magic can only bend the world so far before the world starts bending back.
The larger the change we cause, the more power it takes to cause that change.
And the universe has a natural compulsion to return to its normal state. Without
a constant supply of maintaining energy, even the effects of the Second Circle
eventually wither and vanish. And the power required for this magic is rare.
People like you can never gain access to it. It takes a special connection, a
special power you either are born with or granted later in life to open up
access. So in the end, the Second Circle is just like the First Circle. Nothing
more than smoke and mirrors. The universe continues on.
	"Then there is the Third Circle." Nabiki sat down heavily in her chair.
"The Third Circle is... infinity. Limitless. It creates change by its very
nature. It doesn't just define natural law, Akira. It transcends it. Using the
Third Circle, you could make up green or let time run sideways."
	"You're not making sense, Nabiki." Akira accused. "What does this have
to do with anything?"
	"My talent makes me the most powerful telepath on the Earth. It's a
Second Circle effect. Perhaps one of the strongest in the universe. I am fairly
confident that no other Second Circle effect could stop it, at least not without
me noticing something was wrong. But someone altered your perceptions, Akira.
Someone who did so in a way I can't detect."
	"So... someone Third Circle?" Akira asked. She found herself nodding. If
the Third Circle was as strange as Nabiki said it was, it would certainly
explain what she had felt when near that girl. That alien... wrongness, the lack
of anything remotely normal.
	"There are exactly two beings in the entire world who have access to the
Third Circle."
	"Ukyou!" Akira shouted, leaping to the conclusion. "That power she had.
The one that allowed her to tie the Doll's lifeforce to Mamoru. The one that
allowed her to take the Silence Glaive from Hotaru..." She had only heard about
the last part, but as she said the words she saw Nabiki wince. Akira briefly
considered pursuing the subject, but then dismissed it as unimportant.
	"And there is one other. You've met him too, I think. He calls himself
Chris."
	Akira frowned and rubbed her chin. "I... think I remember him." She
nodded. "He came by to taunt Akane after the fight at Tokyo Tower. He was saying
something about..." What was that phrase?
	"The perfect possible future." Nabiki seemed to deflate. "Yes, that's
him." She smiled, a self-mocking little smile. "He's completely insane. I don't
know what his exact plans are, but I do know he's manipulating things from the
shadows. He's almost unstoppable. He can take over the body of any dead person,
and learn their skills. He has phenomenal direct powers. But more importantly,
he's a Third Circle being. I don't think he can be killed by us." Nabiki laughed
sharply. "No, make that I am certain he can't be killed by us."
	"Certain? Why?"
	"Because I've been working on finding a way to kill him for seven years.
Ever since..." She trailed off. "Ever since he came to me and put me under his
thumb." She snarled, but there was something forced about her expression. "I
can't stand living every day, knowing that the only reason I'm drawing a breath
is because he still finds me convenient. Having to bow to his servants, leap to
his every command. It sickens me. I won't stand for it."
	"That bad, huh?" Akira muttered without sympathy.
	Nabiki smirked. "So I've been trying to find a way to destroy him for
seven years now. And all my plans... apparently came to nothing. I had such high
hopes for Rip Van Winkle. I thought she might actually pull it off this time."
	Akira snapped her head up. "Wait... you admit..."
	"That I was trying to kill Ukyou? Of course I was. She's also a Third
Circle being. But, unlike Chris, she doesn't know it. Bison doesn't know it.
They really have no idea what they're playing with down there in those labs of
his. All he sees is her power, and he can't understand why he can't just strip
it out of her soul and attach it to his own. He finds it frustrating, so he
seeks to understand it. Again and again he sends her on missions. Testing her
limits. Putting her in situations and against opponents she can't possibly
defeat. But she always returns. You see... Ukyou has a good old fashioned
capital-D destiny."
	Nabiki stood up again, placing her palms on the iridescent black desk.
"That's her Third Circle power. She will survive, until that Destiny comes to
pass. Even if her memory, her very identity, is gone, the body and the power
will remain until one day she fulfills that edict. And I've been trying to kill
her for seven years, to stop the tide. I thought that if anyone could produce a
weapon strong enough to defeat the Third Circle, it would be Millennium. But I
have to face facts. Nothing either of us can do can touch them. The only person
ever to defeat Ukyou was Chris. Only the Third Circle can defeat the Third
Circle."
	Akira felt her anger rising again. Only the certain knowledge that she
wouldn't make it two steps towards Nabiki kept her from trying to cave her face
in. But she did control herself, she kept her voice almost level as she spoke.
"I can't believe you. All this, because you can't stand being humiliated. You're
trying to kill her!"
	"If it makes any difference, I don't plan on killing her now." Nabiki
said, smiling evilly.
	"What?"
	"I need her." Nabiki buffed her nails on her shirt and glanced at them
for a moment. "The only person that can defeat Chris for me is Ukyou. I need a
weapon of the Third Circle. Thankfully Bison has already done all the hard work
for me. All I need to do is take it."
	"You make me sick!" Akira shouted. "You're no better than Bison! No
better than Chris!"
	"Maybe I'm not." Nabiki snorted. "I've long since learned to live with
what I am. Fabulous wealth helps a lot, I think." She chuckled. "Besides, I only
need her for one mission. After I'm done, you can have what's left. I hear Bison
doesn't just train his pets for fighting. I'm certain you could put the skills
he's taught her to good use..."
	Akira snapped her eyes away, unable to meet Nabiki's gaze. She hated to
admit it, but the thought had crossed her mind. She knew that the Dolls had all
been programmed with voracious... appetites and no particular care about the
gender of the person who satisfied them. But she shook that thought aside. What
Nabiki was suggesting was tantamount to rape. She would have no part of it.
	"I'm certain I could sweeten the deal in a few other ways as well..."
Nabiki offered enticingly. Akira snapped her eyes back to the woman's face.
	"Why are you so interested in getting me to cooperate?" She narrowed her
eyes. "You, the great Nabiki Tendo. Queen of the criminal underworld. You've
already proven I can't stop you. Why bother trying to get my approval..." Akira
trailed off. "Ohhh. That's it. You need me. Even you are afraid of Bison. You
might outmuscle him in sheer power... but he's been at this for decades. Your
power dwarfs his, but he can wield his with a skill you can't match. You're not
certain you can defeat him." Akira crossed her arms. "So you want to lure Ukyou
away from him. With the only thing you can... bait. Me. I bet the information
has already made its way back to him. I bet his assassin is already on her way."
	"You're very intuitive," Nabiki groused.
	"I won't let you do this, Nabiki."
	"You can't stop me, Akira. I only need you to stay here. I don't need
you even conscious for the operation. Out of deference to the friendship you
share with my sister, I won't hurt you, but..."
	"I said I won't let you." Akira took a few steps towards the desk. "What
you're doing is wrong. I won't let you abuse Ukyou like that."
	"There's nothing left of Ukyou to abuse." Nabiki smirked. "Trust me.
I've seen into Lotus Infinite's mind. There is... nothing. NO trace of the woman
who used to live in there."
	"I won't accept that!" Akira snarled.
	"Yelling won't make the sun set in the east." Nabiki smirked.
	"If I have to... I'll..."
	"You'll what?" Nabiki snapped. Then suddenly Akira felt her body moving
again. Once more, it was like something had crept under her skin and simply put
her on like a suit. She could feel her limbs moving, but had no control over
them. Her mouth clamped closed and her eyes stared at Nabiki as she was forced
to kneel before the desk. "There is nothing you can do, Akira. You've spent the
last seven years chasing a phantom. Accept it. Move on."
	Akira resisted. She tried to summon her chi, but couldn't find the
focus. It was like Nabiki was sapping her will. A chaotic mix of memories seemed
to dredge itself up out of her subconscious, images of childhood and her
adventures flowing unbidden to her mind. She couldn't help but focus on them,
snapping her attention away from the here and now. It made focusing on anything
impossible. It was like trying to hold a balloon in a tornado.
	Then one particular memory flashed by. It was a cold night, starkly cold
compared to the withering heat of the day before. Akira and Ukyou were standing
in the gravel-filled courtyard of a small temple. Ukyou looked like death warmed
over, and she was telling Akira that she was leaving. She wasn't saying it out
loud, but she was letting the girl know they would never meet again. And Akira,
haunted by grief over the recent death of her friend, haunted by the terrible
things she had wanted to do in response to that grief, haunted by feelings she
didn't understand and feared... had made a foolish promise. Ukyou had insisted
they would never meet again, and Akira had promised they would.
	She seized the memory. She held it tight. It was a familiar memory. It
had kept her going for seven years. It would keep her going now. Even if Ukyou
couldn't stand up for herself. Even if what Nabiki had said was right. Even if
Bison had erased everything about her, replaced it with a emotionless meat shell
to do his bidding. Even if Nabiki had all the power to take his weapon for her
own, to turn against some man Akira barely knew in a game that Akira didn't
understand...
	None of that mattered.
	She had made a promise.
	Even if she had to fight the entire universe, she would see Ukyou again!
	Akira threw back her head and gave out a wordless roar. The room flashed
blue. Her aura exploded around her into a great wave, a concentric circle of
power that flooded the room. The wood at her feet snapped. The walls cracked.
Flecks of stone ripped free from the desk. The window shattered.
	Akira slumped to her knees, exhausted. She looked up slowly.
	Nabiki was rising to her feet. The wall behind her was dented from where
she had struck it. Blood flowed from a small cut on her scalp. She was staring
at Akira, her eyes wide.
	"Not possible," she muttered.
	"Round two?" Akira asked, rising to her own feet. Whatever she had done,
it had drained her of almost everything.
	Nabiki looked at Akira for a long moment. What she did next startled
Akira out of her martial stance. It made Akira more afraid than any demon or
vampire or zoanoid ever had. Nabiki started laughing.
	It began as a soft chuckle, a sort of snorting hiccup of a laugh that
pushed its way reluctantly past Nabiki's lips. From there it grew into what
could only be called a schoolgirl giggle. Nabiki placed her hands over her
mouth, trying to hold in her mirth, but it was no use. Within a minute the
giggle had exploded into a full-blown set of body-shaking guffaws. The woman
leaned against the wall, slapping her thighs and laughing until her voice went
hoarse.
	Akira had never quite found herself in a situation like this before, so
she understandably decided to sit there and be confused.
	"Okay." Nabiki said finally, her voice a little strained after she
finally got control of herself. "You win."
	"I... I what?"
	"You win." Nabiki seemed to get herself under control, then she looked
down at her toppled chair and snorted again. "Akira, what do you have against my
chair, anyway?"
	"Wait... could we back up a moment?"
	Nabiki righted her chair, brushed some dust from it and sat down. "Sure,
You win. We're going to try and save Ukyou."
	"I..." Akira blinked. "I know I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth
but... why?"
	"Because I think you can do it," Nabiki answered softly.
	"I can...?"
	"After the display you just put on, now you begin to doubt?" Nabiki
asked snidely. Akira frowned as Nabiki smiled at her poor joke. "The fact is
that I had to be sure. I had to be sure you could do it. That's why I chose you,
Akira. Because there are exactly four people Ukyou ever really cared about or
that ever really cared about her, and you're the only one that kept looking..."
Nabiki trailed off. "Rather, you're the only one that is still trying to save
her. You were right, I can't fight Bison alone. He's too good. I've tried
before. But whatever he did to Lotus Infinite, it's beyond my ability to
counteract. Not without years more training, years I don't have. Chris has just
finished something, something big. He calls it the Kalia Project. I don't know
what it is, but I think I'm almost out of time if I want to stop him. And Ukyou
is the only one that can.
	"But I can't reach Ukyou. Frankly, I hate her. She hates me. It's a long
story, I won't go into it here. That's why I need you. Someone who won't give
up. Someone who hasn't given up." Nabiki frowned and leaned forward, resting
her elbows on the table. "My only hope is that you can reach her. Right now the
only thing that can undo Bison's brainwashing is her."
	"But... you said that Ukyou had been erased. That there was nothing left
to reach."
	Nabiki smiled. "If this were anyone else, that would be true. I've dealt
with the Dolls before. Akane once had me try and recover the memories of the
ones that are working with her. But there is no trace of their former lives
left. Their minds were wiped clean." She chuckled softly. "But Ukyou has an
advantage they don't have..."
	"The Third Circle..." Akira murmured, feeling hope begin to swell in her
chest.
	"Yes. I don't think Bison CAN erase Ukyou. I think she's as much beyond
him as Chris is beyond me." She held up a warning hand. "Which isn't to say this
will be easy. Bison's technique is very good. Reaching Ukyou past whatever
mental barriers he created will be next to impossible." She grinned again.
"That's why I had to push you. I'm sorry, I really am. But I had to know that
you wouldn't give up." She stood up and walked around the desk towards Akira. "I
had to know, because this is it. This is the last roll of the dice. When - not
if - this gets back to Chris, I'm a dead woman. I only have one chance to do
this, and I need to make certain it will work on the first try, because it's all
I'll get."
	She extended her hand towards Akira. A western signal. Akira stared down
at the offered palm. Did she really want to trust Nabiki? The woman had
manipulated her at every turn. Had pushed her to the breaking point just to
prove a point to herself. Akira still wasn't certain this wasn't another layer
of deception. She could sense it in her bones. There was more going on than
Nabiki was telling her. There was something else that Nabiki wanted.
	But Akira didn't care. It would save Ukyou. That was all she needed to
know.
	"Fine." Akira grasped her hand firmly. Perhaps a bit too firmly, but
Nabiki didn't let that show on her face. "I guess we're allies... for now."

*

	Akane kneeled down beside the wall. One hand rested on her hip,
gripping the two sheathed swords that hung there, keeping them from rattling as
she moved. It was almost pitch black out here tonight, so being seen wouldn't
likely be a problem - there were zoanoids with exotic vision capabilities, but
they were fairly rare. Sound could still give them away if they weren't careful.
The pounding rain, however, kept most of the noise they did make nicely masked.
	Akane could just barely make out a half-dozen forms in the darkness
around her. Akane held up her hand and signaled once for everyone to halt their
advance. She looked to her right and saw Satsuki crouched there. The young woman
met Akane's eyes and nodded once before vanishing up and over the wall. She
moved like a shadow, almost preternaturally silent, and very soon Akane lost all
track of her. Akane hated sending the former Doll out on her own, but had little
choice.
	The cell with Konatsu in it was in deep cover halfway across the
islands, and there were precious few other people in the resistance that had the
skillset that allowed them to serve as good scouts. Not ones that were still
with them these days, anyway. Akane bit her lip and forced that thought aside.
	A soft hand descended on her shoulder and Akane looked over to see
Mamoru smiling at her. She smiled thinly. Trust Mamoru to know what she was
thinking about. The man had an uncanny way about him, to raise the spirit by his
presence alone. She saw Fevrier giving her a dangerous look and Akane
shrugged off the hand, widening her smile and giving him a thumbs up to show
that the message had gotten across.
	She still had friends here.
	They waited in silence for another few moments. As they did, Akane
allowed herself to think about what would happen if this mission went off as
planned. It was a gamble, coming out here to the protected forest zone with
potentially hundreds of zoanoids all around them working the terraforming
systems. Akane looked at a nearby tree, looking for all the world like it had
been here for centuries.
	That was the key, wasn't it? As long as the people had to rely on
Chronos, they would never be free. Chronos controlled all their technology. The
terraforming was just one of the most obvious examples of what they could
accomplish. Entire ecosystems could be revived and repaired by their scientists
and engineers. On top of that, they could fix so many problems. Disease? Hunger?
Both of these things were distant memories in Chronos Japan.
	She remembered talking to Nabiki about it once. Her older sister had
listened to Akane vent about how the people just couldn't seem to care about
what was happening to their freedom. How they just surrendered all their rights
into Chronos' hands. Once Akane was finished screaming and breaking a few of
Nabiki's more expensive pieces of furniture, her sister had looked at her with
that infuriating smile she had mastered in the last seven years. The smile that
said 'oh, if only you knew the things I knew'.
	"Akane, Akane..." She had explained in a soft, patronising tone: "You
complain that people don't care about giving up their freedoms. You complain
that they don't understand that they live in a world without justice or
humanity. But you forget one thing, Akane." Then Nabiki had leaned forward, and
spoken the next part in a conspiratorial whisper. "People are animals, Akane.
They are driven by base desires. Fear. Hunger. Lust. Greed. What is freedom or
justice, Akane? Can you distill them from this universe? Can you find me a thing
which is justice? A particle of freedom? I don't think so. They're just words,
little sister. But words don't put food on the table. Words don't buy you a new
car. Words don't save your life or take it away. Chronos controls the world
because it controls those things. It can show you those things. Things that
bring fear. Things that satisfy hunger and lust. Things that inspire greed. So
long as Chronos controls all those things, they will be in power. And no words
you say, no matter how beautiful, will change that."
	At the time, Akane had cursed her, said some things she later regretted
and stormed out. But over time she had begun to believe in those words, just a
little. Akane did not think so little of humanity as her sister did, but she did
understand. The problem was that Chronos had all the power. They could give life
and take it away. They had the ultimate carrot and stick, on the one hand taking
away all the ills that plagued man, and on the other threatening to annihilate
those who refused them.
	What people needed was to understand that Chronos didn't control that
power. It was just knowledge. Genetics. Technology. Science. You didn't have to
be a zoalord to cure cancer. You didn't have to be a neo-zoanoid to filter smog
from the air and restore the ozone layer. All you needed was science.
	Knowledge, Akane speculated, was like an incurable disease. It spread
quickly, from host to host. And you could never snuff it out. All it took was
one person somewhere, willing to share, and the entire process would start over
again. Until now, Chronos had guarded its secrets jealously.
	But that was about to change.
	There was a flash of darkness and Satsuki practically materialised in
front of Akane. Akane didn't start. She was rather used to this by now. The rain
pounded down on them, plastering the young woman's brown hair to her scalp and
dripping down the length of her black body-stocking. Akane might have complained
about the use of those uniforms, except that they were very useful for these
kinds of missions. She wondered how Fevrier had ever convinced her to come in
one of them, however. Ideal for stealth they may be, but they didn't give much
pretense to modesty. Besides, they were cold.
	"The lab is mostly deserted. A few dozen scientists, human for the most
part. Two sentries at every entrance, another eight patrolling the grounds. I
detected no signs of hyper or neo-zoanoids," Satsuki informed her in a soft
whisper that barely carried over the rainfall.
	"Good." Akane frowned, trying to ignore that sinking feeling she got
whenever she thought something was too good to be true. As often as not, it had
proven to be just nervousness on her part anyway. Besides, they couldn't afford
to waste this opportunity. Within a few days, the lab would be deserted. She
only hoped they hadn't removed everything already. "Marz?"
	Marz looked up from the small laptop she was typing on, the light
reflecting off her blue hair. The computer was waterproof and extremely sturdy:
Akane had once seen the girl bludgeon a zoanoid unconscious with the thing. "My
scans show the uplink here is still active. If I can get inside, I should have a
direct line to the Chronos mainframe at Mount Minakami."
	"How long will you need to hack it?" Akane asked bluntly.
	"Chronos encryptions are very good, but with Mr. Yaegashi helping me
from base, I feel I can be inside within five minutes."
	Akane didn't sigh. She had hoped they could be in and out of there much
faster, but there was no help for it. She mentally noted to try and give Marz a
few extra minutes. The girl was almost always dead accurate in her predictions,
but it never hurt to have an extra window in case of surprises.
	"Okay." She looked around at her small group. Not the ideal force for a
mission like this, but it would do. Akane was not pleased by the fact that she
was perhaps the best fighter in the group. Satsuki and Marz were all but non-
combatants. While they had certainly improved remarkably over the last seven
years, neither of them was quite as good outside their speciality as they had
once been. She glanced at Fevrier, who was calmly adjusting a few parts on one
of her rifles. Fevrier could hold her own in hand-to-hand versus a regular
zoanoid now, and her weapons were the best of the best. Smuggled in from
America, they had the kind of stopping power that was needed to put down most
hyper-zoanoids if they hit.
	Most.
	Koume was similarly equipped. Unlike the other women here, she had
declined to use one of the Doll's old bodysuits, preferring to stick with her
rather garish pink jumpsuit. She was loud in her defiant dislike of the body
suits, but Akane understood the real reason. There was a combat vest and several
other pieces of armour hidden under the bulk of that outfit. Koume would never
admit it, but she hated having to wear something like that to keep up, and Akane
allowed her the polite fiction. Her long red hair had been turned a mellow
orange by the weather, and her only concession to stealth was that she wasn't
carrying two bazookas today.
	That left the guys. Mamoru, she knew she could trust. He may not be a
good front line combatant but he was a damn good shot. Not even Fevrier was as
good a sniper as he was, which Akane knew annoyed the woman to no end. He was
wearing modern kevlar combat armour, salvaged equipment he and the ex-Dolls had
put together over the years to keep him safe. For some reason Akane always
thought the modern armour looked wrong on him. He should have been wearing
something more... classic. He was inspecting the sight on his sniper rifle.
	That left only the other man. Akane frowned as she looked at him. To
call Skullomania ostentatious would be a bit of an understatement. He wore a
padded black bodysuit, colored with white lines that looked vaguely like bones.
He also wore an expressionless mask that covered his entire head, decorated with
a garish skull. Around his neck was tied a long red scarf which, somehow,
managed to flutter dramatically despite the fact that he was as soaking wet as
the rest of them.
	Akane didn't know much about Skullomania. Not even his real name. She
had saved him by literally tackling him to the ground and beating him
unconscious so she could drag him out of the Chronos military base he had
attacked. Single-handedly. In broad daylight. After giving a speech. It was only
sheer luck that Akane had been there at the time. Ever since then he'd been sort
of following her around like a puppy.
	He was always polite. He spoke very highly of her. In fact, he seemed to
practically worship the ground she walked on, which made Akane more than a
little uncomfortable. She was secretly convinced he had a crush on her, but had
never said a word to her about it. Which would have been sweet, if he didn't
always find a way to annoy the hell out of her. Plus she had never seen his
face. He never took the mask off. Ever. Not even to eat. Koume figured it was
because he was extremely ugly, which Akane wasn't sure she disagreed with.
	But Nabiki had vouched for him (after she had stopped laughing), so
Akane knew she could trust him. This wasn't the kind of mission she would have
trusted Skullomania with, but she didn't have much choice. Even if she had
ordered him to stay behind, he had a bad habit of showing up (often posing and
giving a dramatic speech) at the worst possible moment anyway.
	Besides, he was all she had. He wasn't a bad combatant either, once he
stopped speech-making. Akane had tried to train him once or twice, because he
certainly had a lot of raw talent. But the process had been too annoying for
even her to endure for long.
	"Okay, here's the plan. Satsuki sneaks in and nullifies the people in
the comm-center." She looked at the brown-haired young woman. "Non-lethally, if
at all possible," she clarified. Satsuki nodded sharply. Most of the people that
worked with Akane for very long had gotten used to her quirks, but sometimes the
ex-Dolls fell back on old habits unless you reminded them. She had tried talking
to Mamoru about it, but he had just sighed and explained that the three often
felt it was easier to ask for Akane's forgiveness then her permission. "That
should prevent them from sending out a distress signal right away. Once she's
secure, Fevrier and Koume act as heavy fire support: take out the patrols as
quickly as possible. Mamoru, you take out the guards at the east entrance.
Skullomania and I will storm the west entrance. Marz, you're with us. Once we're
inside, head straight for the comm-center and do your work. Satsuki, you stay
with her in case something goes wrong. If it does, you have my permission to
knock her unconscious and drag her out. Understood?"
	Satsuki nodded sharply again. Marz rolled her eyes but nodded as well.
Akane wasn't about to be moved. She knew the hacker could get too engrossed in
her work to notice that it was time to run.
	"Skullo and I will round up the scientists while taking care of any
zoanoids inside. Once we're done, everyone should move into the base. Koume, you
rig the place with the charges while Fevrier and Mamoru serve as sentries at
east and west entrances respectively. Any questions?"
	"No," Koume said, yawning.
	Mamoru just shook his head.
	"Objectives clear," Satsuki said softly, the other two ex-Dolls echoing
her a fraction of a second later.
	"Do not fear, Akane Tendo!" Skullomania said, standing up and posing
like a muscle-builder. "Your plan can not fail, for you have at your side the
ultimate hero, SK-ERK!"
	Akane released his scarf and glared at him once she had pulled him back
down behind the retaining wall. He had the good sense to look slightly sheepish.
At least, as sheepish as a man wearing a face-concealing mask could be. Akane
sighed.
	"Good. Go."
	Satsuki vanished just as she had arrived. The others began to fan out,
heading to their respective positions. Akane paused and reached into the pocket
of the short vest she wore. She could feel the soft warmth of the Star Seeds
between her fingers. As had become her ritual, she said a soft prayer through
them. Not a prayer aimed at any specific deity. Not even a prayer to the spirits
of the women who had died so that Akane could receive these talismans. It was a
prayer to the entire universe, and every soul that lived within it. The words
were always the same.
	"I believe in you."

*

	Fevrier crouched in the entranceway, peering along the wall and out
towards the forest beyond. The rain kept pouring down without cease. She ran a
hand down to the stock of her assault rifle. It wasn't a pretty weapon: the
design was far too blocky where Fevrier preferred sleek. But it worked, and
Fevrier also far preferred function to form. It fired hypercore rounds that
Akane had gotten her hands on through the black market.
	Supposedly the thing could penetrate the hide of anything but the most
advanced hyper-zoanoid battle armour. Perhaps it was a waste using them on
unprepared and untransformed regular zoanoids, but Fevrier did not believe in
taking chances. There were neo-zoanoids that were strong enough in their human
forms to bounce normal ammunition off their skin, and they were all but
indistinguishable from regular zoanoids from just visual signs alone.
	For the third time she checked her weapon, making certain the safety was
ready, the magazine locked, the barrel clear. It was time to admit the truth:
she was nervous. She glanced down at the watch that was sewn into the wrist of
her bodysuit. Four minutes. Marz had claimed she could break the Chronos
encryption in five minutes.
	The assault had come off with military precision. Even the buffoon
managed to pull off his job with a minimum of posing and prattling. She hated to
admit it, but over the years they had grown into a pretty efficient team. Akane
was far from a tactical genius. She made mistakes. She risked too much to make
certain every member of her team came home alive. Compared to the one hundred
percent success rate - until Ukyou - that Fevrier had displayed as a member of
the Dolls, this was nothing.
	But Akane got them through. Fevrier had never really enjoyed the
prospect of taking orders from some young, untested little girl. In the seven
years she had known her, however, Akane had proven herself again and again. Not
as a front line fighter, or as a great leader or tactician, but as the spirit of
the rebellion. Fevrier felt it safe to say, and had said so to Mamoru and her
sisters on more than one occasion, that without Akane there WAS no rebellion.
	That was why she was here, in the pouring rain. It had taken her a long
time to figure out why Mamoru had joined her cause. Why he would risk his own
life for a hopeless battle. She remembered vividly the time he had nearly gotten
himself killed on some fool errand, and when he had returned to her she had
decked him so hard a tooth had come loose. There had been a lot of yelling and
crying (though Fevrier would violently deny any of the latter had been on her
part) and harsh words said.
	Afterwards Akane had found her in the basement of the building they were
holed up in. She hadn't said anything at first, just sat there across from her.
Fevrier had hoped the power of her glare would set the woman on fire, but Akane
didn't even seem to notice. Finally she had spoken.
	"I'm not going to say I don't need you, Fevrier." Akane frowned and
looked at her. "I need every person I can get. I didn't ask to be in charge of
this battle. I never started this fight. But I AM going to finish it. Without
you, without Satsuki and Marz and Mamoru... I'm not certain I can do this. If I
lose even one person, it may be one person too many." Then Akane had sighed.
"But I'm not going to force you to stay. And I can't force Mamoru to stay
either." She stood up. "It's unfair to you to make you fight for a cause you
don't believe in. What's worse, I can't let Mamoru fight either."
	Fevrier had jumped to her feet, about to protest that Mamoru could do
anything he wanted, but Akane had quieted her with an angry scowl. "The fact is
that your life force and his are still entwined. If he dies, I have no idea what
will happen to you or your friends." She smiled. "So as of today I'm ordering
him off the battle. I'll contact Nabiki and see about getting the four of you
smuggled abroad to somewhere safe. America maybe."
	"You can't do that!"
	"I most certainly can. I'm the leader, and that means I get to make
these decisions."
	"He won't accept it!" Fevrier had snarled. "You don't know Mamoru like I
do. He won't settle for the sidelines! He believes in a better world, a world
without anger or fear. He believes that people working together can bring about
a better world." Akane stared at her. "He believes that you can bring about that
better world. And he will die to protect you if it means preserving that hope."
	"I don't have any control over what he believes. But I can control what
kinds of risks he puts himself, and you three, into."
	"Damn you!" Fevrier snarled and stepped forward, clenching her fists.
"It's because he listened to your preaching. Your endless speechmaking! All that
talk about joining together for the common good. It's worthless!"
	"I'm sorry you feel that way..."
	"You're all he talks about! He keeps saying how he has this need to
protect something. How he wants to help you. How he believes in you!" Akane
stared at her silently. "Why does he always talk about you!?"
	Fevrier never remembered throwing the punch. She just remembered
watching the specks of blood spatter along the concrete floor. She remembered
Akane reeling back. She recalled the woman's hand reaching down and settling on
the hilt of one of her swords, the wooden one. For a long moment, there was
utter silence in the room save for the low hum of some piece of industrial
equipment.
	"Did that make you feel better?" Akane asked slowly. Fevrier had no
response. "I know it's hard. You must love him a great deal. But you have to
understand that he doesn't really see that. He thinks that the three of you are
compelled to love him. That's why he pushes you away. I'm not the problem here,
Fevrier."
	Fevrier wasn't certain what to say at the time. Akane had simply left.
And now, five years later, she was sitting here willing to give her life for
that girl. Not because she was a great hero. It was because Akane always put the
needs of the people above her own needs. It was because she was always there for
every single one of them. It was because when it came right down to it, Akane
believed. And when you fought with her, you believed too.
	The door to the facility opened with a soft hiss. Fevrier glanced back
as Koume walked out. She was toying idly with the detonator, spinning it around
one finger. She smirked at Fevrier.
	"What are you doing out here?" Fevrier asked.
	"Just getting some fresh air," Koume answered roughly.
	"You should be inside."
	"Doing what?" Koume murmured. Fevrier tried to think of something but
failed, so she settled on glaring. Really, she rather liked Koume. The two of
them had spent a lot of time field stripping and machining their arsenals
together. It said a lot about how much they trusted each other that they were
willing to let the other handle their equipment.
	"I don't like this," Fevrier said finally into the rain.
	"What, getting soaked? Neither do I, really. But it's better than
sitting in there with a bunch of freaked out Chronos geeks and Mr. Upright
Action Hero."
	"No. I mean this mission. Something is wrong."
	"Wrong?" Koume snorted. "Everything's going right for once. Akane's been
looking for a way to get a direct line to the Chronos mainframe for years. We're
just lucky that they decided to shut down this terraforming station and move
out most of the personnel before disabling the uplink."
	Fevrier didn't squirm, but she sometimes wished it wasn't beneath her.
She settled for nodding slowly. It made sense. Chronos wasn't infallible. They
made mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes were all that had kept them alive.
	She was about to try and vocalise her unease to Koume when she felt it.
Most martial artists have a danger sense. It seemed to just come naturally as
you developed your chi, an almost instinctive awareness for hostile energy in
the area. She was quite familiar with it from her time as a Doll. Seven years
ago, when she had been summarily stripped of her abilities, she had lost her
danger sense along with her superhuman prowess. Seven years of near fanatical
training, training to the point where her body almost literally broke, had not
restored it. She knew she had made enough progress that she could no longer be
considered strictly human in her limitations, but the danger sense had never
returned.
	But as she opened her mouth she felt it. A low tickle on the back of her
neck. Nothing more than goosebumps. "DOWN!" she screamed and tackled Koume.
Almost too late as a lance of red light shot out of the darkness. It ran up the
side of the door and into the wall. A second later the embedded doorway exploded
into a shower of molten metal. Fevrier hissed as sparks and tiny pieces of red
hot door impacted against her back. Her bodysuit was made out of fabric that
deflected most of the damage, however.
	She looked up through the smoke and saw two figures approaching through
the rain, appearing from among the trees like lumbering behemoths.
	"Holy shit!" Koume screamed. "It's ZX-Tole! It's the Elite Five!"
	Fevrier didn't even spare a moment to agree with her. She was already
rolling off the woman and bringing her rifle to bear. ZX-Tole was a huge target,
a prodigious mountain of a monster that looked like some sort of walking
rhinoceros beetle. On his arms the chitin above his wrists had opened, showing
the red eyes of his laser cannons. Fevrier knew she didn't have a chance of
piercing his armour with the firepower she had on hand, so she took a moment to
aim and fire.
	She knew her shot was dead on. The hypercore bullets should pierce the
soft iris of the laser projector, disabling them. If she was lucky, the bullet
would go even further into his armour, perhaps cause some minor internal damage.
Either way it should slow him down for a few seconds.
	Then there was a sound like a whip cracking and suddenly a long lithe
figure was standing in front of ZX-Tole. He had thin eyes on an almost faceless
head, with a long dorsal fin running from his scalp almost completely down his
body. A low hum vibrated off the fin. His arm was extended, the coarse grey
flesh of his wrist transforming into a thin rapier-like blade. Bits and pieces
of Fevrier's bullet rained down around him.
	Koume was shouting even as the vaguely familiar hyper-zoanoid chuckled.
Fevrier didn't hesitate. She just clicked the rifle to full auto and expended
her entire clip. He was a soft target, from the looks of him, and her only hope
was that he couldn't move fast enough to parry all the bullets at once.
	But he just held up his other hand, which also had been twisted into a
bony rapier blade. Then a high-pitched whine emanated from it, an ear-splitting
shriek that resonated through the air. As Fevrier watched the bullets seemed to
slow down in mid-air as they approached him, then began to scatter and spiral
away from him, digging little holes into the ground. The projectiles that
weren't knocked aside merely harmlessly exploded before they reached the
zoanoid. The sound cut off a fraction of a second later.
	"Not this time, human filth. I am Neo-Thancrus. With my modifications, I
can produce sound waves that can easily shatter your weapons!" the zoanoid said,
laughing.
	"Shut up and just take them, Thancrus," ZX-Tole rumbled in his buzzing
insectile voice.
	"Move it, Fev!" Koume shouted, grabbing her with one hand and throwing
her back through the blasted doorway. With her other hand she was already firing
her bazooka. The heavy shell popped into the air, a jet of flame erupting from
the tiny rocket a moment later. Fevrier heard the explosion but didn't see the
result. She didn't have much hope of it taking down either of them.
	She turned and ran deeper into the facility. There was a crack like
thunder and a bright flash from further inside. She cursed and reloaded on the
move. She only had one more clip of hypercores. She supposed they would have to
count. She heard a mixture of laughter and curses from behind her as Koume
started a running retreat, unloading everything in her arsenal as she went. For
a moment, Fevrier wondered what her friend hoped to accomplish. Then she heard
the ceiling behind them collapse.
	Fevrier smirked. It wouldn't stop two hyper-zoanoids, but it would delay
them a few precious seconds.
	Fevrier burst into the main control center of the terraforming lab at a
dead sprint. She had already memorised the layout of the complex earlier, so she
knew exactly which direction to dive towards for cover. This allowed her to use
her first few moments to evaluate the situation.
	It was, indeed, the Elite Five. Ikazuchi had apparently dropped through
the ceiling in a blast of lightning, judging from the sparking hole above him.
He was standing tall in the center of the room, his purple-blue flesh shining as
the rain fell on it. In one hand he held a blade of sparkling blue light,
pointing down and to his right. In front of him Skullomania was standing in a
martial stance. On the other side of the room Red Cyclone was fighting with
Akane and Satsuki. Both girls were attacking with live steel, trying to stay
away from his clumsy-looking but deceptively fast grabs. Thankfully, either he
was too dumb or too arrogant to have assumed his battle form yet. Fevrier
wondered if it was worth taking a shot at him, considering the two blades had
yet to so much as scratch him.
	"Dark-clad visage, I must insist you stand down this instant!" Ikazuchi
cried, sweeping his blade up in something like a salute. "In the name of
righteousness and the authority of Chronos, I place you under arrest!"
	"There can be no authority that flows from evil!" Skullo declared,
switching poses rapidly, his red scarf trailing behind him. "In the name of true
justice, I will defeat you, paragon of darkness! I am the phantom soldier, the
fear of all tyrants! SKULLOMANIA!"
	"Before I accept your challenge, it is custom to acknowledge with my own
name." Ikazuchi smiled and levelled his blade directly in front of his face. "I
am the pinnacle of genetic evolution. The expression of the perfect genius of
Dr. Valkus and the trailblazer of humanity's bright future! Neo-zoanoid,
IKAZUCHI!" A flash of lighting and a roar of thunder punctuated his speech.
	Then Fevrier shot him.
	The bullet wasn't enough to puncture his armour, but it was enough to
pick him up off his feet and send him flying back against the wall.
	"Go help Akane!" Fevrier roared at Skullo when he looked at her
reproachfully. Fevrier meanwhile ran forward, peppering the neo-zoanoid with
shots from her rifle. The problem was that without the element of surprise she
was no match for him. His blade moved with inhuman speed, almost literally as
fast as a lightning bolt. Where it went her bullets just sizzled and vanished in
a puff of ozone. She snarled and reached down to her belt, grabbing a grenade.
"Block this!" she yelled and threw.
	He wasn't quite stupid enough to do so, instead moving to the side with
enough speed that the explosion didn't even touch him. He ran towards her, and
the next thing she knew her stomach had exploded in pain and she was plastered
against the far wall.
	She looked up groggily and saw the fight was not going well. There was
an explosion on the east wall and Derzerb stormed in, tearing through the metal
walls like they were tissue paper. Fevrier felt her heart stop, but then a
moment later saw Mamoru run in after him. The grey-skinned monster was ignoring
the shots from Mamoru's sniper rifle as he made a beeline for the trio fighting
Red Cyclone.
	Akane meanwhile had fallen back when Skullo had arrived. Two opponents
seemed to be enough to keep the muscular Russian off balance, even if neither
was doing any damage.
	"We have to retreat!" Akane shouted.
	"Oh, I don't think so, Akane Tendo."
	The blood drained from Akane's face and she turned around slowly.
Fevrier propped herself up and watched in mute horror as a man walked out of the
stairwell. He was dressed in a tight blue bodysuit with a golden breastplate and
shoulderpads. His wrinkled face sneered as he spotted Akane, his inhuman eyes
widening in delight. In his right hand he gripped the unconscious form of Marz.
	"Gyro..." Akane hissed.
	"It's been... such a long time, Ms. Tendo. I had almost thought you had
forgotten me." Akane shifted stances, bringing her sword up in front of her.
"But then, you never do forget the people who killed you, do you now, Ms.
Tendo?"
	Killed? Fevrier blinked.
	"That was a long time ago, Gyro," Akane snarled.
	"Why don't you do the intelligent thing for once, Ms. Tendo?" Gyro
sneered. "Or do you really think that blade can save you? You, of all people,
know the futility of fighting me."
	"You forget, Gyro. I don't have to win. I just have to delay you."
	"So your friends can escape, no doubt." Gyro shook his head and held up
Marz. His fingers curled around her neck and she whimpered softly.
	"MARZ!" Mamoru shouted and rushed towards Gyro, swinging his rifle like
a club. Gyro gave a sharp glance and suddenly Mamoru was grabbed from behind by
Derzerb. The immense horned hyper-zoanoid easily held the much smaller man with
one hand. The thing chuckled as it plucked the weapon from his hand and
shattered it like a toothpick. Fevrier looked over and saw that ZX-Tole and Neo-
Thancrus had joined them. ZX-Tole pushed Koume forward, who stumbled groggily
into the room before collapsing to her knees. Her jumpsuit was cut open in
several places and blood was pouring down her shoulder.
	"Damn you, Gyro!" Akane snarled. "This was a trap all along."
	"How remarkably perceptive of you, Ms. Tendo. Also, how utterly
foolish." He threw his head back and laughed, a low rumbling sound. "Who do you
think allowed your organisation to learn of this station, Ms. Tendo? I knew that
if I gave you a target too tempting to resist, you would come to me eventually."
He smiled. "All things do, in time."
	"You black-hearted villain!" Skullomania shouted, standing up and
shaking his fist at Gyro. "I won't let you continue your diabolical plans any
longer! In the name of justice and..."
	"Somebody shut him up," Gyro ordered.
	There was a flash of blue lightning as Ikazuchi blasted Skullo from
behind. The man stood for a moment, the back of his black combat suit having
been burnt off. He looked slowly behind him at Ikazuchi.  "Bad form," he
groaned, then collapsed to the ground. Ikazuchi looked away from him, his
expression growing troubled.
	"As you can see, Ms. Tendo. There is no point in resisting. You will
submit to me, or all your friends shall suffer."
	"I'll never submit." Akane said softly. She still hadn't moved; her
sword was still pointed at Gyro's heart.
	"Then watch as your friends die." Gyro reached up with his free hand and
snapped his fingers.
	"Sir, I don't think this is necessary." ZX-Tole stepped forward, his
insectile voice worried. "These are all fine specimens. If we take them back to
headquarters we can process them. Even the Tendo girl will be loyal once we do
that."
	"Are you defying my orders, ZX-Tole?" Gyro said in a dangerously calm
tone. "That is an unfortunate habit you have acquired."
	ZX-Tole obviously chose his next words carefully. "Not at all, Commander
Gyro. I'm merely suggesting that slaughtering the rebel command staff here, in
an anonymous terraforming station far from civilization, isn't the best use of
this victory. Think of how much greater an impact this will have on the morale
of the rebellion if we convert their most infamous operatives to our side."
	"Morale?" Gyro sneered. "You have been spending too much time with that
bleeding heart Purgstall and his tramp." His eyes narrowed. "Perhaps I should
rethink who commands your unit. Derzerb?"
	"Yes, Commander Gyro!" the rhinoceros-man shouted.
	"Kill one of them. Messily."
	"NO, MAMORU!" Fevrier shouted. Before she could move, there was a low
hum and Neo-Thancrus placed a vibration blade under her chin.
	"Lord Mamoru!" Satsuki screamed, but Red Cyclone was holding her firmly.
	Derzerb chuckled. "My pleasure, sir!" He looked down at the struggling
man in his grasp. "You certainly seem popular with the ladies. But men don't
scream nearly as loud as I like." The beast hurled Mamoru across the room,
denting a wall. He then stalked across the room and stood over the kneeling form
of Koume.
	She looked up at him, one eye swelled shut and one arm hanging limp.
"Fuck. Killed by the walking scab. Just my luck."
	Derzerb only chuckled and lifted her into the air, his heavy hand
wrapping neatly around her entire body. Then he squeezed. Fevrier tried to avert
her eyes, but Neo-Thancrus made a tsking sound and nicked her chin with his
blade. Koume did scream before the end.
	"KOUME!" Fevrier shouted, her voice hoarse. She could feel tears run
down her cheeks. Akane winced and looked away.
	"As you can see, there is no point in resisting. It will only bring you
pain," Gyro informed Akane with a savage grin. "Who will die next, Ms. Tendo?
This girl?" He gestured with Marz. "Perhaps the boy?" He glanced at the
unconscious form of Skullomania. "No... I think..." His eyes settled on Fevrier.
"Thancrus, I can sense your desire to punish this woman. Far be it from me to
disallow my men the simple pleasures of life."
	"Thank you, Commander Gyro." Neo-Thancrus stepped back from Fevrier.
"This is for blowing off my arm, bitch." He drew back his blade.
	Akane opened her mouth to scream something, but whatever it was, it was
drowned out by a new voice.
	"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
	Neo-Thancrus vanished behind a blast of flame. He gave a startled shout
and fell back. When the smoke cleared there was a large hole burnt clear through
his shoulder. Fevrier stared, then followed the path the flaming projectile had
come from. A young woman stood in the east entrance, her long black hair flowing
around her. She was wearing a severely abbreviated red skirt and a body-hugging
white leotard adorned with ribbons. In her hands she held a large bow composed
of flame, and she was already releasing another blast by the time Fevrier
noticed her.
	"Rei?" Akane breathed, her voice disbelieving.
	Neo-Thancrus was dodging this time, and thus the bolt missed him as he
leapt to the side, only to find his way blocked by an old man in a simple white
and blue hakama and gi. There was a crack like thunder and then Neo-Thancrus
collapsed to the ground. The old man adjusted his glasses with one hand and
looked at the bokken he had shattered against the hyper-zoanoid's skull.
	"Shoddy construction," he said, disapprovingly. It was unclear whether
he was talking about the weapon or Thancrus.
	"What? What is going on here?" Gyro demanded, gesturing wildly with his
arms. Then he blinked as he realised he was no longer holding Marz, but instead
a vaguely Marz-shaped stuffed doll. He took a moment to process this before
tossing the doll aside in a rage.
	"Interesting, they seem to be drawing their life force from an outside
source..."
	Fevrier followed the new voice only to see a young girl with long red
hair kneeling at Gyro's feet. She was cradling the unconscious Marz in her lap,
looking at a small floating pane of light that hovered just above the former
Doll's chest. "Thankfully the brute didn't do any permanent damage."
	"You! How dare you interrupt-"
	"Oh, you be quiet!" the little girl snapped and flicked her hand
absently behind her. Lines of red light flashed from her fingertips, uncurling
into a net. The net snagged Gyro and dragged him back, pinning him against the
wall. His eyes widened in surprise. "Don't think I won't give you a time out,
Mr. Bully."
	"C-commander Gyro!" ZX-Tole stuttered, obviously taken off-guard by
someone so easily manhandling a zoalord. Fevrier herself was a little
shell-shocked as well.
	"Rei..." Akane took a step forward. "You... came to rescue us?"
	"Yeah." The girl called Rei replied, pulling back another flaming arrow
with her hand and covering the remaining Elite Five. "Sorry we couldn't arrive
sooner. Washuu only just noticed your hack a minute ago..."
	"Rei..." Akane blinked away tears. Then suddenly her expression went
hard. "Wait. Aren't you supposed to be with Sailor Moon?" Gyro's eyes flashed.
	"Long story, that," the girl said, standing up, Marz somehow floating up
to levitate beside her. "But we should get you out of here, Akane."
	"Do I know you?" Akane asked.
	"Me? I should hope so! I am just THE single greatest scientific genius
in the entire universe!" She pulled a pair of fans from somewhere and waved them
in front of her face, "The beautiful and multi-talented, Washuu Hakubi! At your
service."
	"Great, another Skullomania," Fevrier grumbled.
	"I think not!"
	Washuu turned around as an explosion suddenly enveloped Gyro. When it
was finished, his restraints had vanished and he had turned into his battle-
form. It resembled nothing so much as a devil, with a trio of organic horns and
the face of a demon. His outfit had expanded to accommodate his bulk and his
inhuman features grinned ferally.
	"You little whelp, if you think you can keep me from my desti-"
	"Yeah, yeah. You're going to crush me and all my friends and steal my
candy and I've heard it all before by much more impressive men, trust me."
Washuu leaned to the side and stage-whispered to Akane. "Personally, I think
these types are compensating being a little light down below, if you catch my
drift."
	"Insolence!" Gyro roared. "Face my power, child!" Gyro spread his arms
and suddenly the world was a thousand times heavier. Fevrier's legs gave out
from under her and she gave out a short gasp as the air exploded from her
lungs... then it stopped as quickly as it started. She climbed to her feet and
saw the little girl standing in front of Gyro, holding up one hand. There was a
shimmering dome of force between the two of them, red sparks and flashes racing
out its orbit.
	"Hey, not bad!" Washuu admitted. "Gravitic induction via the process of
induced energy-mass conversion, right? With this kind of output you might be
able to even bend the local space-time."
	Gyro was snarling, sweat running down his twisted face. One hand reached
down to his belt, where for the first time Fevrier noticed a small black device.
But his hand hesitated, then he raised his arms again and his smile became more
cruel. "If you think this is the limit of my power you are mistaken, wench."
	"Language, or I'll wash your mouth out with soap," Washuu scolded.
	"But even you can't hope to stand up to this!" Suddenly the gems
embedded through his body flashed and spiralling rays of light flashed out,
swirling forward. They smashed into the force barrier hard enough that the
entire room shuddered. "If I cannot have Akane Tendo, no one can!"
	Washuu staggered back and raised her other hand, the shaking barrier
re-firming. Her playful smile had been replaced by a look of intense
concentration. "This energy output, it's much higher than before. Could he...
no. Only an idiot would try to provoke a spontaneous singularity event in a
planetary gravity well..."
	"Ha ha ha! Foolish child, now you know my power! The force I have
summoned will create a black hole! Nothing can survive that!"
	Washuu sighed and looked downward, "Right. Idiot. Got to remember never
to underestimate the power of stupid people."
	"Washuu!" Rei called, sounding worried. Fevrier looked back. During the
time she had been focused on the battle between the two titans, she had lost
track of the others. She cursed herself for a fool. The old man and the new girl
had helped Akane and the others deal with the remaining members of the Elite
Five. Ikazuchi was down now, as was Red Cyclone (who never had bothered to go
battleform) leaving only the last two. The massive chitin-covered hyper-zoanoid
was clutching Skullomania and holding off the others with his many laser
cannons. Derzerb stuck close to his companion, one arm hanging limply, but
taking swipes at anyone who came too near. "We should be getting out of here!"
	"I'm sorry, Rei, but if I try to teleport us all now, this black hole
he's forming could scatter our molecules across half the solar system."
	"It's only a matter of time, fool child!"
	"What do we do?" Akane asked sternly.
	"Do? Oh, well, I suggest running. That usually works."
	Akane blinked. "Is she always like this?"
	"Pretty much," Rei muttered.
	"What about Skullo?" Fevrier shouted. He was a pain in the ass, but he
was THEIR pain in the ass.
	"You don't have time," Washuu warned. "Just get going!"
	Akane stared at the woman, as if about to protest. Then the old man
stepped up beside her and his fist flashed out. Akane slumped forward bonelessly
and he threw her over his shoulder. "When Washuu says run, we listen," he
explained. Then he turned and dashed through the west exit. Rei and the others
followed, but Fevrier could only manage a hobbling walk. The blow from Ikazuchi
must have cracked her ribs. She looked back over her shoulder and the battle
between Gyro and Washuu. ZX-Tole, sensing the end, started grabbing his
teammates and running.
	"Now that they're gone, I'll show you real power!" Gyro roared and
gestured sharply. There was a wave of distortion that travelled between him and
Washuu and she frowned as it struck her shield. Then a tiny black dot appeared
at the edge of the barrier, growing increasingly rapidly into a basketball-sized
sphere. "Little pest! Disappear! Into the event horizon!"
	"Maybe another time," Washuu quipped. Then she made a sharp gesture and
suddenly the ball of darkness began to bulge and distend. Gyro blinked. Then he
was thrown back by a wave of force that sent him crashing into the wall,
shattering it. Washuu turned and began to run. Marz floated along beside her.
She spotted Fevrier and reached out with one hand, grabbing her wrist and
dragging her along.
	"What... what did you do?"
	"Inverted the particle flow via a shift of the local gravitational
constant," Washuu explained quickly as they ran towards the exit.
	"Huh?"
	"In layman's terms, I turned his black hole from 'suck' to 'blow'."
	"Isn't that bad?"
	"For everything within about a ten kilometer radius, yeah." She sighed.
"Too bad. This forest was just regrown, from what I heard. Ah, this is far
enough." Washuu reached up with her free hand and toggled a little icon in the
air. Then she and Fevrier vanished.
	Fevrier never did see the explosion, though they said it was heard all
the way in China.

*

	Angel rested her arms on the rail of the ferry as it brought her back
from the mainland. She absently pursed her lips and puffed, causing the thick
white bang that hung over half her face to flutter idly, rocking back and forth
in the salt sea breeze. Hong Kong, she noted ruefully, was not all it was
cracked up to be. The people here were rude and furtive, unwilling to trust
strangers and ten times more likely to be thinking of ways to stab you in the
back.
	She reflected that maybe this place had good reason to be so full of the
scum of humanity. Like Switzerland, it served as one of the few entirely neutral
zones left in the entire world. But unlike Switzerland, this wasn't because the
forces of the world had decided they wanted a place to negotiate. This place was
neutral because no matter how much you cracked down on it, no matter how many
police you had and laws you passed and prisons you built, crime existed. It grew
like mold.
	Crime needed a place where it could flourish, a place where decadence
and gambling and all the other vices of mankind could be satisfied. That place
was Hong Kong. Chronos and the other powers hadn't crushed Hong Kong because
they realised that in the end, they could not change human nature. So to their
thinking, it was probably better to have a place like this, where they knew all
the illicit activities of the world were committed, than force it truly
underground, where they could never hope to find it.
	It made Angel sick. These people were scum. They lacked faith in
anything but themselves and their money. Not a single one of them could be
counted on to stand up for what was right and necessary. Plus at least five men
had mistaken her for a prostitute since she had arrived. Five sorry men now, but
the fact remained.
	So why was she even still here?
	She looked towards the approaching towers of glass and steel that formed
the heart of Hong Kong. She could have just turned around back at the ferry
entrance. She had crossed to the mainland out of mild curiosity, but nothing
would have prevented her from just catching a ship out at the port there. A
quick trip up the coast to Russia, then a few weeks of travel overland back to
Europe. Cut down through the Mediterranean on a cargo ship to Spain. From there,
she was just a hop skip and a jump from France and then home to Luxembourg. Back
to Chris.
	He hadn't ordered her to stay with Akira. He seemed totally unconcerned
by this quest. Angel got the impression he didn't see this so much as
unimportant, as not important yet. It was something he could take care of
whenever he wished. So why was she here?
	She could go back, get a real mission. Then she would be doing
something. Something productive. She would be building the perfect possible
future, brick by brick. Body by body.
	Her hand reached down and caressed the scabbard of her sword. She closed
her eyes. She preferred not to think of the bodies. It wasn't guilt. Not really.
The people she had killed needed to die. She was no more responsible than the
bullet or the blade. She was the weapon wielded. She was a scalpel, cutting the
cancerous cells from the world.
	"And maybe if I keep telling myself that, someday I'll actually believe
it..." Angel said with a sigh.
	Angel was not all that surprised to see Akira waiting for her. The ship
had docked and she was walking onto shore when she spotted the woman leaning
against a cargo container not too far away. Her bike was in front of her. Akira
was looking down, her shoulder-length brown hair fluttering slightly in the
breeze and concealing her face from view at this angle. Had she finished her
business already? Were they going to get out of this stinking city?
	Angel couldn't help but feel her heart lighten at the prospect. If Akira
left, she wouldn't be forced to choose between her distaste for this city and
her...
	Her what, exactly?
	"Hey," Akira said as Angel approached. Her voice was dour.
	"Always a ray of sunshine," Angel commented happily.
	"Huh?"
	"You sound so happy to see me," Angel explained.
	"Oh. Sorry. I have things on my mind."
	"You always have things on your mind." Angel looked at the bike. She
didn't really want to ask the question, but she had learned exactly how tight-
lipped Akira was. She never seemed to pry into your business, and she never
hesitated to answer even personal questions. However, unless you prompted her,
Akira was as likely to spend hours staring at the buckles on her boots as she
was to have a conversation. "So... what now?"
	"Huh." Akira looked up. "We're waiting a few days."
	"For what?" Angel squirmed. She didn't guess that Akira meant waiting
somewhere else.
	"Lotus Infinite."
	Angel blinked. "Wait, what?"
	"Lotus Infinite is coming here. She intends to finish off the job she
started in Moscow."
	"And we're standing here!?" Angel shouted.
	"Yeah," Akira replied, not acknowledging the sudden shift in volume.
	"Are you INSANE? Lotus Infinite is a killing machine. She can vanish
through walls. She can annihilate city blocks! You don't seriously want to stand
around waiting for her, do you?"
	"Yeah," Akira replied in the exact same tone.
	"So she can kill you?" Angel asked incredulously. She realised she was
coming closer to a shriek, so she took a deep breath. She didn't know why she
was getting so worked up here. It wasn't like she had to stay. If Akira wanted
to throw her life away fighting to save an old high school friend, Angel wasn't
obligated to stay with her. Akira had said as much. Really, what she should do
was just wash her hands of this whole affair.
	"No. So I can save her." Akira pushed off the wall. "We have a plan.
We're going to lure her here. Then we're going to un-brainwash her."
	"We?"
	"Nabiki and I."
	"Nabiki." Angel frowned. "And you trust her? After she set you up?"
	"Do I trust her? No. Not really. But she's the only chance I've got."
Akira shrugged.
	"So Nabiki's going to... what, put the mind-whammy on Lotus?" she said
flippantly.
	Akira looked sour for a moment. "Yeah, essentially." She paused. "The
thing is that she can't do that and hold her back at the same time. It's going
to take everything she has to punch through Bison's psychopower. While she does
that, she's totally vulnerable. Somebody has to protect her."
	"You're going to fight Lotus Infinite?" Angel chuckled. "She didn't
hesitate the last time you fought." Then she saw Akira looking at her, long and
hard. Angel blinked. "Me? You want ME to fight her?"
	"Yes." Akira slid onto her bike. "I need to be involved in the... 'mind-
whammy' if we're going to have any chance of success. Something about friendship
being the only thing that can beat this thing. I don't know, I really don't
understand it very much."
	"You expect me to fight the best assassin in the world?" Angel stared in
shock.
	"You can do it, Angel." Akira looked up at her, her face was earnest.
Her large brown eyes fixed directly on Angel's. "I know you have the power to
fight her. Not win. But you can hold her off. You fought off those magical
girls, you saved me from the vampire in Moscow... you're better than me. I don't
know how much better, but you can do it."
	Angel couldn't pull her eyes away. She had known, somewhere in the back
of her mind, that Akira wasn't stupid. She must have put two and two together at
some point. One miraculous rescue at the eleventh hour could be surprise or
sheer chance. Two was pushing it. Chris had once told her to try and keep her
powers secret. To not reveal how much chi her tattoos allowed her to call upon.
Akira might not know everything, but she might well have guessed a lot.
	"I need you, Angel."
	Angel breathed out a short Spanish curse. "You crazy taka taka's will be
the death of me." She shook her head. "So where do we wait?"
	Akira smiled, a brave little smile.

*

	Akira sat on the edge of the dock, her legs dangling out over the water.
The waves licked at the soles of her boots. The clouds overhead were stormy and
bleak. Akira could feel the storm in the air. It clashed and surged around her.
The quick, brilliant chi of the clouds stirring the profound chi of the water.
It was really quite beautiful, like a thunderous orchestra building up to a
crescendo. The build-up was slow but steady, inevitable. Like the storm that was
just now finishing its drift over from the Sea of Japan. Akira briefly wondered
at the feeling of it.
	Two pairs of footsteps echoed behind her, coming steadily down the
wooden dock. Akira didn't need to look up. There were only two people on this
island with her.
	"You always so philosophical before a fight?" Nabiki asked. Akira heard
her cross her arms.
	"I guess."
	"Nah. She's just gloomy. I swear, she'd bring down people at Mardi Gras
with those frowns of hers." Angel chuckled.
	Akira chuckled. "I guess I do have a tendency to be a little
fatalistic."
	"You better have finished preparing. She's coming."
	Akira looked around for the first time. Nabiki was wearing something
appropriate for the coming weather. Her legs were clad in glossy tights and she
wore a brown jacket that dripped down past her knees and glistened like most
things waterproofed did. The arms were extremely loose and a hood was pulled up
over her bob-cut hair. Her ever-present sword descended from one voluminous
sleeve. Angel, on the other hand, looked like she was getting ready for the
beach. She wore leggings that came up to mid-thigh, where her sword was still
strapped, but above that she wore a scandalously cut pair of briefs... no, not
briefs.  It was something like a red leather leotard, except so many sections
had been cut from it that it was more like the skeleton of a leotard, the open
places covered only by an almost invisible mesh. Over this she had a thick
floppy belt that was probably about two sizes too large for her and barely hung
loosely on her hips. She still wore her leather jacket. The strategically cut
areas on her outfit were not for exhibitionist purposes... or not just, anyway.
Her outfit artfully revealed the intricate golden tattoos that had been etched
up her body.
	On her cheek and forehead there were lightning bolts: those, Akira was
familiar with. She was not familiar with the soft golden glow that seemed to
flow down them, however. On her chest she had what looked like many little
whirlpools, the funnels draining down between her breasts. These funnels then
linked into a elaborate crystalline image traced across her stomach, which
itself fed into a tracery of curves and flourish along her hips and inner thighs
that looked like flames. Akira stared.
	"Uh... nice outfit?" she said softly.
	"Just my working clothes," Angel said cheerily, then pivoted around on
her heel in an overdone manner, her voice taking on a vapid tone. "Don't hate me
because I'm beautiful."
	"Yes... certainly..."
	"Naughty thoughts, Akira," Nabiki said chidingly.
	Akira glared at her. Nabiki only smirked. How dare she accuse her of
such things? She hadn't really thought anything wrong. Not for very long at
least. Only a few seconds...
	"Just remember what you're here for," Nabiki pointed out, her voice
turning suddenly grim.
	"Right..." Akira stood up. The rain had begun to fall. The drops
pattered noisily against her leathers and the wood of the dock. Nabiki looked at
her for a moment, then suddenly Akira heard her. The voice wasn't in her head.
It was exactly the same as if she'd heard Nabiki spoke, as if the woman was
leaning forward and whispering into her ear, her right ear. But she could see
Nabiki a few steps away, and the woman's mouth wasn't moving.
	"Do you really trust this girl, Akira?" Nabiki's voice said. Nabiki
turned and gave a steady look at Angel. As she did she said something aloud. "I
hope that sword of yours is magic."
	"Nope." Angel settled her hand on the hilt. "Just... an heirloom, I
guess you could say."
	Akira considered how to reply, then realised she didn't have to. She
just let her thoughts about Angel rise to the surface. How she trusted her. How
the girl had saved her life, twice. How she was the closest thing Akira had to a
friend since seven years ago.
	"You shouldn't trust her. She's dangerous." Nabiki's voice whispered
into her ear.
	"Are you certain Lotus Infinite is coming?" Angel asked aloud, ignorant
of the silent conversation going on right in front of her.
	"Oh yes. I can feel her. That much psychopower can't move around subtly.
If you know what to look for, it's like... a taint. A cancer swimming through
the world."
	Akira frowned. She didn't exactly trust Nabiki very much. Besides, if
Nabiki was so concerned, why didn't she use her all-powerful ESP to drain every
last secret and motivation from Angel's mind?
	"Because I can't," was the silent reply. Akira started. Angel looked
at her for a moment, but dismissed it.
	"How do you know it's her and not another Doll, or even Bison himself?"
	"The other Dolls don't feel this way. Bison doesn't feel this way. It's
her. Trust me," Nabiki answered blandly. She glanced at Akira again, her
whispered voice continuing where it had left off. "There some sort of static in
between me and her, like a prism refracting light or a distortion in a funhouse
mirror. A very powerful Second Circle effect protects this girl. I could batter
through it, but not without her noticing and maybe hurting her in the process if
she decided to resist. But I can pick up bits and pieces, fragments of thoughts
and surface emotions. What I do see... concerns me greatly."
	Akira stepped forward. "Then until you have something solid to tell me,
I suggest you shut up about it," she growled.
	"Hey. She did tell us something solid..." Angel trailed off at the glare
that passed between the two older women. Then she shrugged.
	"We should get ready," Akira said.
	"Too late," Nabiki pointed out.
	Everyone followed her gaze. The rain was coming down in sheets now,
making seeing anything beyond a few meters difficult. But Akira could see her.
She stood at the end of the docks, a silent figure clad in the same black
leotard as before. A million tiny purple lights traced lines across her form and
Akira wondered what that meant before she realised it must be the rain, passing
through her body. Then the lights stopped and she held out one hand to the side.
In her grasp the Silence Glaive materialized.
	"Ukyou..." Akira said softly.
	"Guess that's my cue." Angel began to walk down the dock towards her,
swaying her hips unnecessarily. "Hey there, your Infiniteship. Pleased to meet
you again. Sorry we didn't really get a chance to introduce ourselves last time.
I'm Angel, and I'll be your dance partner this evening."
	Lotus Infinite's voice carried just past the thunderous downpour. It was
so like Ukyou's voice, but unlike it as well. "Secondary target confirmed.
Additional threat present. Subject: Nabiki Tendo, age: twenty-three, birthplace:
Tokyo, Japan, classification: psionic, Elite Class... termination order
outstanding. Lethal countermeasures mandated. Second circle countermeasures,
approved."
	"Aww. Isn't that sweet, Nabiki? She treats you just like an old friend!"
Angel called over her shoulder.
	"You idi-" Nabiki's shout died off in mid scream as suddenly the light
around Angel's face went from a soft glow to a glowing blaze. Then she was just
a streak of golden light, moving so fast that even Akira could barely follow
her. Her sword sang from its scabbard and slashed up towards Ukyou. The woman
leapt backward and her glaive came up, the two weapons clashing in a shower of
sparks and a ring that cut through the gentle patter of the rain.
	"Remember that threat level unknown stuff from last time, Infinity-
baby?" Angel chuckled as Ukyou leapt back. "You're about to regret that, regret
that a LOT!"
	"Angel, be careful!" Akira shouted.
	"No time to worry about her." Nabiki snapped. Her hand reached out and
her fingers rested lightly on Akira's brow. "I need you to concentrate!"
	"I... okay. But what exactly do I-"

	Akira was standing in a darkened room. She was tense, her muscles trying
to fight the urge to relax too much. She was standing in ready position, a staff
held sideways beside her. She recognised the stance: it was an old one, used to
give a person an optimum number of defensive reactions. She knew she had been
holding the stance for hours. For days. It was a test of endurance.
	They were out there. The enemy. They could strike at any moment. She
couldn't sense them. Somehow they had been cloaked from her senses. Only what
she could see with her eyes, hear with her ears, that was all the warning she'd
get. The slightest hesitation, the slightest opening in her guard would be
lethal. The enemy had been given orders to kill and they would not hesitate to
pull off those orders.
	Akira had no idea how long she had been here, or how long she remained
there before the attack came. It was like the passing of time had no meaning.
She simply existed, an observer of the world, detached from it and from the flow
of one minute to the next. When the attack came, it was merely another moment.
	Three women came flashing from the shadows, clad in outfits that clung
to them like the inky shadows from which they emerged. They were armed with
swords, and obviously knew of their use. One came from in front: European, with
pink hair done up in two ponytails. The other two came from right and left, both
dark-haired Chinese girls.
	She had never seen them before, and didn't seem to care who they were.
She moved instinctively towards them even as she moved to defend. Blades sang in
the air and her staff spun and shifted to intercept each stroke. Her actions
came without thought or plan, just reaction and instinct.
	Then data began to flood her mind. It was coming from somewhere else,
but also somewhere inside of her. It was an in-depth combat analysis of the
three girls, produced with a speed that Akira found slightly unnerving. The
forward combatant was the weakest of the three. Her upper body strength was
lower and her reaction time was almost five percent less. Her skill with the
blade was rustier than the others - not unpracticed, but inexperienced. The
other two were greater threats, but each was also unused to their weapon. From
the way the one on the right moved, she was obviously used to wielding a weapon
with more reach, while the one on the left was restrained by the stiff nature of
her sword.
	Even together, the three of them wouldn't be enough to penetrate her
guard. Operating purely in instinct mode she could fend them off for hours. Even
as she realised this, dozens of strategies began to be supplied to her. Complex
plans and tactics, unfurling from the back of her mind as if they were her own
thoughts. Each was reviewed at lightning speed and then rejected in turn. Then
somehow the instinct and the information reached a conclusion together and acted
in sudden unison.
	Somehow she had anticipated the fourth attacker. The idea of a three-way
distraction setting up for an ambush seemed obvious in retrospect. But she had
been informed there were only three enemies and had almost been fooled. She
ducked down, allowing the blade of the fourth attacker to flash through the air
above her head. This one wore a steel mask, red lights flashing through the
hidden eye slits. This one was a truly serious threat: she was already reacting
to her missed strike with a speed that placed her reaction speed at least
fifteen percent faster than the other three.
	Suddenly Akira was moving, dancing back between the flurry of blades.
She was no longer trying to parry so much, but was giving ground. Once again the
information came from that place that was her and not her. Muscle power.
Estimated chi reserves. Tactical analysis. Too much data for Akira to process,
but for some reason she wasn't worried. She knew that she wasn't meant to
process the data. That wasn't her job. Her job was to work the feet, to wield
the staff. She had to trust the information to be correct.
	Then the plan was formalised and they acted. Akira knew what the outcome
was, but found herself terrifyingly incapable of affecting it. She released her
staff, bouncing it forward into her attackers. They parried the errant weapon,
taking a moment to knock it away into the darkness. But that had been part of
the plan. Their desire to eliminate her weapon, which she was much more skilled
with, was what had led them to the opening Akira needed.
	She moved in, grabbing the Chinese girl that had been to her right by
the wrist. The woman's eyes widened as Akira pulled her forward, spinning her
around and twisting the arm behind her back. There was a crack as her wrist
fractured under the pressure. The other three weren't hesitating, their blades
all flashing in to attack.
	Akira released the woman just before they struck, shoving her away as
she herself leapt. The blades cut the air beneath her, and a few strips of black
fabric filled the air as the edges tore small strips off the woman's outfit. But
there was no blood. She had not been harmed.
	Akira then flipped the real object of her attack around in her hands.
The sword she had grabbed from the woman's nerveless fingers. She came down in
the center of their formation, her strike swift and sure. The woman in the mask
moved to parry, but she was used to wielding a much shorter weapon. The mass of
her sword threw her parry off by a fraction of an inch, enough for Akira to slip
her own weapon in past her guard.
	For a moment Akira crouched there, her hand resting on the hilt of the
blade. It was stuck in the floor. She had driven it straight through the woman's
stomach, and a red pool was forming around the haft buried there. Akira didn't
spare her a second glance as she rose to deal with her three remaining enemies.
They were already incoming, their blades flashing in the air.
	"Stop."
	The blades halted in mid-cut. The three enemies took two steps backward
and fell into an at ease stance, their weapons hanging by their sides. Akira
herself stepped back and adopted the same stance. Suddenly there was light
again; it came on with a dull hiss and a flash. She was in a large room, at
least the size of a soccer field, with dull gray walls and ceiling.
	He arrived in a swirl of purple light. Akira looked at him and couldn't
help but feel a stir of adoration in her chest, and a stir of something else
further down. He was tall and broad, a perfect physical specimen. He wore a red
military outfit with a cap pulled low over his glowing blue eyes. He swirled his
cape around himself and approached her.
	"Your orders were not to kill any of the targets," Bison informed her
needlessly.
	"Yes, Master," Akira found herself answering.
	"Why did you do that, then?" he asked. He didn't sound angry, merely
curious.
	"The exact wording of my orders confirmed the existence of three enemies
and that I was not to kill those enemies in the exercise, even though they had
been ordered to kill me." Akira paused as the informative part of her mind
recalled the exact wording. "I was never informed of a fourth enemy. Nor was I
ordered to keep her alive."
	Bison looked at her for a long moment. Then he threw his head back and
laughed, a thunderous laugh that shook his whole body and seemed to fill the air
around him with dangerous energy. He stopped laughing as quickly as he started,
and looked at her, his wide smile gleaming in the florescent light. He snapped
his fingers.
	"Enero, treat Decapre."
	The girl in the pigtails ran forward and crouched by the woman Akira had
stabbed. Akira spared a moment to look. The woman was still alive. You didn't
die instantly from such a gut shot. "Her wound is beyond my ability to heal
without equipment, Lord Bison," the girl said after a quick look.
	"Then acquire the equipment. You do know how much I hate to abandon
useful things."
	Enero nodded and ran towards the far wall. Bison turned his attention to
Akira once more.
	"Now, as for you-"

	-do!"
	"Akira! Akira, do you hear me!"
	Akira screamed, throwing whoever was touching her away. She heard Nabiki
grunt and stumble back. Akira blinked and look around. She was in a featureless
white plain, a surface that extended in all directions to infinity. There was no
horizon, no sky... just the endless white void all around them.
	"I... what happened?" Akira sighed, reaching up and holding her hand
over her rapidly beating heart. Nabiki gave a sigh of relief.
	"I thought I lost you."
	"Lost me?"
	"The traps set up in Lotus Infinite's mind." Nabiki walked forward.
Except she didn't seem to really walk. It was less like she was approaching
Akira than that Akira seemed to be approaching her. "What you just experienced
was her memories, or one of them. It was a memory that Bison thought was
important. He didn't just let it linger in the mind like a regular memory, he
impressed its very shape into the power he has fused into Ukyou's body. The
memory is written into the very fabric of the psychopower which sustains her."
	"I'm not certain I understand," Akira admitted.
	"Just trust me, then. It's part of Bison's trap. When you touched her
mind you got drawn into the memory. Worse yet, that memory... it's a part of YOU
now."
	"A part of me?" Akira frowned, looking down at her hands. She had killed
before. But only when it was necessary, only when it was right. Only when lives
besides her own were at risk. That had been the thing that had finally driven
her away from... She dispelled that memory. "What do you mean?"
	Nabiki was looking at her oddly. Akira grit her teeth. Some memories
were private. Nabiki's expression saddened.
	"I... wow. I'm sorry, Akira."
	"I don't want to talk about it," Akira snapped. "We have important
business, right?"
	"Right." Nabiki sighed. "That memory is now a part of you, Akira. You'll
always remember it, as much as you'll remember anything else. You won't be able
to distinguish it from your real memories either. You'll experience it as if it
was YOU in that room..."
	"Can you..." Akira didn't finish the sentence.
	"Maybe." Nabiki sat down. "But playing with memory is a dangerous
business. I'm not precise enough yet that I could safely cut it out of your mind
entirely, not without risking more damage to your psyche in the process. In a
few years..."
	"Never mind." Akira stood up. "At least no more damage was done." She
saw Nabiki wince, but chose to ignore it. "So, uh, where are we, some sort of
astral plane or something?"
	"No, no..." Nabiki chuckled. "It... doesn't work like that." She paused.
"This is a construct I created, a buffer between us and the rest of Lotus
Infinite's mind. In effect, I've isolated us from the oversoul."
	"Oversoul?" Akira blinked.
	"Oh..." Nabiki crossed her arms. "It's just a term I use. It's because
of the way I noticed that my telepathy seems to work." Nabiki frowned. "You see,
we're all connected, all of us, on some fundamental level. I think it's like
that chi field you people keep talking about. Except it goes deeper than that.
We all sort of bleed into each other below the surface, in the place where
thoughts and emotions don't exist anymore. It's like a painting. Each of us is a
brushstroke on the canvas, and where the brushstrokes meet the colours blend
together a bit. That's how I get into people's minds, by just recognising where
the connections are and crossing over." Then Nabiki laughed. "I picked the name
oversoul out of whole cloth. It just... came to me one day. I thought it sounded
neat, so I kept it."
	"Okay." Akira wasn't certain what that meant, but she decided to file it
away to think about it later. "So... what next? I mean, we can't really waste
time here, can we? Angel's fast, but..."
	"Don't worry." Nabiki waved her hand. "This is all happening at the
speed of thought. Minutes here are seconds on the outside."
	"People die in seconds," Akira pointed out grimly.
	"Hmm. Point." Nabiki stretched. "We better get going then." She paused.
"I'm afraid you're not going to like this, Akira." Akira just stared at her.
"Now that I'm touching it, I can feel the defenses Bison has set up. The layers
of psychopower he's used here. I can sense their centre." As Nabiki turned and
looked out into space, Akira thought she saw something in the distance, like a
flicker of darkness, there and then gone. "There is something beyond all the
walls, something he desperately wants to keep contained. Layers of memory,
layers of the psychopower imprinted with memories, that's what he's using to
contain her."
	"How do we break through?" Akira asked.
	Nabiki paused. "When you experienced that memory, the power of it
weakened. I was able to break it down, pull you free."
	Akira let the implications of that sink in for a moment. "So... I have
to..."
	"Yes. I'm afraid so. It's the quickest way. I could try to brute force
my way through, but that could take me actual hours of time and as you pointed
out..."
	Akira held up her hand. "Do it."
	"I'll... try to protect you as much as I can. I'll buffer you against
the worst of it. But I'm using most of my strength just to unravel these damned
barriers..."
	"I don't care." Akira looked up. "Do it."
	"Right." Nabiki looked her in the eyes. "Remember. It isn't you. None of
it is real. Remember!"
	"I will..."

*

	Angel dashed backwards, a plume of dust rising in front of her as she
retreated faster than the assassin could follow. Barely. Damn, but she was fast.
Lotus Infinite was sprinting, her body low, her weapon held out to her side, its
scimitar-like blades mere centimeters from the pavement. She was keeping up with
Angel despite the difference in speed through the simple expedient that she
didn't have to worry about dodging around the environment.
	"Neat trick that, but can you pull a rabbit out of your hat?" Angel
grinned. Let her come. Nabiki had picked this battlefield well, even if she
didn't know it. A island off the coast of Hong Kong, a good half day's trip by
boat. It had once been a factory of some sort, but had long since been
abandoned. No one lived here. No one who could get hurt in their battle. But all
their things had been left behind. Too large to ship out, too old to salvage.
Old trucks, buildings... the detritus of human society.
	Angel's playground. She leapt back, spinning as she did and took in
everything with a quick glance of her eyes. Always know where you are fighting,
that was the lesson Kiima had taught her. You are almost certainly not going to
have the skills and abilities of your opponent, so you minimise those as much as
possible. That was the second lesson.
	As she landed her sword flashed out, toppling a power line. Lotus
Infinite didn't pause as she ghosted right through the collapsing pole. But
Angel had never planned to catch her with that. She drove her sword down,
anchoring it in the earth, and waited for the other assassin to close.
	"I know some magic too," Angel shouted a moment before the blow came in
with deadly precision. It was a perfect lateral slash that would have torn Angel
in two. But Angel snapped her foot back, catching the dead powerlines that had
scattered across the earth. "The hand is quicker than the eye!" Instantly they
pulled taut around her sword, springing from the earth. Lotus Infinite's ankle
caught them and she was sent tumbling. Angel leapt, floating a inch over the tip
of the Silence Glaive.
	Before she could capitalise, the woman vanished into the ground in a
shower of purple sparks. Angel took a long breath, then leapt up onto one of the
remaining poles, spinning her sword behind her, and waited.


*

	There should have been blood. Akira wasn't certain where the thought
came from. It just popped into her head without warning. She stared down at the
drain, past her naked breasts, and thought that the water there should be
stained pink. She told her body to raise her hands in front of her face and
examined them closely. There was no blood. It was foolish to think there would
be. She began to ran a diagnostic of her thought patterns as she allowed the
body to return to the act of cleaning itself.
	At first, she thought the strange impulse had emerged from body control.
It was not unusual for that more forward, more physical part of her mind to have
strange thoughts about physical things. Cravings for food, sex and other
material weaknesses. But that was why Lord Bison had crafted her with two minds.
One for the body and all the concerns of the physical, one for the brain and all
the concerns of the spiritual. It was a perfectly efficient engine. Body control
could be programmed to perform at peak efficiency with all the physical
concerns. Normally this led to dangerous imbalances in psychopower, a tendency
for overindulgence and arrogance, uncontrollable rages and short-sightedness.
But she could control that because her spiritual mind served as a balance.
Completely unconcerned with the flesh, it could instead focus on information,
raw data, pure logic. It examined, processed and archived her sensory input, as
well as monitoring the integrity of the mental system.
	The scientists had told her she was a marvel, how they had spent years
working out her kinks. Of course, Akira didn't remember any of the process.
Bison wisely chose to remove harmful memories rather than let the shadow of
previous failures threaten her mental stability.
	So why was she still thinking about blood? Akira couldn't answer that.
She knew exactly what body control was thinking at all times, and knew the stray
thought hadn't come from her. She was also familiar enough with Lord Bison to
know that she hadn't been the subject of a telepathic message. Akira puzzled
over that, devoting more and more of her mental resources to the solution to the
puzzle.
	Still, the impulse could not, would not, go away. Akira was familiar
with frustration. She was aware of the tests and missions she had undertaken
that had taxed her resources to the upper limit, almost breaking her. She was
beginning to feel that emotion know. Logically she knew that this was a problem.
	Unexplained mental and emotional responses, especially those that had no
discernible source, were the symptoms of insanity. Akira examined her mental
efficiency once again. Both minds were operating parallel, each exchanging data
perfectly, with no feedback or snarls. Still, the only possible reason, the only
logical reason, was some sort of mental breakdown. Akira had been told about
such breakdowns, about the failures to perfect her dual mind technique and how
dangerous her reactions could be. There was only one logical reaction to this
line of thought.
	Akira had to report to Lord Bison right away for memory erasure. After
that, they could start from scratch. Locate the problem at its source and
rebuild it. It was just like a car engine; you didn't repair it while it was
running.
	The water came down, hot and hard, plastering her hair against her back,
running down her skin in little rivers. Akira consulted the body control portion
of her psyche to verify her analysis and confirm her conclusions. Body control
agreed. Obviously there was something wrong with them, and it needed to be
fixed. Immediately.
	Akira stood there. Too much longer in the steam and water and her skin
would start to wrinkle. Lord Bison would not find that acceptable.
	It had begun in the village, Akira concluded after a moment. Yes, it
would do well to examine and get every piece of information she could before she
went to Lord Bison. The technicians could hook her into diagnostic equipment to
locate the problem, and Lord Bison could tear the memories from her mind to
examine them as he pleased, but her own insights could certainly be helpful.
Nodding, she tried to narrow down what she was feeling.
	Akira was forced to come to the conclusion that she had been
malfunctioning for longer than she had thought. The aberrant thought patterns
had been following her since she had left the village, long before she had
returned to the palace. She had been wondering why there wasn't more blood. But
that was simple. There wasn't blood because she had Silenced the targets. That
had been her orders. She had deployed Second Circle effects on the village,
reducing dwellings, animals and people to sheer nothingness. There was not even
dust to mark their passing. Of course there wouldn't be blood. The Silence
unmade things.
	But the longer she thought about it, the more she was beginning to
conclude that the aberrant thoughts had begun before that. It was during the
mission itself, not its conclusion. The mission mandate had been simple.
"Proceed to the coordinates supplied. Silence the village. Vanish every
building. Unmake every field. Kill anything that moves."
	Akira ran through the mission in playback, remembering every event as if
it were happening there and then. It had gone well. She hadn't met any
resistance worth noting and proceeded to unmake the small settlement with
highest efficiency. Then she had encountered the child.
	He had been eight or nine. A comprehensive scan had revealed that he was
in good shape from working in the fields, but had no cultivated chi or magical
potential. He wore a simple grey shirt and matching pants. In his hand he held a
small child, a baby no more than a few months old. It was asleep, perfectly
still, barely breathing. Analysis of the aura revealed a first degree
relationship. The boy was frozen in place. His heart was beating too fast, his
pupils dilated. He made no sound, unable to react from the fear.
	Akira had stopped, standing in front of him. A few meters separated
them. She was presented with a puzzle. She raised up her weapon, the long tines
humming softly, rippling the air around it. Without really knowing why, Akira
had spoken. "Mission objective: Kill anything that moves," she had explained to
the boy. He hadn't reacted. Then Akira had pondered the situation for a moment.
	Her orders had been very explicit. She had undertaken such missions
before. The objective was to kill everyone in the village. Leave no witness.
Leave nothing but an empty plain. No bodies, no buildings, no dust... no blood.
It was an example to what happened to those who defied Bison. She knew that she
was expected to perform the same function again.
	But her orders had been explicit.
	A minute passed while Akira worked out the logic puzzle, and still the
boy had not moved. Akira could sense the aura of the baby stirring. In a few
moments, it would awaken. It, being a baby, would move. Then she could complete
her mission without disobeying her explicit orders. The boy would certainly move
once she started her attack, after all.
	Akira turned away and walked back the way she had come. She finished her
mission faster than normal, burning more energy than was necessary. She never
returned to the spot where the boy had been, never examined it with any remote
senses. It had all seemed perfectly logical at the time. She had been obeying
her orders. She had been doing exactly what she was told to do.
	Akira stepped out of the shower. She didn't bother to turn off the
water, as the sensors inside would notice she was gone soon enough. She took a
towel and began to dry herself.
	Then she felt him arrive. Akira's head snapped up, looking at the door.
The vortex of his power was immense, unmistakable. He was waiting for her in
the next room. In the last few months she had gotten very good at reviewing his
moods by the disposition of his aura. From the way it snarled and spun like a
thunderstorm, she knew he was not here for sexual gratification. She therefore
allowed body control a few seconds to wrap the towel just above her cleavage
before stepping into the room.
	Lord Bison did not look pleased. His eyes flashed as he saw her and his
arms were crossed. He floated a few centimeters in the air, waves of power
spreading out across the floor from beneath his steel-toed military boots.
	"Lotus Infinite, you disappoint me."
	Akira didn't say anything. What response did she have to make? Whatever
transgression she had committed, she would accept her punishment without
explanation or complaint if that was required of her.
	"I asked you to Silence that village, Lotus Infinite," Lord Bison told
her unnecessarily.
	"I fulfilled the letter of my orders," Akira felt the need to respond.
	"I see..." Lord Bison's eyes flashed again. Then he floated to the side.
As his cape flapped out of the way she saw them. A young boy. A child in his
arms. The boy floated in the air, clutching the girl to him. He was
unconscious, but alive, held in the grip of the psychopower. "Explain how you
failed to me. This boy was caught in a nearby town, ranting to all who would
listen. Did he escape? Did he defeat you? Explain, Lotus Infinite!"
	"I failed to kill him," Akira said softly.
	"Explain!"
	"I..." She couldn't explain. She didn't know herself. She was
malfunctioning. She needed to be fixed. She didn't say anything. Bison stared at
her a moment later.
	"Fine." He nodded. "Complete your mission, Lotus Infinite. Kill them."
	Akira stared at them. They weren't moving. They looked to be asleep.
	"Are you hesitating? Summon your weapon, Lotus Infinite!"
	Without thinking, Akira did so. The glaive materialised in her grip. It
was too tall to carry in the room, so she held it sideways. Body control fixed
their stance, ready to make that single perfect strike. Akira channelled a bit
of power and the blade hummed, the single perfect tone that was all that held
the Silence at bay.
	"I gave you an order and you will obey! Kill them!"
	"I..." Akira felt the saliva in her throat dry up. What was this
aberrant feeling? She knew she had to eliminate it. She furrowed her brow. It
was preventing her from completing her mission. It was unacceptable!
	"Do it, Akira!"
	Akira blinked. Bison was floating right next to her. He was screaming in
her ear. What had he said?
	"I gave you an order and you will obey, Akira Kazama!" Bison snarled. Of
course she would obey, Akira thought. There was no alternative. Whatever these
feeling and thoughts were that were preventing her from completing her task had
to be eliminated... "Do it! Obey me! You are my puppet, Akira! DO IT!"
	Akira opened her mouth...

*

	Angel grunted and flipped off the top of the wall. The bricks below her
vanished, dissolving into nothingness as the glaive swung through the air. Her
momentum carried her straight over Lotus Infinite's head and she landed behind
the woman, perched on the roof of an old car. "What do you have against
buildings anyway? They kill your dog or something?"
	Lotus didn't react to the taunt, instead instantly halting her forward
momentum and then leaping backward, thrusting the butt of her glaive at Angel
like a spear. Angel muttered a curse, deflecting the first thrust with a hasty
parry. The force of it nearly drove her off the car. The second and third
strikes were avoided more deftly with a backflip that carried her behind the
vehicle. As she landed, Angel shifted the focus of her chi. The lights on her
body shifted down and suddenly her fire chakra burned with inhuman energy. She
roared and kicked, hitting the car, nearly shredding it and sending it flying up
and into Lotus Infinite. The woman merely ghosted through the crumbled vehicle.
	Angel reacted quickly, leaping up and through the woman's startled face.
It was a chancy gambit, since she hadn't gotten a chance to switch back to her
wind chakra, but she had to do it. For a moment she thought she had succeeded,
she felt her foot slip free of the strange tingling that passage through Lotus
Infinite caused. Then she felt a hand clamp down on her ankle with a grip of
iron.
	Angel didn't have time to swear as she was dragged off course and
slammed into a wall. The wall was old, and disintegrated under the punishment.
She was sent tumbling through the air, battered by flying debris before landing
in what had once been a workroom of some kind. A piece of lumber, rotted and
moldy, collapsed onto her.
	"Damn... she's smart..." Angel groaned, pulling herself to her feet. Her
lungs were burning. Her sides splitting. She had never run at her peak for so
long. She needed to switch over to water, use the restorative power to regain
some of her energy, but she didn't dare. Water chi was almost useless in a fight
like this. She needed power and speed. Speed to evade. Power to destroy.
	Everything else was a waste of time.
	Cycling her tattoos with a flicker of thought Angel switched to her air
chakra. The light glowing along the side of her face was barely visible to her.
She spun in place, turning slowly so she could survey the room. Lotus Infinite
could come from virtually any direction. The walls, the ceiling, the floor;
these things were just suggestion to her.
	When the attack did come it still almost caught her by surprise. She
barely managed to duck as the glaive scythed through a wall right where her neck
would have been. The flash of purple light had been all that had saved her.
Still, now she knew where the enemy was. With a roar she cycled back to the fire
chakra and leapt in the other direction, casually driving an elbow in the wall.
The explosion of force blew out the entire side of the building, allowing Angel
a few moments to escape through the dust and back out into the open where she
had the advantage.
	Of course, if that didn't change soon...

*

	Akira screamed, her body buckling. Black lightning flashed across her
vision. Her eyelids had peeled back, but she couldn't really see anything. She
couldn't focus through the pain. The world had devolved into an indistinct blur,
a pastiche of colours and shapes that twirled before her eyes. Then the pain
stopped and she fell back on the cool metal of the table.
	She felt his hand wrap around hers. She blinked, gazing up at him dully.
He was tall, massive, his body rippling with confidence. Just looking at him
filled her with strength. The warmth of his hand in hers made the pain seem less
now. It made it seem worth it.
	"What's wrong?" Bison snarled.
	"Her body is rejecting the implants..." someone said from out of Akira's
line of sight. "The circuitry is building up feedback, unable to properly-" The
words cut off as the pain returned with the black lightning. She could feel it
leaping up her arm, down her leg, traversing across her body. It snaked through
her flesh, down into her bones. She felt her hand reflexively squeeze his, and
felt him squeeze back. She didn't scream this time.
	When the pain finally stopped she collapsed back onto the table, the
cool metal clammy against her naked back. Smoke was rising from her body, which
was strapped to the table by thick metal bands at her wrists and ankles. Bison
reached down and cupped her chin with her other hand. His expression was grim.
His glowing blue eyes flashed with what might have been worry on a lesser
figure. Akira smiled at him. She couldn't speak. Her voice was raw and she
didn't trust her self-control.
	The abstract part of her psyche was reporting back to her now. It had
been knocked for a loop by the pain, but was rapidly trying to evaluate the
damage now. Something was tearing at her chi, her very spirit, she learned as
quickly as it did. It was like something was trying to tear her spirit in two,
cleave out a portion of her soul. She knew, on some level, that this was bad.
	"Can you fix it?" Bison demanded, looking up.
	"I... I don't think so... L-lord Bison..."
	Bison frowned and his hand rose up. There was a blue flash and a
strangled cry, followed by a wet splatter. The room went terribly quiet.
	"Somebody fix it. I cannot lose this one. She is too important," he
ordered.
	Akira felt the abstract part of her warning her about another build-up.
There was something inside her, foreign matter of some kind. It was under her
flesh, racing up half her body, just under the surface of both her arm and leg.
It was beginning to cycle once more. She had a few seconds before it hit a
critical feedback again.
	"My Lord... I think that SHE can fix it," somebody said softly. Bison's
frown lessened and he nodded for the man to continue, but before she could hear
what he was going to say, the pain returned.
	It was worse this time, far worse. For a moment, just a moment, she felt
the abstract part of her recede. It was unnerving, it was unnatural. That part
of her had always been there. It was the yin of her yang. She had always had a
part of her mind that was not a part of her mind, and understood only that. As
it seemed to recede, she felt as if someone were tearing out her heart or
ripping off her flesh. Then she felt something else, something Other. It was
profound, it was beyond anything else. It stretched between her and her other
self like taffy, then smashed them back together.
	This time she did scream. There was an explosion and she felt Bison let
go of her hand. She fell, whimpering, to the ground. Her body curled into a
fetal position. There were shards of sharp metal all around her, but she didn't
care. Slowly the abstract part of her mind began to inform her what had
happened. There had been an explosion, the table had been destroyed, they had
fallen to the floor.
	Bison was stumbling to his feet. She could feel his pain. She had hurt
him. She whimpered again. Not in fear, but in abject despair. She had hurt him.
HIM. He was everything. He was her life. Akira wanted to die then. There was no
greater hell than the one she was living in right then.
	She felt Bison kneel down beside her.
	"Lotus..." he said slowly. "This experiment... you are the only one that
can save yourself now. It is beyond the science I have at my disposal." Akira
wanted to nod, but she couldn't work up the strength to respond. The implants in
her body were cycling up again, tearing at her soul. She probably wouldn't
survive another episode. "You can stabilise it. You have the power."
	"I... can't..." Akira insisted.
	"Yes, you can." He paused. "The psychodrive I installed in your body is
trying to remove your weakness, like it removed mine. But you reject it. You
must go beyond that. You must transform your weakness. You must render yourself
inviolate."
	"How...?"
	"Just do it," he snarled. "I command you. It is not my will that you die
here today!"
	Akira needed no other prompting. She would serve him, even if what he
asked was impossible. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused. The abstract part
of her informed her they had a few seconds before the cycle returned. So she
took that part of her mind and together they went inward and found it. The
Other. The Third Circle. It was no less alien, no less intimidating now than the
first time she had touched it. For years it had been there, forbidden. Bison
himself had ordered her not to toy with such a force. But now he was ordering
her to unleash it, and she would.
	So just as the implants in her body began to tear at her, she screamed
and focused down, letting the power of the alien energy flow through her.

*

	Lotus' knee drove into her stomach like a hammer shot. Angel bent
forward, the breath exploding from her lungs and her lunch attempting to escape
after it. She managed to hold onto her sword and with a flicker of motion it
passed up and through the woman's head in a shower of purple sparks. The
assassin's cold inhuman eyes didn't even blink. Her arm pistoned out, catching
Angel in the jaw with her wrist.
	Angel was only aware of her jaw being shut, and didn't even notice she
had been sent flying until she skidded to a stop next to a ruined tractor. She
moaned and flexed her fingers, making certain her head was still attached to her
body. It was then she noticed that she had lost her grip on her blade.
	Her eyes snapped open and she looked down the street. Lotus Infinite was
walking towards her. She paused as she passed within a stride of Angel's sword,
laying innocuously on its side amidst a patch of grass. Then the woman kicked
out with her foot, sending the weapon flying up and over a building behind her.
Angel chuckled wryly.
	"Don't take chances, do you?" Angel grunted and got to her feet. "This
is hardly sporting, you know. I'll lodge an official complaint."
	The assassin sprinted at her, the haft of her weapon spinning up. Angel
leapfrogged her, landing in a crouch. She sunk her hands into the soil, turning
her crouch into a handstand. "You'd be surprised..." she began as the woman
thrust her blade backward at her. She twisted to the side, the weapon feathering
across the exposed skin of her stomach. A line of blood appeared. "... how
effective a strongly worded letter can be!"
	Angel turned her twist into a full spiral, ripping her arms free of the
earth and sending showers of grit up into Lotus Infinite's improbably-shaped
eyes. The woman started, raising one hand to ward off the unexpected assault. As
she did Angel completed her spiral, turning her momentum into an upside-down
spin kick that caught the woman in the side.
	Or would have, had it not ghosted through her without resistance. Then
the haft of the Silence Glaive reversed its motion and came back, catching Angel
on the temple with the hard metal. A tone like a perfect note exploded through
Angel's head and the next thing she knew she was lying in a heap on the grass
again.
	"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword is a damn dirty
liar..." Angel groaned. She blinked and grabbed the side of her head. That blow
had nearly knocked her unconscious. Which begged the question... why wasn't she
dead?
	As her vision cleared, Angel turned to look and saw that Lotus Infinite
was standing over her, the Silence Glaive poised for a deathblow. But she wasn't
moving. She might as well have been a statue. Her eyes looked distant, like they
were staring through Angel at something deeper, further away... vaster. It
unnerved Angel. She had felt that way before sometimes, when Chris had been
talking to her, telling her of the perfect possible future. Like He wasn't
really talking to her, but to something much larger than her. Those eyes looked
at her the same way that Chris talked.
	Then they suddenly cleared, and the blade came down. Angel somehow
managed to pull herself out of the way as the tines buried themselves in the
earth, dissolving the soil around them. "Right, as master Yosho once said, never
have a flashback in the middle of a fight to the death..."

*

	Akira woke up with a gasp. The concrete part of her reached up and
softly pushed aside her bangs. It had only been a dream. A memory fragment,
dredged up by some psychological process or another. She would report it to the
technicians later. Especially that bizarre part. After the third circle had
flooded her, she had passed out like she remembered, but there had been...
	Something strange. A voice calling to her? A voice she recognised. A
woman's voice, she was certain, but Akira didn't recall from where she had heard
it. The concrete part of her was confused, but she could find no record of it in
her brain. There had also been the impression of a space, a white space...
	But it was gone, fading away like a dream. While Akira had been busy
trying to solve that puzzle, the concrete part of her had gotten back to running
her body efficiently. She had reached down and moved the arm draped across her,
then calmly pulled back the sheets and stood up. She paused for a moment to look
down at her companion. The dark-skinned Doll shifted slightly, her nose
crinkling and her mouth forming into a small pout as she pawed absently at the
space that Akira had occupied a few seconds ago. Finding nothing, the young
woman merely pulled in her arm and curled up a little more tightly, her
breathing returning to a deep regular rhythm of sleep.
	Noembleu was perhaps a little too possessive, Akira thought as she
pulled the sheets back up over the woman. It wasn't that she wasn't
entertaining, in her own way. It was just that Akira found her endless need to
hold on tiresome. The concrete part of her mind seemed to enjoy it, so Akira
allowed it to a certain extent. Still, it lacked a certain efficiency.
	Perhaps a way could be found to disable Noembleu during their
lovemaking. Some series of pressure points that would quiet her passions a bit.
Both her halves admitted that it would be easier to deal with their fellow Dolls
if they had some manner of deflecting their amorous attentions aside from
marathon sessions such as last nights'. The problem, Akira concluded, was the
psychopower.
	It was pure, raw passionate energy. Bison had removed all the limits on
his intensity, discovering that the one true path to power was in embracing all
the fire in your soul. He had transferred this gift on to his Dolls, removing
their feeble chi and replacing it with his own boundless passionate energy.
Akira had long since deduced that her fellow soldier's appetites were likely
linked to this. The same relentless passion that drove them in battle also drove
them to other pursuits, if they could find no easy outlet for that energy.
	The fact that the other Dolls were also so passionate worked out well
for them. Unfortunately for Akira, she didn't share that drive. She glanced down
at her arm. It was hard to notice them now, when she wasn't actively channelling
chi, but you could just make out the faint lines with the naked eye. A tracery
of circuits and lines, just under the flesh, barely visible. Remnants of a
failed experiment...
	Akira frowned and clenched her fist. Why was she so different? The other
Dolls hadn't required such drastic measures. Replacing the chi in their body
with psychopower had been the work of a few weeks in the psychodrive. But her
body rejected the psychopower. It rejected Bison's will. She knew it wasn't her
fault, or the fault of the more concrete part of her mind. Both of them wished
they could be just like the other Dolls. They had a connection, a resonance, to
Lord Bison that she lacked. Akira had hoped the experiment would work, but
instead...
	She finished cleaning and dressing and walked out into the main room of
the compound the Dolls shared together. Immediately she sniffed and her nose
twitched. She looked to the side and saw him sitting at a table with his feet up
on another chair. A can of beer was open on the table and he was reading the
Bisonopolis Times, concealing most of him from view. A plume of smoke rose up
from behind the paper.
	"Master Cracker Jack?" Akira asked.
	The paper rustled and then dropped. Cracker Jack tipped his hat
slightly, adjusting it. The dapper suit and tie he wore strained over his
muscular chest. "Lotus Infinite. Been waitin' for you."
	"I gathered," Akira replied, but frowned. Something he had said sounded
wrong.
	"Your... heh, friend still out?"
	"Noembleu is currently in a dormant state."
	"Good, good." He stood up and walked over to her. His white teeth
flashed around his cigarette as he leered at her. "You have some time free."
	"I have no current duty assigned," Akira informed him.
	He reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge
to shrug it off or shrink back. The man always felt... dirty to her. He was too
sweaty, and he smelled bad. With her enhanced senses she could detect the scent
of cigarette smoke that always lingered near him.
	"Maybe me and you could... get to know each other then..."
	Akira was no fool. She was familiar with common mating rituals. She had
been undercover often enough that she had been required to use them a few times
to secure information or the confidence of her target so that she could get them
alone. Both parts of her mind balked at the idea he presented.
	"I am familiar with your data files, Master Cracker Jack. My data files,
however, are beyond your clearance level."
	His smiled became more strained. "Come on, don't be so cold. All the
others..."
	Without bothering to inform Akira, the concrete part of her mind knocked
his hand off her shoulder gently. "I am not like the others, Master Cracker
Jack."
	"Lotus..." He rubbed his wrist. "I could order you to do it, Lotus
Infinite."
	"But you won't." Once again Akira paused. There was something wrong with
what he had said again. No... not with what he said. With how she reacted to
what he said. Something wrong with her... Perhaps it was time to report to the
scientists again. "I will be leaving now."
	Cracker Jack looked like he was going to protest, but she merely stepped
forward and through him. It was a unique sensation, moving through solid matter
like that. It was even stranger to move through a living creature, especially
one with a spirit as powerful as her trainer. Akira could feel his life force
flowing around her, through her, his chi tingling along the edges of her senses.
She felt like taking a shower once she was clear, but she continued walking.
	The process of ghosting was not really taxing, anymore. She looked down
at the lines on her arm, which were flowing with soft purple light. That was one
beneficial side effect of the experiment. The implants allowed her to channel
her chi, refine it in a way that normal concentration never had. By focusing her
void chi through them, she could achieve the same level of dematerialisation as
Eidolon. Until then, that had been her particular gift alone.
	The scientists had certainly been surprised when Akira had pulled off
that trick during one of their interminable combat tests.
	She paused in the corridor, suddenly clutching her head. There it was
again, that feeling. That feeling of wrongness. It was like a misplayed note in
a symphony. You hardly noticed it, but the dissonance threw off the entire
performance. She took a deep breath and examined what had been the same about
all of the occurrences so far.
	The dream, the talk with Cracker Jack, just now...
	Her name. She blinked. She had thought her name. She had responded when
he had called her by her name. She had heard someone calling her name in her
dream...
	Akira reached up and brushed aside her bangs, then paused. No, that was
wrong. Not her bangs...
	"What is wrong...?" she gasped, suddenly stumbling forward. "My name...
is Lotus Infinite." Yes. That sounded right. That sounded true.
	She could remember her entire existence. Waking up in the psychodrive,
training, fighting, going on missions, acquiring powers, fighting the huntress,
the other Dolls... that was her life. It all flashed before her eyes. Faster and
faster it came.
	It was right. It was true.
	But why didn't she believe it?
	"Lotus Infinite."
	"Who?" she turned around and blinked. The Doll that was standing there
was short, with neon pink hair done up in pigtails. There was a pause, then she
realised that Enero was talking to her. She straightened and nodded. "Report."
	"Lord Bison wishes you to go to his quarters," Enero informed her, then
saluted with an outstretched hand. She turned crisply on her heels and then
walked away down the corridor.
	A few moments passed. She knew there was something wrong with her. She
should report to control immediately. She might need another mind wipe. But...
Lord Bison's orders were absolute.
	To make up for lost time she passed through a few floors and walls,
travelling through the palace with the speed of a ghost. She startled a few
troopers, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she concentrated on getting to
Lord Bison. He would know what to do, he would know what was wrong with her.
	The door to Lord Bison's chamber slid open with a soft hiss of
pneumatics. She entered slowly, hesitantly. She had only ever been in this room
a few times. More often, Lord Bison met people at the heart of his psychodrive.
His power had been growing over the years, and he could little afford to be away
from the stabilising influence of the massive machines for long. He only ever
left the psychodrive when there was something critically important for him to
take care of.
	"Lotus Infinite, reporting as ordered, sir!" she shouted, snapping out a
sharp salute. Inside, she felt that dissonance again. She tried to quash it, but
it wouldn't go away.
	"At ease," he said. He was sitting back in the darkness of the room. The
door hissed closed and she was plunged into darkness. All she could see was the
bright glow of his eyes. Still, she had far more senses than just vision to rely
upon. As usual, she was running a tactical evaluation of her surroundings,
cataloging all objects and life forces with equal ease. Nothing had changed
since her last visit. "Come closer, my creation..."
	She did so. There was something wrong with his voice. It was... tired.
"Lord Bison, I detect an irregular feedback in your chakra system," she began,
but he cut her off with a dry chuckle.
	"Yes. It is as I feared. This body is finally giving out on me. My power
had grown too great for it to contain. Like a wildfire, it burns me up from the
inside out."
	"You must return to the psychodrive immediately!" she shouted, feeling a
dark chill clutch her heart. If Bison should die...
	"I cannot." He chuckled grimly again. "The psychodrive can no longer
hold my excess power. If I channel any more into it... it will explode."
	"No..." She looked down at her arm. She could make it out clearly in the
utter darkness. "The implants. If they can store and refine my chi..."
	"There is not enough time." He rose up. "No. I have only one hope left.
I require a new body."
	She nodded. The cloning tanks, of course. They could fast grow a new
body for him in a few hours. "I will inform the scien-"
	"No," he barked, shutting her down. "That will not work. I need a body
far stronger than any mortal frame. I need... something only you can provide me
with, Lotus Infinite."
	The dissonance struck her again, and she took a step back. What was he
suggesting?
	"Come to me, girl."
	"I..."
	"What is the matter, Lotus Infinite?"
	"I..." she hesitated again.
	"I have made you to obey me. To love me above all else. Do as I
command."
	"Lord... Bison..."
	"What is the matter, Lotus Infinite?" His voice was coming closer, his
eyes growing larger. "Or should I say, Akira?"
	She stood up straight, her body freezing.
	"You love me, don't you, Akira?" Akira tried to respond, but her mouth
had gone dry. "You remember how I love you. How I look after you. How I steer
you back onto the correct path."
	"I remember..."
	"And you don't need to know anything else. You don't need to experience
anything but here and now." She felt his fingers lace together with hers. They
were warm. She stepped forward, leaning against his chest. His heart was beating
loudly, quickly. It was too fast, she realised. He was in pain. He really was
dying. "Why should you care about anything else? This is reality. No hard
questions. No complicated morals. Just my will, my love... our love. Us.
Together. Forever. As one."
	"As one..." she repeated mechanically.
	"What else is worth remembering? The loneliness? The years of wandering?
The betrayal of everything you believed in? The friend you know will betray you?
Why go back to that? Just... be with me instead."
	"With you..."
	"That's it. Just let go, Akira."
	"Let go..."
	"It's so simple. It's like water running between your fingers. All the
uncertainty just flowing away."
	"Flow away..."
	"Now... just embrace me." His arms wrapped around her. It was safe and
warm here. The hot energy of his psychopower was comfortable, familiar... she
had known it for years...
	"No..."
	"What?" he said slowly.
	"No... can't give in..."
	"Akira, don't do this!"
	"Won't... give... up!"
	"Why fight me? Why fight this? You can be with her!" he snarled,
clutching her tightly. "You've seen what she has become. If you were to join me,
to become one with my will as Noembleu and Enero and all the others have, you
could have her. You could be with her. No struggle. No pain. Just you and her,
together, forever!"
	"No... not like that!" Akira shouted, pushing against his chest. Somehow
his strength failed and she sent him stumbling back. "I don't want a lie! I
won't live with that... that thing you created! I want Ukyou back!"
	The blue eyes flashed in the darkness. "You cannot have her back. She is
gone. She is beyond even me now. Annihilated."
	"NO!"
	"I didn't do it." His tone was no longer kind, it was harsh and mocking.
"She did it to herself."
	"NO!"
	"She couldn't stand what I wanted her to be, so she erased herself
rather than live with it. She abandoned everything. She gave up. She-"
	"SHUT UP!" Akira roared and leapt forward, driving her fist towards
those glowing eyes. She was shocked when her fist passed between them without
meeting any resistance. Then she was stumbling through the area she was certain
he had occupied. She blinked, and watched as the darkness around her wavered. It
was like somebody had grabbed the edges of reality and began to wrinkle it like
a piece of paper.
	She gasped as, with a sound like a million mirrors shattering, the
darkness was torn apart.

*

	Nabiki was not really holding Akira. She couldn't really feel the woman
trembling in her arms. Couldn't hear her choked sobs. In the real world, where
they were standing right now, Akira's expression hadn't even changed. She still
had that confused, deer in the headlights expression she'd had the moment Nabiki
had forced the mental connection between the two of them and Lotus Infinite.
	Everything around them was a lie, a fabrication. It was no more real
than the images on a TV screen. Nabiki had constructed it so that Akira would
not have to experience what telepathy was really like. It was a comfortable
shelter, a wall that protected the other girl from understanding what was really
happening to her. Sometimes Nabiki wished there had been someone around to do
this for her, to shield her from what she had done to other people, and to
herself.
	Because once you understood the truth of it, you could never go back.
	"It's okay, Akira... it's over..." Nabiki said, trying to keep her
disappointment out of her voice. She was not cruel. She had not wished to harm
Akira, not really. She had truly believed the girl could make a difference. And
she had, in her own way. Without her, Nabiki never would have been able to get
this far.
	"I... my god... I still remember everything..." Akira shuddered, hugging
herself. "They way she obeyed him, the way she loved him, the way she killed for
him..."
	"It wasn't real," Nabiki assured her, running a hand along her back.
"Just... phantoms. Lingering memories. An elaborate trap for people looking
where they shouldn't."
	"It felt so real!" Akira looked up at her, her brown eyes shining with
tears. "I could feel it, I could smell it... I was there, I was DOING IT..."
	"That's what he wanted you to think." Nabiki sighed. "For a moment
there, I thought I lost you. You were sinking into the layers of memory faster
than I could follow. Somehow you kept yourself, even after my protection slipped
away." Nabiki smirked, a confident smirk she didn't feel. "I was right. You do
have a stronger will than I gave you credit for."
	"I... guess." Akira seemed to suddenly become aware of their embrace.
She blushed and pulled free. "Sorry. I..."
	"It's okay." It was the least I could do, Nabiki silently added.
	"So... we did it? We made it to the center of her mind?"
	Nabiki chuckled. "I guess you could call it that." She frowned. "It
doesn't really work that way, but... it's a comfortable illusion." Nabiki felt
it was best not to pollute Akira's mind with the truth. How her mind, how all
minds, were connected, a stream of energy... a web that connected them all,
stretching out across the entire planet... maybe the entire universe, for all
Nabiki knew.
	How, when you came right down to it, it was the connection between them
that defined that. How there was hardly anything to be called a 'self' at all.
Those were things Nabiki tried not to think about, things she safely shoved away
to the back of her mind at most times. But she was feeling especially morose
now, and the thoughts bubbled up unbidden.
	"Then where is she?" Akira said happily, her voice filled with almost
childlike excitement. She pulled herself to her feet. "What do we have to do to
free her..."
	That was when Akira got her first good look around them. It was the same
featureless plain as before: an endless white void with nothing that could be
called a floor or a ceiling. Here, the suggestion of standing was just that, a
suggestion, a sensation you created yourself. But there was one new thing.
	It was like a wound, a terrible gaping chasm in the centre of their
reality. Nabiki had seen it growing as she got closer to the centre, steadily
stripping away the shields of memory Bison had wrapped around it. This was the
thing that he was protecting. As Nabiki watched it inched wider, more and more
of the white space vanishing into the black maw. She couldn't look straight at
it. She couldn't even really picture it. Doing so was like staring into the sun;
her mind simply slipped off it, refusing to focus. As far as she could tell, it
was exactly what she thought it was... nothing.
	It was impossible. She knew the web of minds: the connections went
everywhere, connected everything. If what she thought was true, it connected
minds and animals and plants and rocks and even the void of space. The fabric of
chi, the makeup of their entire universe, of which Nabiki had managed to tap
some small portion.
	This emptiness was abhorrent, utterly alien, utterly wrong. It shouldn't
exist. But there it was regardless.
	"What is this...?" Akira said softly.
	"Just what it looks like, Akira," Nabiki stood up as well. "Nothing."
	"Where's Ukyou?" Akira demanded.
	"She... isn't here." Akira whirled on her, her expression enraged, but
Nabiki cut her off before she could start speaking. "I'm so sorry, Akira," she
said softly. "I thought... I really thought..." She sighed and placed her hands
over her eyes. "This is what Bison was afraid of. Not Ukyou, this... nothing.
Look at it. It consumes. It destroys. He was afraid of it growing. That's why
the defenses were so strong. Not because he wanted to keep Ukyou locked away,
but because he wanted to keep this power locked up."
	"But..."
	"She's gone, Akira." Nabiki looked at her. "We did everything we could.
You tried." The words sounded hollow, even to her, but Nabiki continued. "It's
time to put an end to this."
	Akira stared at her, then her eyes slowly filled with horrified
comprehension. "I... I won't let you!"
	"There's no other choice," Nabiki told her coldly. "That void is
growing, every moment. Without Bison's wards in place, it will consume Lotus
Infinite's mind. Somehow those memories were hemming it in. But without them...
she'll become a living nothing. And it won't stop there. It will spread, beyond
her. I can already feel it..."
	"No, no, no..."
	"This isn't a test anymore, Akira!" Nabiki snapped. "I'm not evaluating
your willpower. This isn't a gauntlet Bison created for us to run. This is real.
This is how it ends. We have to kill her before it spreads!" And to punctuate
her point, Nabiki allowed Akira to experience what she experienced. She unlocked
all the locks in her mind, let Akira see the truth deep in her soul. Akira's
eyes widened as she felt the overwhelming weight of the truth crash down on her.
Nabiki pulled back quickly, slowly gathering together her mental defences and
illusions once more, but the damage had been done.
	Akira collapsed to her knees, her eyes losing focus. She reached up and
hugged herself, shuddering slightly. "I..." her voice was teetering on the edge
of despair. "I can't do anything, can I?"
	"No." Nabiki frowned. "None of us can. Nothing but end this."
	"And if I don't want to?" Akira said softly.
	"You'll throw your life away. Maybe a lot of other people's too."
	"I can't... I can't do it."
	"Damnit, Akira, this is no time for heroic gestures!"
	Akira looked up at her, and her eyes suddenly focused. She looked at
Nabiki, but it was not with the same eyes as before. There was suddenly
something more... profound about them. She stood up. "Nabiki... somebody once
told me something very important. 'We are, who we choose to be'... well, I don't
choose to be the person who can't do anything. I don't choose to be the person
who gives up. So what if I can't do it? I have to try. I have to keep going.
Because... because that's the kind of person I want to be. The kind of person
who doesn't give up." She turned towards the gaping hole in reality.
	"Akira..." Nabiki gasped. "Don't! It'll tear you apart!"
	"I know." She smiled. "Tell Angel..." She chuckled. "Forget it. I'll
tell her myself."
	Nabiki tried to stop her. She reached out with all her willpower and
tried to force Akira to stop running, but it didn't work. It was like trying to
grab onto fog. Then Nabiki tried to terminate the connection. This was all a
projection, a construct of fantasy and dream: all she had to do was will it
away, return Akira safely to her own body (which she had never left) and that
would be that.
	But it didn't go away. Akira just kept running. It was like one of those
dreams where you are charging down an hallway that never ends, the one where the
door at the end was just beyond your fingers no matter how quickly you ran. But
as Akira reached for it, her fingers did brush against that nothing.
	And she screamed.
	Nabiki slapped her hands over her ears, but it did no good. The scream
was ripping through her, cutting through her mind like a knife. She could only
stare as the fingers of Akira's hand began to unravel. Bits and pieces stripped
away, revealing nothing underneath. It was like she was a shell of a woman, a
balloon in the shape of a girl. But even as she screamed Akira continued
forward, she was stretching out her arms across it even as it ate away at her.
She was trying to embrace it. Nabiki could only stare.
	She had never watched someone commit suicide before.
	Then something happened. Nabiki wasn't certain what. It seemed to ring
across the mindscape like a bell, but too loud or too soft for her to hear. For
a moment, Akira's form flickered, the last threads of her body simply ceasing to
exist. For a single dreadful heartbeat she was gone.
	Then, with a suddenness that caused Nabiki's heart to skip, she was
back. Whole, undamaged. And in her arms was a shape... no, two shapes. It looked
like a man and a woman, two bodies in the same space... Then she blinked and the
image was gone, replaced by a woman cradled softly in Akira's arms.
	Ukyou.
	Nabiki looked around. The nothing was gone. Perversely enough, the
vanishing point had itself vanished, like it had never been.
	"Nabiki..."
	"Wha..." Nabiki started, but it was only Akira. Akira who, by all
rights, should have died. Worse than died.
	"Nabiki, I want you to do me a favor," Akira said, looking up and
staring at Nabiki with her new eyes. They looked the same. They were the same
brown. They were the same size. But now... they were different. They had seen
something. For a moment, Nabiki wondered why they looked so familiar. Then it
came to her. They looked just like Ukyou's. The exact same.

*

	Just to be on the safe side, Angel actually both ran well out of eyeshot
and then behind a ruined piece of equipment before squatting to make her report.
The excuse 'Lotus Infinite threw my sword into the bay' was close enough to the
truth to not be suspicious, and in any case she was sure Akira was far too
concerned with the unconscious assassin to be worried too much about Angel.  And
as for Nabiki... well, either Nabiki Tendo knew everything, or she didn't.
Either way, there wasn't much point worrying about what she might suspect.
	The warm glow of the water chakra filled her, sweeping away her fatigue.
Her wounds had already healed in the short time since the fight ended, though
she felt damn lucky to be alive.  The fact Lotus Infinite had gotten more and
more erratic towards the end of the fight had been all that had saved Angel from
rather grisly death.  Angel had been weighing the option of just cutting and
running when Lotus Infinite has suddenly paused, then her weapon had dissolved
like morning mist a split-second before the assassin had toppled bonelessly onto
her side.
	Angel grinned to herself.  Now that it was over, she felt a little less
put-upon about the whole thing.  After all, she'd survived a fight with Lotus
Infinite!  Which put her in a class of two with that flat-chested vampire, as
far as she knew.  That had to be worth a notch or two on one's belt.
	The hologram flickered into existence as she activated her communication
device.  But Chris wasn't there.  Instead, a familiar face stared blankly at the
screen for a moment before lurching to life.  "Report."
	Angel scowled, her momentary good humour evaporating.  Link.  Or rather,
one of her dopplegangers.  The real Link hadn't left her lab in the two months
before Angel had departed to find Akira.  The real Link didn't look like the
dopplegangers anymore, either.  "Where's Chris?"
	The false-Link paused the slightest instant as it relayed information
back and forth from its mistress.  "He's in his room.  Obviously, I don't know
when he'll emerge, so I'm... taking his calls, I suppose."
	"Oh." Angel didn't know what was in that room, the large circular
chamber at the deepest point of the complex that had been built of and around
Mihoshi's ship.  Nobody did.  Chris had forbidden them all from disturbing Him
when He retreated there, or of attempting to find out what was inside.  Anybody
else, and Angel would have taken that as an invitation.  But when Chris gave a
rare order, neither she nor Link disobeyed.
	"So, do you have anything to report, or is this call a social one?" Link
inquired archly.
	Angel gritted her teeth, but proceeded to fill the doppleganger in on
the events of the last few days.  The simulacrum scowled ferociously as she
described how Lotus Infinite had fallen unconscious.
	"So, Nabiki Tendo must have reached her inner mind and freed it from
Bison's control.  Her powers are growing."  Link did not sound in the slightest
bit happy about this.
	"You're wrong," came another voice, the voice of a little girl.  Link
glanced in the direction of a shadowy corner outside Akira's field of view, her
expression no less distasteful than it was when she had mentioned Nabiki.
	"Oh?  So who did it?  Akira Kazama?"  She sneered the last
contemptuously.
	"Of course Akira did it," the child's voice said. "She's much more
restricted than Nabiki, after all."
	"Uh, wouldn't that be a bad thing?" Angel asked, already regretting it
as she did.  The childlike voice laughed softly, but made no further comment.
The Link-doppleganger stared a moment longer, eyes narrowed in reflection of its
mistress' thought, but then turned back to Angel.
	"Regardless of that, it can be safely presumed that Ukyou Kuonji has
been freed from her mental domination.  Obviously you should stay and observe
what effects the last seven years have had on her."  The corners of her lips
quirked into one of her fake little smiles she always flashed when she knew
something you didn't.  "I'm certain Chris will be very interested.  And you,
Angel, are so lucky to get to know her."
	Angel considered not taking the bait.  She hated giving Link the
satisfaction - and she obviously found it very satisfying - of letting her
ignorance show.  But, damn it, she DID want to know what was so special about
Ukyou aside from being the world's greatest assassin.  "Lucky?  Why?"
	"Why, how many people get to know both of our gods?  You'll only be the
second, in fact."
	Angel rolled her eyes.  Link was being cryptic again.  "Whatever."
	"Oh, that's right, you didn't know, did you?"  The simulacrum's face
affected an expression of shock.  "Well, I'm sure it won't hurt to let you know.
After all, it might be important."
	"I'm kind of on a time limit here," Angel growled.  "If it's important,
spit it out."
	"It's really very simple.  Ukyou is just like Chris."
	"... what?" Angel said.  Her mouth was suddenly dry.
	"That girl you just assisted in the rescue of came from... a higher
plane, I suppose might be a good term?  From the same place as Chris. I believe
they even knew each other there, before they died and came here."
	"But... that's not possible," Angel said.  She felt numb. "She's...
she's alive, for starters.  I know.  She breathes.  She bleeds.  She's warm."
	"Dear little Angel, the very peculiar and fascinating thing about gods
is how little they fit into the preconceived categories we'd like to put them
in."
	"But... she was Bison's slave..."
	"Incorrect.  She surrendered to Bison.  She chose to serve him, for what
reason I don't know, though I have several suspicions.  But she is no Doll, no
soulless puppet on a string.  Something like him could never make her truly his.
After all, don't you remember Chris telling you the same thing?  You should
listen to him more."
	Angel wanted to shout at her.  She wanted to accuse Link of lying.  But
she knew better.  Link never lied when she could derive more satisfaction from
telling the truth. And this wasn't something she'd lie about anyway.  Not about
Chris.  And somebody like Him.  So she just sat there and stared.
	"Is that all, then?" Link noted with great good humour. "Excellent.  I
have things to do myself, anyway.  Enjoy yourself, little Angel."
	And then the screen shut down.


				To Be Continued...


Blade: Okay!  So, what is there to say about this chapter?

Epsilon: What ISN'T there to say about this chapter?

Blade: Lessee: "This chapter ended all the plotlines, brought Jadeite back to
life, got rid of the Third Circle, and starred a fluffy bunny."

Epsilon: Fool. Logic has no place here!

Blade: Well, no, probably not.

Epsilon: Besides, this chapter's getting released near the beginning of the
first rather than the end! AND it's still only 200k! That is clearly bonus
enough!

Blade: But just in case it isn't, check out triple-w at bladeandepsilon dot com
to see this month's fanart!  Warning: contains actual fanart!

Epsilon: Thanks to the actual fan who sent actual fanart that Blade didn't
actually pay for (for once)!  Also, thanks to him for becoming our latest
prereader!

Blade: Because he's one, he's gonna get to know what happens with THIS before
any of you! Isn't he lucky?


*

	"She is not zere," Schrodinger told her in a sing-song voice.
	Rip Van tried not to let her relief show. "Zen vhere is she?" she
growled out.
	"America."
	Rip Van blinked and turned to face him fully, just to make certain this
wasn't some joke. Schrodinger never looked serious, nor grave. But if you knew
him long enough you learned to read his different kinds of amusement. This was
not the kind of amusement of a cat playing with a wounded bird. Nor was it the
teasing amusement of a child taunting a humbled rival. It was the anticipatory
amusement of knowing there would be great fun in the near future.
	"Our agent has reported to us her location, or at least vhere she vill
be shortly. She is in the heart of the beast. The fortress of the S.T.A.R.S."
	Rip Van hissed and clenched her fists. Attacking America was foolish,
even for her. Especially that place, There had to be close to a hundred martial
artists in that one city alone. Her hated enemy had chosen to surface in one of
the few places she dared not attack.
	"I haf orders from ze Major concerning zis." He cleared his throat.
"Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle, you shall proceed to zis city at once and eliminate
Lotus Infinite immediately," he said with the odd lilt of memorization. "Also,
you shall be provided vith a sufficient force to level ze city of Southtown to
a smoking crater, and let not a single living human escape alive."
	Rip Van Winkle stared at the grinning catboy for a few moments, then she
smiled.

		Hybrid Theory Chapter 24: Nobody's Listening