Welcome. My name is Rose. I see you are in search of knowledge. This I can
provide, though I do not promise the answers you find will be the answers you
seek. Allow me to lay out the cards and show you the truth of past, present and
future.

First, The Magician. Two lives, torn from their own world by... what fate? No
one knows. One became the Hero, the other became the Villain, though neither was
certain of which they were, and which the other was. But this is their card,
their world. The Magician shows us that they came into this world filled with
knowledge and power.

Hmm. This is interesting. The Devil. You see how it holds a man and woman in
thrall at its feet. That is the Hero and the Villain. Chained together by their
own arrogance to the same fate, separated by their arrogance from true
understanding. They drive each other apart.

And finally the Tower. The disaster is complete. The Hero loses all her friends
and succumbs to despair. The Villain loses that which he cares about, and gives
up his connection to mankind. They have many allies and enemies, all caught in
the maelstrom. In the end, they both vanish from the stage for seven years...

And so we know the past. Now we learn of the present. Hmm. The Fool. The
Questor, looking forever for the Hero on the next horizon. Unwilling to see when
her feet take her too close to the edge. But like the Magician, this is more
than one person. For there is also the Supplicant, who has lost faith and seeks
it again in the words of the Villian, though he calls himself hero now. She too
walks blindly. They find each other, and two quests become one.

Death is next. The moment of transition. They find the Hero in the hands of
darkness, bound by her own will. But the Questor and the Supplicant together
manage to bring her back from the edge. But in so doing, they are faced with the
new world. What do you Quest for, once the journey is finished? What do you pray
for, when God himself seems to have none of the answers?

And Strength. In the crucible of their own minds they find their strength again.
The Hero learns that there are things worth fighting for, that victory is found
in the smallest places. The Questor and the Supplicant are drawn in her wake,
until the Villian makes his reappearance...

And now the future? Ah, the great mystery. Always impatient to get to the least
interesting part, people are.

The Lovers. Odd. Growth into the new world. The Hero must face the demon of her
past, the man she surrendered to. The only chance for salvation is love and
compassion. Or maybe this is more mundane. The darkness which held the Hero now
holds her daughter as well. Maybe reuniting them...

The Wheel of Fortune is next. Hmm. A lesson. Never underestimate chance. Once, a
single girl defeated a god by the power of chance and fortune, and saved the
entire world. Even through the Hero and the Villian seem to have the power of
God, they are not God yet. Fortune favours no man. Or perhaps this is a
indication that salvation can be found in the most unlikely of places...

And the last card... Judgement. So, what does that mean now? A great battle? A
great decision? Appeal to a higher power? In the end, they say that the Hero
shall fight a terrible Adversary and unmake all the world. I have seen this, and
watched all the signs come to pass one by one. But can any human being escape
destiny?

The cards are silent.


                              C&A Productions Presents

                          A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion


                                   Hybrid Theory


                             Chapter 25: Part Of Me


	Seven years ago, Bangkok had been one of the jewels of the east. An
ancient city, a place of temples and towers, of religion and commerce. It had
been a den of vice. A centre of business. It had been one of the most beautiful
cities in the entire world, blending aesthetics from the sublime to the
sacrilegious. Walking down its streets, one could find oneself rubbing elbows
with the richest people in the world or the dregs of humanity... and everything
in between.
	Ukyou had never been there, and Aaron had only read about the place in
novels and magazines. More accurately, they could not remember the times they
had been here. Nonetheless, they knew the place had changed in seven years. It
would have taken a fool not to notice.
	In seven years, Bison had made his mark upon this city. This was no
longer a city of temples. The only god here was Bison, the only law that
mattered here was his. All things flowed from Bison and to Bison all things
would return. There was nothing left of the city that had once been Bangkok.
There was only his city.
	Bisonopolis.
	Ukyou's mouth quirked upward in a smile. It was hard to take it
seriously, when it was called something like that. She had learned the proper
Thai name on the way here. It was fifteen words long and roughly translated as
'The Glorious City, City of a Thousand Adorations, The Invincible City of
Victory, The First City, the City Blessed By Its Lord Bison'. Compared to that,
'Bisonopolis' almost had a charming ring to it.
	Bisonopolis was a fortress. In the past, Bangkok had been like most
cities, spreading out slowly from its downtown core, the buildings growing
slowly smaller and more diverse as you travelled outward. Eventually the city
gave way to suburbs and the suburbs to farmlands and the farmlands to
wilderness. That was not the case anymore.
	The land around Bisonopolis was a blasted wasteland. Torn rock emerged
from the ground like waves. Bison himself had reduced the land surrounding the
city to this state on the day he had risen to power. The former Thai army had
stood here to oppose him. He had crushed them with a wave of his hand. The land
had been left like this as a reminder.
	No one defied Bison.
	Much of the old city had been torn down and rebuilt in the last seven
years. The city of Bisonopolis rose out of the earth like a great black beast,
graceful towers and squat structures clawing up towards the sky. There was no
poetry, no beauty to the layout of the city... it was simply big. It was modern,
almost painfully so, but still managed to have a distinct Thai flair. The
skyscrapers looked like Buddhist towers, harkening back to the ancient ways but
still undeniable products of glass and steel and not stone or wood. The entire
thing was surrounded by a wall, a glittering black barrier of shining metal
that gleamed here and there with lights. It rose nearly a hundred meters into
the sky, curved inward as if it were the beginnings of a vast dome. Ukyou's
grin widened. She wouldn't put it past him. A giant dome that rose up and
shielded his city from harm. It was just ostentatious enough to be something
Bison would demand of his architects.
	Searchlights arced out over the wasteland. Only one highway led into
Bisonopolis, a massive sixteen-lane expressway full of traffic going both in and
out. It rose up, steadily climbing into an overpass that flowed up and over the
wall to Bisonopolis before descending back into the city. It was the only
overland route leading there. One could also travel in through the river, and in
fact from what Ukyou had been told most of the business and travel to and from
the city was done that way.
	It might have been easier to sneak into the city that way. Perhaps even
sneak in under the water. But Ukyou wasn't interested in sneaking in.
	She gazed down the road. The sky overhead was pregnant with clouds. They
rumbled and growled, lightning flashing in the distance. And under those clouds,
in the centre of Bisonopolis, was her target. It was huge, almost a hundred
stories tall and easily the largest structure in the entire city. It was a man,
kneeling in lotus position, his hands outstretched in a gesture of welcome. His
face was shadowed by his cap and his enormous smile gazed out across the whole
of Thailand. Bison, in all his glory.
	"We should reconsider," Nabiki suggested. Ukyou looked back over her
shoulder. Nabiki looked nervous, her face slightly sick. So she could feel it
too. Bison ruled this land. It was his. He had seeped into every rock, every
blade of grass, every building and every thing. He was in every breath you took.
	"No," Ukyou told her. She turned and stepped out onto the road. There
were roars and the shrieks of horns and cars and trucks started to swerve to
avoid her. She didn't care.
	"Heh, I'm certain Ukyou's got a plan," Ranma said, only a little
nervously. He stepped out onto the road behind her. He glanced up at the clouds,
frowning slightly. Seven years, and he still hasn't gotten rid of his curse,
Ukyou noted with bemusement. She wondered idly if his cursed form had aged any
since the last time she had seen it. The thought of Ranma standing under the
driving rain in a clinging t-shirt flashed through her mind before Ukyou
squelched it. She had no idea where it had come from, but she had bigger
worries.
	"I don't think she does," Akira said, following Ranma. She was wearing
her motorcycle leathers, her shoulder-length brown hair swirling around her
head. She locked gazes with Ukyou for a moment and again Ukyou felt something
pass between them. Something secret and powerful. Ukyou shuddered and looked
away. "But I trust her."
	"Easy for you to say," Nabiki muttered. By now the traffic around them
had stopped. The cars heading into the city were beginning to line up behind
them. Horns shrieked and people yelled. One man got out of his cab and started
yelling at them in Thai. Nabiki looked at him wearily and gestured with her
fingers. The man blinked, turned around and slowly got back into his cab. The
noise behind them gradually trailed off.
	"Nabiki," Ukyou chided.
	"What?" Nabiki looked at her. "Do you seriously want them here for
this?" Ukyou considered that for a moment, shrugged and turned back towards the
city.
	"Interesting. You're even more powerful than I was led to believe," the
other woman said. She walked out onto the road. She wore a knee-length jacket
the colour of wine over purple hose and had the most gravity-defying hair Ukyou
had ever seen. Rose glanced at Ukyou. "I hope you know what you're doing."
	"Oh yes," Ukyou said. She was walking steadily towards the city now, her
pace eating up the miles. The traffic out of the city had cut off. Nobody else
was coming down the road. They had noticed her approach.
	Good.
	"We came here three years ago," Pluto said, moving up to take her place
beside Rose. Ukyou noticed Akira and Ranma place themselves between the two of
them and her. She reminded herself to thank them for their concern later. Pluto
hadn't changed much in the last seven years. Her hair was still long, and flowed
in green rivulets down to the small of her back. She had exotically tanned skin
and glossed lips. She was clad in the uniform of a Sailor Senshi, white with
black trim, and wore it with a dignity and pride that Aaron had never recalled
from anybody in the series. There was a presence to Sailor Pluto, even knowing
she had lost her most dangerous powers, that slightly intimidated Aaron. "We
didn't get within a kilometer of the palace. And the city is even more of a
fortress now than it was then. A full frontal assault like this is suicide. We
should turn back, find another way."
	"No," Ukyou said. They had crossed the wasteland now and were coming up
to where the road began to rise into the sky. She could see them gathering up
there. Hundreds of them... a thousand. Soldiers. An army. They glowed in her
perceptions like sparks amongst the flames of Bisonopolis. A thousand soldiers,
each of them flooded with the psychopower.
	Bison had been busy.
	"Much as I hate to agree with the walking fashion victim, maybe she has
a point?" Angel said softly. She was taking up the rear. She looked nervous,
holding her sword and gazing up at the top of the ramp. She could probably see
the army gathering there, even if she couldn't feel them. "I don't fancy our
chances at fighting the entire city."
	"We won't have to," Ukyou assured her.
	"Doesn't look like that to me," Nabiki pointed out, her hand reflexively
circling around the grip of the wishing sword. "Looks like he's called out the
entire army."
	"No, just the elites," Akira corrected her. "America isn't the only
nation building an army. Those soldiers up there have been trained in
psychopower techniques. Each one of them has the strength to punch through
concrete, the speed to dodge bullets, superhuman reflexes..."
	"Hey, great!" Ranma smirked, flexing a little. They could all see the
army gathering up there now. It was like a black wave, tank upon rank of men and
women in black turtle-shell armour with featureless black faceplates. "I hope he
calls them the Legions of Terror. I've never had a chance to fight actual
legions of terror!"
	"Be careful Ranma," Nabiki warned. "They don't fight fair. They're armed
to the teeth with state-of-the-art firearms. Weapons designed to channel chi
energy and work just as well for psychopower as they do for normal chi. The
bullets those soldiers fire can be as deadly as the most powerful zoanoid
biolaser, just as fast and even more accurate."
	"How did you know that?" Akira asked.
	Nabiki snorted. "It's my business to know."
	"Oh..." Ranma frowned and crossed his arms. "Maybe we should get some
cover, then? Like a tank or something? We can pick it up and charge the line..."
	"That won't be necessary," Ukyou pointed out. She could feel the buildup
of energy among them. The army was forming up, the people in front kneeling,
the ones behind them levelling large rifles. In a few more seconds she'd walk
right into optimum firing range. "I'll take care of this. Stand back."
	The others slowed down and let her take the lead. The commanders of the
army began to shout. Ukyou couldn't understand what they were saying, but she
got the gist of it. She extended her hand to her side and gripped her fingers.
The Silence Glaive began to form in her hands.
	The shout to open fire roared down the ranks and the air was filled with
a hundred thunderclaps. Aaron focused and time seemed to slow down. He could see
them, each individual bullet, flowing through the air. He could see the air
rippling around them like waves on a lake as they emerged from the plumes of
flame at the end of the rifles. The sky was full of them, a mass of lead
travelling at supersonic speeds. There was no way to dodge this attack. It
simply left you nowhere to go.
	Ukyou spun the Silence Glaive in her hand and reversed her grip. With a
wordless cry she slammed the blade into the pavement before her. The roar of the
rifles died off, replaced with a single perfect note, a heartbreaking middle E.
The first of the bullets approached her, then slowed down. Like a fruit being
peeled, the outer surface of the projectile curved back, revealing nothing
within. The flakes of metal floated backwards like flower petals, shrinking and
vanishing like phantoms.
	The massed fire continued. They must have fired well over a million
rounds by the time the commanders called for a halt. Ukyou looked at them, her
eyes hard. She willed her power up, allowed it to flow into her eyes and her
voice. She was like ice. Her words flowed out towards them like freezing mist.
	"Anyone who wishes to survive to see the next sunrise, get out of my
way."
	Then, to demonstrate, she ripped the glaive from the road. The overpass
between her and them unravelled. Great cracks and tears smashed through it,
becoming breaches into nothingness. The entire thing vanished, nearly a hundred
meters of road surface and all the supports underneath straight down to the
blasted wasteland below. She held the Silence Glaive up for a moment, then
slowly brought it down and pointed it at the massed army. The wave of
annihilation had stopped with surgical precision right at the toes of the
nearest Shadowloo soldier.
	For a moment the army regarded her. Then it turned and ran.
	"Little over the top, don't you think?" Nabiki groused, walking up to
the edge and watching the soldiers retreat into the city. "We might have to deal
with them in the city."
	"No, we won't," Ukyou assured her.
	"How do you know?"
	Ukyou didn't answer. Instead she focused for a moment and then leapt
across the gap. She landed in a crouch on the other side, the glaive held to her
side. She turned and rose to her feet. She looked back across the divide. Akira.
Ranma. Nabiki. Angel. Rose. Pluto...
	Those who could come with her. Those who had chosen to. Ukyou still
wasn't certain she trusted Rose or Pluto, but she knew she would need their
help. Destroying a bridge was one thing, but Bison had shattered the entire
wasteland and that had been seven years ago. She turned and began to descend
into the city. "Are you guys coming?" she called over her shoulder.

*

	"What if she doesn't come?"
	"She'll come," Pluto assured her companion.
	"Yes... but what if she doesn't?"
	Pluto stood up, stretching and looking around the park. It was pleasant.
The sun was shining brightly, and from this place you would never have known
that the city of Southtown had been nearly destroyed just over twenty-four hours
ago. She was wearing a long white dress, the same colour as the snow which
blanketed the park now. Snow? In southern California? Who would have guessed?
	But then, who would have guessed she would be here? It was unthinkable.
Ukyou was... the apotheosis of everything that Pluto stood for. The end of all
time. Pluto knew it with a certainty that edged out the certainty that the sun
would rise tomorrow. Yet, here she was waiting on the vague hope that her
greatest enemy, a woman she had almost killed a half-dozen times... that she
would come so they could talk.
	Pluto would be lucky if she lived out the day.
	"Ukyou will come and we will discuss things," Pluto said. "That's why we
came here."
	"That isn't why Tethys sent us here." Rose pointed out.
	"No, it isn't." Pluto looked down at her footprints in the snow. She had
been looking forward to the heat, just a little. Three years among the frozen
halls of the Dark Kingdom would do that to you. Though she smiled a bit at the
thought of the words 'Dark Kingdom'. Tethys insisted on keeping the title, and
everyone in the world referred to her capital as that.
	But none of them had been inside D-Point.
	"If Ukyou doesn't come, Tethys will be most displeased," Rose pointed
out needlessly. She did that a lot. Rose had a distressing tendency to continue
to press an issue long after Pluto thought that the topic was either dead or so
obvious that it no longer bore repeating. It was one of the few things Pluto
disliked about her.
	"Tethys can be displeased all she likes," Pluto crossed her arms. "I'm
not trying to kidnap Ukyou from the centre of all her friends. You've taught me
a lot about martial arts in the last seven years, but I'm still not as good as
you and you plateaued out... your Soul Power isn't growing any stronger." Pluto
left the rest unsaid. Rose's Soul Power had, if anything, been growing weaker
over the last seven years. Growing weaker while Bison's rose. The effect was
subtle. Many would not have noticed. Pluto was certain Tethys had not, but...
	"If we don't bring Ukyou to see Tethys," Rose pointed out, "she'll get
someone else who will. And Tethys does not suffer traitors or incompetents
well."
	"Then we'll talk with Ukyou. Persuade her." Pluto frowned and looked up
at the sky. The sun was out now. By nightfall, all the snow would be gone. "But
first, we'll talk about..."
	"The future," Rose murmured. She finally shifted her position, turning
away to look down the park's paths.
	"Or the lack thereof."
	"Nothing's changed. Seven years ago you woke up every morning screaming
because of those nightmares." Rose stood up and came over to Pluto. She laid a
hand on the taller woman's shoulder. Pluto held it for a moment. "You still wake
up every morning screaming. The future hasn't changed. If anything, the fact
that Ukyou has regained herself is only proof that Bison could not counter her
destiny."
	"Which means what?"
	"Either she dies, or the whole universe does."
	Pluto considered that. She had spent many sleepless nights thinking
about that. The truth was, she had no solution. She knew what was going to
happen. She believed it with all her heart and soul.
	But she couldn't do it anymore. If she had just talked to Ukyou all
those years ago... instead of being enemies, they could have stood together. So
many people need not have died...
	Haruka. Michiru. Ran. Chizuru.
	Dead because Pluto had been so caught up in her obsession that she could
see nothing else. No. Not anymore. There had to be a third option. There had to
be... didn't there?
	"She's here," Rose whispered, then slipped away from Pluto. Pluto
straightened and closed her eyes. She could feel Ukyou approach. Her senses were
not nearly so fine-tuned as Rose, but they had the aid of magical enhancement.
She turned to face Ukyou.
	The woman came through the snow towards them. She looked exactly the
same. Her long black hair was still tied into a ponytail at the bottom of her
neck. Her face was still that of a girl of sixteen, but her expression was of a
woman much older and wiser. Her eyes were black and cold, shaped like lotus
flowers. She wore a long black coat that ruffled around her legs. Under that she
wore a bodysuit, a white leotard with black leggings and heavy brown boots. The
sleeves of her jacket were rolled up. On her left arm were a series of scars,
five parallel indentations like phantom fingers.
	She wasn't exactly the same, Pluto realised. On her right arm there was
now a series of tattoos. No... not tattoos. There was something under her flesh,
long thin angular lines that looked like circuit designs Pluto had once
seen. Just like she had in the vision. Pluto felt her knees grow weak. Rose
stepped closer to her, but Pluto waved her off. She firmed herself up.
	Ukyou stopped just out of striking range. Not that it mattered for the
three of them. Pluto had the attacks of her Senshi form, Rose had her Soul Power
and Ukyou had the Silence Glaive, which could have almost covered the ground
between them by itself without resorting to the Silence. Rose opened her mouth,
but Ukyou cut her off with an upraised hand.
	"Listen, I don't have time to talk to you here, so I'll make this
quick." Ukyou glanced between the two of them. Her eyes were hard. Pluto stared.
She had never seen Ukyou like this. She had seen Ukyou mad. She had seen her
scared. She had seen her when her icy shell was at its most complete. But
this... there was something different about Ukyou now. Something profound. "I
don't know why you came here, and I don't care. Your prophecy? Your deals with
Tethys, whatever they may be? I don't give a shit." She brought down her hand.
	"I need your help."
	"What?" Pluto gasped out.
	"It's very simple." Ukyou turned the full weight of her expression on
Pluto. "Bison has my child. Right now. Every minute I spend here talking to you
is another minute that monster gets to sink his claws further into..." Her voice
had begun to crack, but she took a deep breath and kept it under control. "I'm
going to Shadowloo. I'm going to the heart of his power. I'm going to face him.
I AM going to get my child back." A shudder rippled across her features. "I
don't even remember... if it's a boy or girl... I don't remember ever...
touching... holding..." She took a deep breath again. "But it's MY child, and I
will NOT let that bastard have him for one more second!"
	Ukyou stepped towards them. "So here's the deal. I'm going to fight
Bison. You two are some of the only people to have done so and come out in one
piece. I need you. What you know. Your powers. Everything you can do for me. If
you don't come with me, I might lose my child forever..." She clenched her fist.
"But I won't let that happen. So... how is this going to happen? Are you going
to try and fight me, and make me beat the two of you into the ground until you
agree to help me? Or are we going to skip me kicking your ass and get straight
to rescuing an innocent child from one of the greatest evils on earth?" Ukyou
paused. "Or are you just going to stand there staring at me like idiots? Make
your mind up now, because I've wasted all the time I'm going to on this."
	Ukyou turned and began walking back the way she had come. Pluto stared
at her retreating figure.
	"She wasn't being overly polite," Rose pointed out. Then her lip quirked
up in the closest thing she had to humour. "But given our shared history, I can
hardly blame her." She looked at Pluto. Pluto had seen that expression before.
Rose was leaving this one up to her.
	Great.
	Ukyou was continuing down the path. "Are you guys coming?" she called
over her shoulder.

*

	The buildings rose steadily on each side of them, enormous black
shadows that loomed up from below and crowded the sky overhead. Soon the only
illumination was the weak flicker of neon lights from the signs lining the
streets. They were descending into the city proper now. A city full of shadows.
The air down here was thicker, smokier and smelled faintly of decay.
	Pluto followed Ukyou down the long street into the darkness. Who would
have believed this? Seven years ago she had been doing everything in her power
to kill this woman, and now she was... what, fighting at her side? No. Nothing
as simple as that. She was fighting FOR Ukyou. Fighting for the child that Ukyou
had left behind in this sick and twisted city.
	"Are you okay?" Rose asked. They were slightly back from the others.
Rose had been hovering protectively near her ever since she had carried Pluto
across the gap. Pluto glanced at her.
	"I'm fine... just, contemplating irony," Pluto informed her.
	"Ah." Rose smiled, a icy smile that contained no real humour but managed
to look the part very well. Rose was like that. She obviously didn't see the
world in the same way that Pluto or anybody else did. For her, it was a world of
cold logic and hard data. A world without passion. Sometimes Pluto envied her
that. "I find it best not to give too much thought to irony."
	Then Rose paused and looked at Pluto, her eyes serious. Her Romany face
looked especially thin, haunted by shadows in the failing light. "I trust you,
Sailor Pluto. Seven years ago I came to you and thought I had answers you do
not, but I have learned the opposite is true. Even if you doubt yourself, know
that I am here to follow you and protect you from whatever trouble your heart
leads you into."
	"I..." Pluto gaped. Where had that come from? Pluto smiled. "You're my
friend, too, Rose," she said finally, smiling. Rose nodded gravely.
	"But I suspect the time for discussion has come to an end," Rose told
her, nodding towards Ukyou.
	The young woman had paused in the middle of the street. They had reached
the bottom of the city. The towers and clouds managed to filter out all the
sunlight this far down. In the distance thunder crashed, but the flash of
lightning never reached here. Street lamps buzzed. Ukyou was looking off to one
side.
	Then, in a shadow there was a snap-hiss and a spark appeared. It was
held in the meaty hands of a man, who pulled it up towards his face. His square-
jawed features were turned slightly away from them and he was wearing a fedora
pulled low over his eyes. Once he was finished lighting his cigarette he flicked
the match out into the street. The spark skittered across the street in front of
Ukyou's feet, then travelling all the way across the highway.
	Then it was crushed under the foot of another man who was stepping out
of the shadows. He was big, his body rippling with muscles. His skin was the
colour of stained wood and he wore a blue shirt and shorts that were stressed
almost to the breaking point by his physique. His face was a study in dumb
cruelty: beady eyes, caveman brow and a grin with one too many teeth missing.
His short black hair was cut close to his scalp. He chuckled and slammed his
boxing-glove-clad hands together.
	"Cracker Jack, Balrog..." Ukyou said softly.
	"You know, when I heard that you managed to escape, I never thought I'd
see you again," Cracker Jack noted. He was leaning back in the shadows, the soft
red glow of his cigarette making it so that only the lower half of his face was
visible. He spoke with a sort of candid aplomb, as if he was discussing nothing
more important than the weather or the bus schedule. "Like the other three we
lost. I just assumed that nothing in the world would drag you back here. There
were a few days there where I actually missed you, you know?" He plucked the red
ember from his mouth and smiled. "But BISON never doubted. That was why there
was never anyone sent off to get you. You'd be back. That was what we were
told."
	"He was right," Ukyou hissed. "I know it's not going to make any
difference, but I'll give you the same offer I gave the drones up above. Run
away, and we won't hurt you."
	Balrog laughed, a short brutish snorting laugh. "Chickenshits. They ran
like kids."
	"Well, to be fair, B, they were facing Lotus Infinite." Cracker Jack
chuckled, a decidedly more urbane sound. "Not to mention this fine collection of
heroes." Cracker Jack paused. "You know, I might really like to do that,
Lotus..." He shrugged and stepped out of the shadows. In one hand he carried a
white ash baseball bat leisurely. "But I have orders. And I may be a bully, and
a murderer and several other things that your mother warned you about, but one
thing I am not is a man who breaks his word."
	"'Bout time," Ranma groused, walking up to stand next to Ukyou. "I was
beginning to think this was going to be boring."
	"Heh. Kid, you're going to wish this was boring in a few moments,"
Cracker Jack laughed. Ranma glared at him when the older man called him 'kid'.
The look Ranma was giving him carried a promise. Cracker Jack ignored it,
instead laconically raising his hand and snapping his fingers.
	They slipped from the shadows like wraiths. There were ten of them in
all. They wore black leotards that clung to them like a second skin, the shade
blending into the darkness around them. Overhead there was a flash of lightning
and the Dolls were outlined for a brief moment.
	They looked no older than Ukyou, barely old enough to be called
teenagers. But Pluto knew looks could be deceiving. Bison had used the
technology he had stolen from here and there to retard their aging, keeping them
perpetually young. Pluto curled her lips in a sneer of disgust. The man was an
animal. Like it wasn't enough for him to steal their minds, their very souls and
turn them into his own personal army of assassins. He also had to defile their
bodies. There was no other reason that all his Dolls were nubile young women,
women that he never let age.
	The Dolls had them surrounded. Ukyou, however, was looking at one Doll
in particular. This one looked older than the others by a few years. She had
chin-length glossy black hair and exotic features whose nationality it was hard
to place. She was beautiful in a way that Pluto could appreciate. She had made a
living in fashion once, and she had been around beautiful women all her life.
This one made most supermodels look like the bulimic children they were. She
was the ideal that every designer had been aiming for since man started
scratching on walls.
	"Nancy..." Ukyou said, and there was sadness in her voice.
	Cracker Jack followed her gaze. He smirked again. "Ah, missing a bit of
the old fun you used to have? You and Eidolon there were especially close, I
know. Then again, being the only two Dolls who can ghost, you used to have the
most... interesting games."
	Ukyou flushed and looked away. "They have no choice in this, Cracker
Jack. But you..."
	"Don't worry, Ucchan," Ranma said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I
got this guy."
	Ukyou looked at him and nodded.
	"Yeah, kid, whatever you say." Jack pointed his bat at them. "Dolls,
Lotus Infinite lives. Everyone else... kill 'em."
	Pluto forced herself to relax as she adopted a martial stance. She
summoned her magic, allowing it to pool invisibly around her hands, ready to
unleash it at a moment's notice. Rose swirled her shawl around herself, charging
it with purple Soul Power. Ranma stepped away from Ukyou, smirking and raising
his hands as he assumed a horse stance. Angel spun her sword around a few times
and glanced around the Dolls. Akira had assumed a stance suspiciously similar to
Ranma's on Ukyou's other side. Ukyou, meanwhile, was just standing there with
her glaive pointed at the ground. Nabiki stood in the middle of their formation,
her right hand rested on the wishing sword, but she didn't look the slightest
bit nervous.
	Then, the Dolls began to sing. One near the back started it, an
especially young-looking girl with pink hair pulled into ringlets that tumbled
down both sides of her head. She lifted a microphone to her lips and began to
chant, a wordless melody that turned into a chorus as the others Dolls picked it
up one by one.
	"Heh." Cracker Jack smirked, resting his bat on one shoulder. "You may
be six of the most powerful martial artists in the world, that's true. But that
music? That's the Dolls synchronising their psychopower. I never believed it
myself until I saw it in action. Linked like this, the ten of them are nothing
short of unstoppable."
	"I'm impressed," Nabiki drawled, stepping forward. "You're right. Their
minds are connected on a level I wasn't even certain was possible. With that,
they can share energy like a virtual network. It makes them collectively more
than the sum of their parts. They might even have been able to stop us..."
Nabiki grinned. "But it's such a delicate and... fragile process. Let's see what
happens when..."
	Cracker Jack was already moving, cursing as he sprinted towards Nabiki,
pulling back his bat. Ranma slipped sideways, his feet not even leaving the
ground as he came to a halt directly in front of the well-dressed mercenary.
Nabiki, meanwhile, snapped her own fingers.
	The Doll named Enero jerked, her voice strangling off into a startled
choke. Her long pink hair bounced as she stiffened. The other Dolls foundered,
staggering as the link that connected them was brutally shredded by the force of
Nabiki's will. Pluto didn't even want to imagine what that felt like. From the
look of sympathetic pain on Rose's face, it could not have been pleasant.
	"They're off-balance!" Akira shouted. "Remember the plan!" Everyone
nodded, then Akira turned towards the nearest Dolls. "Now!"
	And they scattered, sprinting and leaping into the shadows of the city.
Pluto heard Balrog roar in anger and Cracker Jack begin cursing as the six of
them vanished into the depths of Bisonopolis.

*

	"What are they doing here?" Akira snapped, pushing herself into Ukyou's
face.
	"Don't start this again, Akira." Ukyou said, not looking impressed.
Akira was taller than her, a fact that still tended to creep Akira out since she
was used to the opposite. But she had grown in the last seven years, changed...
Ukyou had not. She still looked like a child. Always before, Akira had been the
one looking up to her, both literally and philosophically. Now... she sort of
wished it could be the other way around. But Ukyou was not backing down. "I need
them."
	"No, we don't," Akira said. She glared over at the two women standing in
the corner near the window. Pluto was wearing an innocuous-looking dress, but
Rose was wearing the same jacket she always had. The two were doing their best
not to look at her. "We have more than enough power to take down Bison without
having to resort to... them."
	Ukyou looked at Akira a long moment. "I expected better of you, Akira."
	Akira flinched back. That had sunk in deep. She stepped back, frowning
and looking away.
	"Akira has a point, Ukyou," Nabiki jumped in, picking up Akira's
argument. "The two of them tried to kill you a lot of times. How do you know we
can trust them?" Then she paused. "I could..."
	"No," Ukyou said.
	"It's okay," Pluto said, stepping forward. "I have nothing to hide. If
you want to let Nabiki enter my mind to confirm this, I won't object."
	Nabiki began to grin, but Ukyou cut her off. "I don't think so," Ukyou
said. "Nabiki, you already know too much and you're far too clever for your own
good. Plus you still have one wish left on that thing." Ukyou indicated the
wishing sword with a nod. "I hate to think what kind of mischief you'd get up to
with Sailor Pluto's knowledge of the timestream."
	"You wound me, Ukyou, you really do," Nabiki said flippantly, but her
face looked annoyed.
	"The fact is I need them both," Ukyou said. "They could have attacked me
at the park if that was their intention. That's why I went alone." She paused.
"Minako is still recovering from her injury and Shingo is staying here. Plus
Angel still hasn't come back. That means at the moment it's three of us versus
whatever Bison has in store." Ukyou laid her hands on the table. On it was a map
of Bisonopolis, an overhead satellite shot. The Americans had long ago lost
control over their satellite networks. Nobody had quite worked up the courage to
ask where Nabiki had gotten the photos.
	"You're right to be worried," Rose said, stepping forward. "Pluto and I
have tried to infiltrate the city a number of times, looking for you. Even after
we acquired the resources of the Dark Kingdom it proved impossible." She looked
down at the photo. "Bisonopolis is HIS city. It belong to Bison like his arm
belongs to him. The place is... infected with his psychopower."
	"I get that," Ukyou said.
	"No. You have forgotten that. You fail to understand." Rose crossed her
arms. "The psychopower is not magic. It is Bison. His will, purified. It is his
distilled hatred, his rage, his vile passions. It floods the entire region."
Rose closed her eyes. "Normal people, they respire chi from the world. Every
living thing is connected, and it is from this web of life that we draw our
strength. But in his world there is no power to respire but Bison's. Every day a
little bit of your chi, a small piece of your soul, is breathed out into the
world and what rushes in to fill that gap is him. For those who train in the
martial arts, it only happens faster. Their bodies go through much more chi, so
if they train in his lands the conversion is all the faster. Soon enough, there
is nothing left of them but Bison's power. All unknowing they become a part of
his will: he taints them."
	"You can't be serious," Nabiki said, looking disgusted.
	"I am," Rose assured her. "It's an insidious scheme. Bison does not plan
to conquer the world by force. Every day his influence grows. His power grows
larger, swallowing more of the world. If he has his way... there won't be anyone
fighting him. His power will gradually replace the life force of every living
man, woman and child, it will flow in the rivers and the seas, in the plants and
animals. If he isn't stopped, eventually he will taint the soul of the Earth
itself."
	"Thankfully," Pluto cut in, "he has reached just about the limit of his
power. For all his strength he's still a man, still mortal. His body can only
handle so much psychopower or it'll explode." Pluto paused. "That's what he
wants you for, Ukyou. Your power, it's... infinite. He wants to transfer that
power into himself so that his psychopower can grow unchecked."
	"Hey, I don't understand a word you're saying, but whatever it is can't
be that bad," Ranma spoke up from his position sprawled out on the couch.
Everyone turned to look at him. He grinned. "Don't worry, because whatever he's
up to ain't gonna happen. I'll kick his ass. End of story."
	Ukyou smiled a little. "I'll keep that in mind." Then she sighed. "But
you can't go, Ranma."
	"What?" Ranma leapt to his feet. "Like hell I'm not! I'm not letting you
walk off on a suicide mission again! Plus, I have to pay him back for beating me
seven years ago."
	"That's why you can't come, Ranma," Ukyou said, her voice hesitant.
Akira repressed a sigh and leaned against the wall. She still loved him. Akira
wished that Ukyou could look at her that same way... Then she shook off the
feeling. It was petty of her. "When Bison beat you seven years ago he left a
piece of himself behind. He put a spark of his power in your heart." Ukyou
walked over and pointed at his chest. "Right there. I can feel it. It's
connected to him. He can kill you with a thought."
	"Nuh-uh!" Ranma snapped. "I got a plan, Ukyou."
	"Don't worry about it," Nabiki said slowly, stepping up to the two. They
glanced at her. "I can shield Ranma. My skill may not be quite as versatile as
Bison's, but I still outmatch him in raw power. I can use my telepathy to shield
Ranma from Bison. I couldn't do it from very far away, but I can keep him safe
from close by."
	Ranma grinned, that roguishly charming grin that he used so well. "See,
everything going to be fine, Ucchan."
	"Okay, if it's decided then," Akira stepped forward. "Then we're going
to have to get through to Bison." Akira paused. "I know how to defeat him."
Everyone looked at her. Only Nabiki looked at her with comprehension. She alone
knew that Akira had... shared Lotus Infinite's memories. They were still there,
or at least most of them. There were holes, which was why Akira had been just as
caught off-guard by Doctor Tofu's pronouncement as Ukyou. But she KNEW Bison, in
a way nobody else here did. "The key is here." Akira jammed her finger to the
centre of the city, the titanic statue of Bison he had built.
	"The palace," Rose said.
	"No. Beneath the palace." Akira took a deep breath. "The Psychodrive. A
massive machine Bison uses to augment his psychopower. If we can destroy it, we
won't even have to fight him. Without that machine, he'll die."
	"I see," Pluto mused. "But getting to it is the problem."
	"Yes." Akira frowned. "We can't hope to sneak in. If Pluto and Rose
can't do it alone, the six of us..."
	"Six?" Nabiki asked.
	"I'm including Angel."
	"You really think she's coming back?" Nabiki looked at Akira harshly.
"Besides, she shouldn't be trusted."
	"I trust her, and I know she'll be back," Akira snapped. Ukyou looked at
her and gave her a wry smile. Akira flushed and looked away. This wasn't the
same at all. Defending Angel... she was defending someone who had gone out of
her way to save Akira and Ukyou time and again. Someone with nothing to gain.
Pluto and Rose... they worked for... for HER.
	"A frontal attack would also be suicide," Pluto pointed out.
	"Maybe..." Akira frowned. "But... if what Rose said is true, we don't
have to defeat the entire army, or all of Bison's lieutenants. Once we take down
the Psychodrive, he'll lose his ability to project the psychopower. Since many
of them are living off it, it will be like if someone suddenly drained out all
our chi. I imagine that anybody else in the city will become more... docile
then."
	"So..." Ukyou ran her finger along the picture. "Just one of us has to
get to the Psychodrive. So... we split up?"
	"Not at first." Akira corrected. "Bison will want to soften us up with
minions first. He disdains fighting his own battles. It's beneath him. So we
give him a nice target. Draw all his minions to us. Then... we split up, and
race to the Psychodrive. I know exactly how to get there, and I'll tell all of
you."
	"You know a lot about this," Rose said, her voice accusing.
	"Good thing for us," Ukyou said, and she looked up at Akira and smiled.
Akira felt herself smiling hesitantly back, which was funny because her heart
wasn't beating. "It's a good plan."
	"It's suicide," Nabiki snapped.
	"No, I think it's our only chance." Ukyou crossed her arms and nodded.

*

	Akira moved through the layers of the city quickly. Bisonopolis was a
city of black glass and neon lights. The walls were full of flourishes and
statuary that harkened back to the city's Buddhist roots. They made great steps
as Akira bounced and strode her way across it.
	In a way, this felt disturbingly like she was coming home. Lotus
Infinite had spent many years in these streets. While they had changed over
the years, the feel of the city, the basic shape of it, had never really been
altered. It was hard sometimes to remember that it hadn't been her who had been
here, that it had been Lotus Infinite who had called this place her home. Akira
ended one particular leap on top of a large structure, a parking garage filled
with the tiny open-air taxis that were common throughout the city.
	The roof of the parkade was deserted, and she could see no other life
anywhere else. It was empty. Akira knew better than to believe that. She could
feel the city. It was twisted, vicious... full of dark passion. There were
people who lived here, but they all knew better than to be out at times like
this.
	There was a scuff behind her and Akira turned, bringing her hands up.
The two Dolls emerged from the shadows. They did not look winded. Akira sighed.
Only two? Did she rate so low?
	Then again, she knew these two. One was tall, leggy and with luscious
curves. She had hair the colour of dark chocolate. The other was shorter, with a
more girlish figure and short straw-blonde hair. They moved in eerie unison.
Akira narrowed her eyes.
	"Juli, Juni..." Akira smirked. "At least I get the cream of the crop."
	"Enemy battle power is estimated high. Begin unified combat paradigm?"
the shorter Doll suggested in a clipped mechanical tone.
	"Yes," the taller one said. The two began to circle around Akira. Akira
stood still, not making any attempt to keep them in sight. She had to trust her
senses. The problem was that she could feel the link they had. The two of them
were broadcasting power between each other like opposite poles of a magnet.
	"That's right," Akira said to no one in particular. "I remember. You two
can synchronise without an exterior stabiliser. Bison was always very proud of
that."
	The two ignored her conversational tone. Instead they came in like the
proverbial greased lightning. Juli came in high, her left hand pulling back for
a punch. Juni sprinted low, ready to turn her momentum into a slide designed to
take Akira's feet out from under her.
	It was a perfectly executed manoeuvre. They came in with absolute
timing, each striking at exactly the same moment. Even if Akira somehow dodged
or blocked both attacks at the same time, it would only place her off-balance.
They would keep coming in, performing a brilliantly executed series of strikes
that would slowly crumble Akira's defences until there was no way for her to
recover.
	Then it would be all over.
	Thus, they both looked very surprised when Akira stepped into Juli's
path. She caught the Doll's arm in mid-punch and levered her over her shoulder.
Juni could only stare as her partner was used as a crude bludgeon, slamming them
both into the concrete roof of the parking garage. Tiny clouds of dust erupted
from a spiderweb of cracks that radiated around them.
	Akira leapt back, landing on the top of a car roof. She smiled. The two
Dolls got up slowly. No doubt they were wondering how Akira had anticipated
their moves. Akira decided to keep them guessing. It just wouldn't be fair to
let them know that, since she had most of Lotus Infinite's memories, she already
knew all their moves. Akira raised one hand and made the universal gesture of
'bring it on'.
	The Dolls exchanged another glance, then obliged her.

*

	"And you'll make certain to eat healthy," Minako said, clutching his
hand tighter.
	Ranma winced. "Geez, Minako..." He wanted to shake off her hand, but
resisted the urge. "You're my girlfriend, not my mother..."
	"Yeah..." Minako looked down at the water splashing on the side of the
dock. "But... this is the first time that..." She bit her lip. "What I mean is,
you'll be there and I'll be..."
	Ranma flushed a little. "It's not like I'll be gone long. A month,
maybe. Two weeks if this goes quick."
	"I... can't you hold it off?" Minako begged. "My magic is healing me up
pretty fast! I'll be good to go in less than two weeks! Doc Tofu said so
himself."
	Ranma looked across the pier to the small boat that Shingo had managed
to get the US to lend them for the trip. It wasn't much; couldn't have been more
than ten meters long, and it looked like it would be pretty cramped. But Shingo
had promised that it would be fast, which was what Ukyou had asked for. Say what
you would about the guy's habits when it came to girls, he was trustworthy in a
pinch.
	And on the deck of the boat was Ukyou. She was deliberately not looking
in his direction. Her eyes were instead scanning the western horizon. Or maybe
she was looking beyond it, towards the city on the other side of the ocean. Or
to the child left there.
	"You know we can't do that," Ranma said, sighing. "This is... I mean,
Ukyou's kid..." He swallowed. "That's heavy. I can't imagine what it must be
like, imagining our kid stuck in a hell like that, with Bison..." He shuddered.
	Minako went completely still. Then she looked up at him. "What did you
just say, Ranma?"
	"Huh?" Ranma frowned and tapped the side of his head with the hand she
wasn't holding. "I dunno... I was just kinda babbling," Ranma informed her with
a grin.
	"Oh no you don't," Minako hissed, squeezing his hand until it hurt. "You
said 'our kid', didn't you?"
	"I did?" Ranma blinked. "I... yeah, sure. I mean, I guess if I was going
to have a kid it would be with you. I mean, who else?" He laughed. Her
expression was unreadable, so he continued on nervously. He hated it when Minako
looked like that. It either promised extreme pain or extreme pleasure, and he
could never tell which before it happened. "Not that I've given it much
thought," he said. Her eyebrow twitched and he verbally backpedaled. "Because it
doesn't require any thought at all! It's like... instinctive! I just don't think
of anybody else as the mother of my kids but you!" Ranma grimaced and flinched
away.
	Minako leaned forward, her warm lips touching his cheek. They burned
through his brain, sinking down into his gut and settling there like a gentle
candle. Ranma's flush deepened. Minako was smiling now.
	"I want to come with you," she said and drew him into an embrace. Her
head rested on his chest. He leaned his head forward, breathing in the fragrance
of her hair. She never used special shampoo, but somehow her hair always smelled
like a summer meadow.
	"I wish you could too," he said. "But that bullet nearly killed you. I
still don't know how you..." He shuddered. "When I saw it, the hole was... it
looked so big..." He pulled her tighter. "For a moment there, I thought I lost
you. I... I couldn't..." Something glistened in her hair. Tears? Nah. Must be
dew or sea spray or something. "I lost my head, let that vampire goad me..."
	"I know," Minako murmured. "But I'm okay."
	"You promise me you'll be safe here?" Ranma asked. "You stay in bed and
heal up right. No running off on some quest to save the world while I'm not
around to handle it for ya, okay?"
	Minako chuckled. "You know I can't promise that," she said. "But I'm
certain Artemis will give me a stern talking-to if I consider it."
	"Who?"
	"Our pet, Ranma," Minako said, sighing.
	"Minako, we don't have a pet. You have an imaginary friend who talks to
you..." This time her laughter made her whole body shake. He was forced to
loosen his grip... but not much.
	"You promise me you won't do anything foolish, like try to take on Bison
alone," Minako said, and her voice was much more serious than his had been.
Ranma hemmed and hawed. "Ranma, he's not like any other opponent. You can't
fight him."
	"Hey, nobody beats Ranma Saotome twice!" Ranma insisted. He pushed her
out to arm's length and looked into her sky-blue eyes. "This has been waiting
seven years. Because of him, I wasn't there to help Ucchan or... or Hotaru..."
He trailed off.
	"Ranma..."
	He smirked, pushing the past behind him. "Don't worry, Minako. I'm Ranma
Saotome. I'm the best there is."
	"So I've heard," Minako said with a smile. She looked over his shoulder.
"You should go, looks like they're about ready to cast off."
	"Right..." Ranma let her go. They stood there for another long moment.
No words passed between them and they didn't so much as move. There were no more
kisses or hugs. There was something deeper than just words and gestures between
them. Ranma wasn't certain what it was. He turned around after a moment and made
his way over to the boat.
	"Ready?" Ukyou said. She still wasn't looking at him.
	"Yeah..."
	"Wait!"
	Everyone turned. For a moment, Ranma thought Minako would be running
over. Then he saw it was that other girl... Angel. She was sprinting across the
pier, pumping her arms wildly. Akira brightened a bit on seeing her. Nabiki
frowned and crossed her arms. She was wearing a bizarre outfit, some sort of
swimsuit with sections cut out of it that were only covered by gauzy see-through
fabric. It hugged her impressive curves and was cut to show off her elaborate
elemental tattoos. She also wore hip-length leggings, a giant floppy belt and a
black midriff-baring jacket. Of course, her sword was belted onto her thigh.
She landed in the middle of the boat, taking deep breaths.
	"Glad you could join us," Nabiki said in a tone that suggested the
opposite.
	"Back off, Nabiki," Akira said. She walked over and placed a hand on
Angel's shoulder. "I'm happy you're here." Angel looked up at her and smiled,
but it was a strained smile. She looked away quickly, stepping away from Akira.
	"I'm curious," Rose said. "How did you learn about this mission?"
	"I..." Angel looked around and saw the people on the dock that had
gathered to see them off. Doc Tofu was there, as was Ranma's mom and pop. Shingo
was there, still covered with bruises from the irate women that had learned
about his association with the super-perv Happousai. "Shingo told me," she said
swiftly.
	"I see," Rose murmured, and turned her attention back to the ocean.
	"Welcome aboard," Ukyou called over her shoulder. Angel glanced at her
and nodded, her expression somewhat humble. "Let's not waste any more time. Cast
off, would you?" Ukyou asked the S.T.A.R.S. cadet that had been given the job of
piloting them across the ocean.
	The cadet barked an affirmative and the engine roared. A moment later
their boat jerked and then steadily accelerated, moving away from the dock.
Ranma walked to the end of the boat, resting his arms across the stern
guardrail. He glanced down the length of the pier to the people cheering and
waving them off. Minako had joined the others.
	He flashed her the patented Ranma Saotome grin. He didn't wave goodbye,
because it wasn't like he wasn't going to see her again.

*

	The street was deserted as Cracker Jack walked leisurely down it. The
streetlights created islands of light in the darkness, occasionally merging
together when lightning flashed overhead. He walked alone, his baseball bat
propped over one shoulder. His eyes were on the road.
	"Gotta admit, they are fast," he said, shielding his eyes and looking
off in the distance towards the giant statue which housed Bison's palace. "Too
bad they ran, though. I was kinda looking forward to a good fight."
	There was a clatter in front of him and he looked down to see someone
had dropped something at his feet. He looked up, not so much as starting when a
figure plummeted from the shadows overhead to land in a crouch in front of him.
Ranma grinned and rose leisurely to his feet.
	"Not all of them ran," Ranma informed him, stretching.
	"Heh. You got guts, kid," Jack informed him.
	Ranma frowned. He hated being referred to as a kid. He was twenty-three
years old. He had fought the greatest warriors of the world. He had saved
thousands, probably millions of lives in his time. He was a legend in every
underground tournament from Southtown to Tokyo. He was considered one of the
most powerful human beings in the world by every force in it.
	He knew, he'd checked.
	"Ya see, that's why I stayed behind," Ranma said, turning his frown into
a smirk. "Because you don't know how to respect the up and comers of this world.
Or ain't you ever gotten a whiff of my reputation?"
	"Kid, when you get to be my age, rep don't mean much." Jack began to
limber up. "You just want a nice smoke, a cool beer and a warm woman."
	"Easy for you to say," Ranma flowed into an offensive stance. "You
aren't even a has-been, you're a never-was."
	Cracker Jack frowned. "Okay, just for that, I'm gonna take you out
personally."
	A long moment passed. Then they flashed forward, the air behind them
exploding with clouds of dust. Jack came in first, leading with his bat. He
swung it with one hand, bringing it around in a tight loop. Ranma leapfrogged
over the blow, landing behind the man.
	Jack caught himself, reversing his momentum in mid-swing. He twisted his
entire body like a screw. His bat whistled backwards, aimed at Ranma's head.
Ranma leaned back, catching the ground with his hand. His dodge turned into a
cartwheel bringing him behind the man again. Jack's missed shot smashed into a
street lamp.
	The lamp was torn from its foundation with a shriek of protest. It spun,
hurling through the air until it smashed into a wall with enough force that the
entire side of the building disintegrated outward in a cloud of dust and glass.
The light around them vanished.
	Ranma struck.
	His palm caught Cracker Jack in the ribs. The blow had been meant to
send him flying down the street. Ranma had even picked out a sturdy-looking
truck to send him smashing into. Instead the man grunted and staggered back a
single step. Ranma hissed and slipped backward, shaking his wrist.
	"Geez, what are you made out of?"
	"Heh." Jack smiled and turned to face Ranma, switching to a two-handed
grip on his bat. But he was favouring his side. "I'll admit kid, that's pretty
impressive. You got me beat in speed and style. And from the fact I felt that,
I'm guessing given time you'll wear me down. But there is one difference between
me and you that'll make certain I come out ahead."
	"Oh, what's that?" Ranma said, circling him slowly.
	"I cheat."
	Ranma nearly missed it. He moved more on instinct than anything else,
tilting his entire body to the side. Even so a red line of pain traced across
his midsection. He hissed and turned his unconscious dodge into a sideways roll.
He came up in a crouch, clutching his side. He could feel blood there, and his
shirt was torn.
	There was a spear buried in the pavement where he had been standing.
Cracker Jack was grinning as he watched a lithe young woman drop from overhead
to grab the spear. She was about as tall as Ranma's girl-side. Her skin was
dark, richly black, but her features were Asian. She had short black hair that
puffed out of her head like she had stuck her fingers in an electric socket.
	"Just a Doll?" Ranma sighed.
	"Hey, kid, don't mock the Dolls." Cracker Jack said, approaching her.
"This here is Santum. She's one of Bison's experiments. She has a particular
grasp of psychopower that none of the other Dolls have."
	"Oh, can she shoot fireballs?" Ranma asked.
	"Uh... no."
	"Teleport?"
	"No."
	"Read thoughts? Levitate things with her mind? Phase through matter?"
	"...no."
	Ranma crossed his arms. "Well what can she do?"
	"Santum, show him."
	The lithe black-skinned Doll nodded, then held out her free arm to her
side and whistled. A shape scampered out of the darkness and crawled up her
body, perching on her arm. It was the size of a large cat, with yellow fur and a
long tail that swung behind it. It was wearing a little backpack and a fez.
	"A monkey?" Ranma gaped. "She has a monkey. That's her special power?"
	Cracker Jack frowned. "Yes."
	"Oh man. A monkey? A cute little monkey with a fez? What the hell is
that thing supposed to do?"
	"Kill," the girl said to the monkey.
	There was a loud screech and the golden furred thing leapt across the
distance between them. It moved so fast that Ranma was caught totally off-guard.
It clamped its tail around his neck and then began to beat and scratch at him
with its legs and arms, screeching to wake the dead the whole time. Ranma stood
there stunned.
	For about a half second.
	"AHH! AHH! She's attacking me with her monkey!" he screamed, running
around in circles. He tried to pry the thing off his face, but it wasn't exactly
letting go without a fight. Then Ranma heard the swish of incoming weapons. He
leapt as the Doll's spear swept through where his legs used to be. Then he bent
backward, turning his jump into a backflip as Cracker Jack's bat swept through
the air where his head would have been. Ranma spared one hand from monkey-
wrestling to handstand back and push away from them. "Do you mind!? I have
a monkey on my face!"
	"That's kinda the idea," Jack said, rushing in with his Doll a step
behind.
	"Damnit, why do I always end up fighting like this? Stupid monkey girl!"

*

	The sun was just reaching its zenith behind the boat, now.  Angel leaned
against the rail, letting it hold her up as much as her legs.  She wasn't really
in any danger of throwing up, not really.  The breeze helped a lot, and she
channelled some Water Chakra whenever she got really nauseous.  But sea travel
was still not Angel's favourite thing in the world at the best of times, and
after five days, it was definitely not the best of times.
	At least they'd be reaching Hawaii this afternoon.  Angel was very much
looking forward to having solid land under her again, even if Ukyou was
insisting they ought to leave as soon as possible.  Angel could understand that,
and she wasn't going to argue with Ukyou anyway, but she still tacitly agreed
with the others that staying overnight in their last safe port of call before
Thailand was a good idea.  Though Chronos had declined to officially take over
most of the Pacific islands due to the strategic difficulty of holding them if
Queen Tethys decided to press a claim, everybody knew they had infiltrators and
roving aquatic teams practically everywhere.  Not to mention representatives of
the Dark Kingdom were pretty common sights, and if rumour was correct, even
Tethys herself had shown up on occasion.  And as they got closer to Asia, the
possibility of Shadowloo spies loomed larger too.
	After Hawaii, there'd be no more time to relax.
	Angel sighed, staring out at the Pacific.  She'd grown up by the
Atlantic ocean, which was also the one she'd criss-crossed most often since.
The Pacific was a far different beast, though.  Not just because it was much
bigger and deeper in reality.  It was Deeper.  It was its own unique shade of
blue, darker and colder.  The Atlantic ocean was like... an opponent that could
be battled, but the Pacific just didn't give a damn about humans.  It could
swallow you and continue going on forever, uncaring.
	'The Pacific has no memory'.
	Angel almost wished, for a moment, that she could just jump in and float
there forever in the cool, uncaring dark, and not ever think again about the
world, or gods, or the future.  Then she grinned a little.  That sort of thought
wasn't much like her at all. Damn ocean travel.
	She looked up.  Ukyou was standing at the bow of the ship, arms crossed.
The black trenchcoat she'd picked up before they left California billowed out
behind her in the wind.  Angel's grin spread a little wider despite herself.
There was one way she was like Chris.  It appeared all the gods enjoyed
themselves a nice unselfconscious dramatic pose.
	Nabiki and Akira were sitting on benches on opposite sides of the deck,
glaring at each other.  They did that rather a lot, actually.  Angel wondered
sometimes why the hell they didn't just stay away from one another if they
disliked each other so much. Must've been one of those odd opposites attract
situations.
	Ranma still hadn't emerged from his cabin.  Angel was amazed the guy
wasn't getting fat, given how lazy he was. He'd been getting up later and later
the longer they'd been at sea.  They just put aside leftovers for him at lunch
now.
	Rose and Pluto were... somewhere.  The aether, for all Angel knew.  Or
just sitting below in the women's cabin sipping tea.  Either, as far as she
could tell, were equally likely.
	There was a loud clack as Akira slammed her hand into the rail of the
yacht and stood up sharply, causing everyone to look over.  Her face was taut
with anger. "I'm sick of hearing this, Nabiki.  She's right here!  If you're
going to accuse her of something, have the courage to do it to her face!"  She
jabbed a finger at Angel.
	Angel took a step back. Hoo boy. Well, if this all went badly, at least
it wasn't THAT long a swim to Hawaii.
	Nabiki also jumped to her feet.  "Fine, you want it that way? We'll do
it your way, then. I think she's a danger to us and this mission and should have
been left behind!"
	"Exactly how many times do I have to tell you that's not going to happen
before it gets through your thick skull?" Akira snapped.  "You're supposed to be
the telepath: read THIS."
	"There's no need to be crude about it," Nabiki replied coolly. "And I'm
not going to shut up about it because I'm RIGHT.  Just because you and Ukyou are
too stupid or complacent to see what's right in front of your noses doesn't mean
I'm going to walk into the minefield with you!"
	"We could always leave you in Hawaii," Akira replied.
	"Spare me. Bison will tear you apart without me to protect you. Not to
mention what he'll do to Ranma."
	"Children, there's people trying to sleep," Ukyou said in a chiding
tone.
	Nabiki whirled on her in a fury. "Don't you 'children' me!  I'm sick and
tired of your patronising attitude, Ukyou! Treating us like we're too young to
make any decisions. In case you haven't noticed, I'm seven years older than you,
so unless you have something intelligent to add to this discussion, shut your
mouth and let the adults talk."
	Ukyou had initially been smiling, but that had steadily deteriorated
throughout the rant, and she finally sighed.  "I was joking. You know, humour,
in an attempt to defuse tension."
	"Well, maybe it's about damn time we stopped joking about this and
started treating it seriously," Nabiki hissed.  "As much as I'd enjoy being able
to say 'I told you so', I might be one of ones lying dead because the two of you
were so damn trusting that you'd let any total unknown stranger join us without
even the most cursory of precautions."
	Angel didn't quite flinch, since she was quite well-trained.  Akira
stepped in front of Nabiki, grabbing her attention again. "Angel isn't 'some
stranger'," she said.  "Frankly, if she wanted me, or Ukyou, or you dead, she's
had plenty of opportunity. Instead, she's saved all our lives!"
	"You're a simpleton, Akira. Just because someone helps you, their
motives have to be pure?  She's not trusted any one of us, including you, with
any of her secrets, so why should we be trusting her?"
	"Oh?" Ukyou said, deceptively mildly. "We shouldn't trust people who
keep secrets, hmm?  So I suppose you're finally ready to tell us the real reason
you went through all the trouble to free me from Bison's control?"
	Nabiki did flinch, but almost immediately covered it up with an
expression of cold fury. She gave Angel a single menacing look. "Fine. These two
fools might just decide to wait until you reveal what you're really after, but
don't think I'll let you get away with anything."
	Before anyone else could respond, she turned on her heel and stalked
below the deck.  The unfortunate S.T.A.R.S. agent piloting the boat remained
rigidly staring at his controls throughout the entire confrontation.
	Akira took a few moments to relax, then shot a grateful look at Ukyou,
who just shrugged and went back to posing at the bow.  Akira looked a little
unhappy at that, but then resumed her usual stoic expression.
	Angel stepped up beside Akira. "Hey, I'm sorry about that.  Really, I
can't blame her. I haven't really told you anything-"
	Akira cut her off. "We ALL have secrets we don't tell people about," she
said seriously. "I figured that whenever you were comfortable enough to tell me
whatever it is you're holding back, you will."
	Angel studied the deck seriously, not really wanting to meet the older
woman's gaze. "Maybe. Sometime."
	"C'mon, Angel, cheer up." Akira said, ducking down into Angel's field of
view. "You've been moping since we left Southtown."
	Angel straightened.  She knew she had, and she knew it wasn't great for
her cover, but found it hard to care. She knew the reason. Angel, above all, had
always tried to be honest with herself.  She'd had fun travelling with Akira...
and Ukyou, and even Shingo and Ranma and the others.  But it was going to end
soon.
	When they reached Bisonopolis, someone was going to have to die to
ensure the perfect possible future. It wasn't going to just be Bison, either.
And Angel was the one who was going to have to do it.
	She'd enjoyed travelling with these people. She liked Akira, too, more
than she'd thought she would when she'd met her, more than she'd really wanted
to.  But when they reached Bisonopolis, the ride was over. If she ever met these
people again, it'd probably be as enemies.
	She looked at Akira, her friend, and wondered if she would have to kill
her, knowing that she would if she had to. Because that was the first thing
she'd been sure she would do for Chris. "Yeah. But, y'know, maybe she's right.
You can't just trust anybody that comes along and helps you."
	Akira smiled, her typical melancholy little smile. "I know that. Nabiki
does have a point. But she has it for the wrong reasons.  You and her might say
you can't trust somebody just because they helped you. But what I say is that
you can't distrust somebody until they've proven you should."  Akira sat down
again, still next to Angel. "If you spend your entire life thinking about who
might be out to get you, then you'll end up like Nabiki - sad and alone.  And I
don't want to end up that way. Do you?"
	Angel turned and looked out, again, into the fathomless blue of the
Pacific. "I don't know."

*

	Angel raced over the city, never walking, not quite flying.  One foot
kissed the ledge of a building, adding to her leap. Two fingers reached out and
tapped the sill of a window, changing her momentum ever so slightly.  The other
shot up, clamping onto a fold of 'fabric' on one of those endless golden statues
of Bison that were around everywhere here. She flipped upwards and landed in a
tight crouch on one of the bulging biceps.
	Movement had always been the part of the Art that had come easily to
her. Maybe because her first serious training was with a winged woman who had
never slowed down or modified her methods for a student that couldn't fly.  If
she couldn't reach the hovering Kiima, she would get beaten down mercilessly
until she found a way to try to attack... then get beaten down some more, but at
least there was a sense of satisfaction.
	So she had learned.  Angel wasn't much for spiritual senses: she
couldn't read the chi of a martial artist, relying on reflexes and gut intuition
to predict and counter her opponent's moves. But the inanimate was always her
ally. She could read a battlefield in an instant, noting every anomaly, every
dent in a wall, every crack in the floor.  Every protruding structure was both
cover and weapon, an opportunity for a sudden change in momentum, a way to
attack at an angle a less aware opponent couldn't expect.  She could run across
a jagged mountaintop like crossing a street, and hop down a cliff face like
stepping off a curb.  A city skyline was something like her ideal battlefield.
	She glanced behind her, smirking slightly. She'd left the soldiers
pursuing her behind long ago, travelling in circles. The troops, which she
guessed were reserves Ukyou hadn't scared off, had tried to jump her shortly
after she left the party. It was a little insulting that none of the big goons
had been chasing her, but that was the price of non-fame. Just as well.  She
didn't know when Chris would want her to carry out her mission. As the thought
crossed her mind, she felt her smile vanish.
	She'd studied them all, on the way to Shadowloo.  Sparred with most of
the martial artists, been informed by Link during private moments as to the
capabilities of the rest.  There was no one here she didn't feel she could kill.
Most would require the advantage of surprise, but that would be possible for
nearly any of them but Nabiki or Ukyou.
	She still hoped she wouldn't have to kill any of them, but didn't hold
out much hope. This was a dangerous group of people, to be sure.  Powerful, but
not just that. They had connections to Tethys and Bison and who knew what else.
Plus there was Ukyou, and that strange power she was supposed to have, the power
that made her like Chris, even if she was nothing at all like Chris.
	The question was, which one was dangerous to the perfect possible
future?
	A movement caught her attention.  She glanced down. It was the huge
black guy, the boxer. Balrog, right.  He was running below her, accompanied by a
half dozen Shadowloo stormtroopers.  Angel looked up again, following the path
he was taking. Not quite three blocks away, a battle was raging. Three of the
Dolls were attacking two other women. Sailor Pluto and Rose.
	Sailor Pluto was being engaged by the first, a dark-haired girl with
auburn skin that Angel figured must have been native Central American. The Doll
carried twin tomahawks and was attempting to close in to split the Sailor
Senshi's skull. Pluto was successfully evading her so far, but was unable to
bring her own magic blasts to bear, as every time she got some distance the Doll
kept her off-balance by slashing out with the tomahawks on the end of cords tied
around her wrists. Pretty clever, Angel had to admit.
	Rose was the more powerful combatant of the two, and the other two Dolls
were attacking her.  One was an orange-haired girl with a sort of incongruous
Red Cross symbol on her arm where the Shadowloo lightning bolt usually was.  She
wasn't too much of a threat to Rose, but she obviously wasn't meant to be. Her
real purpose was distraction. Every time Rose countered one of her attacks, the
other Doll attacked. This one was a real threat, a lithe blonde girl with claws
on each arm, whose face was hidden behind a featureless iron mask.  Rose already
bore a souvenir from her, a set of three bleeding cuts on one arm. But her
expression was as impassive as ever, as far as Angel could see from so far away.
She knocked the dark Doll away with a sudden counterattack, but before she could
help her partner, both Dolls were back and attacking her again, seemingly
unharmed.
	Angel looked down at Balrog again. She didn't think much of the Doll's
chances in the long term.  Rose and Pluto were too crafty and too used to
working together to be kept off-balance for long. But if the big boxer and his
troops arrived, that would change the equation considerably. Which was probably
the plan.
	Angel straightened and stretched as Bison's lieutenant and his cadre of
soldiers passed directly underneath the golden arm she was perched on.  Time to
save the day again.
	The Shadowloo goons never knew what hit them.  Angel simply dropped into
the middle of their formation. On her way down, she had kicked one in the head
and smashed her elbow into another, sending him flying into a third.  The
fourth's knee snapped with a sharp pop as Angel's foot swept into the side of
it, and her sword thrust in and out of the side of the fifth so fast no blood
stained the brilliant silver blade. Angel finished rising to her feet just as
the sixth had enough time to stumble to a halt and begin raising his gun. She
opted for simplicity and simply popped him in the face.  His featureless visor
shattered at the impact of her fist, and he went tumbling back across the
square, finally stopped by a nearby building.
	Balrog had turned around, and he began to grin, which only got wider as
Angel prudently stomped on the solar plexus of the soldier who'd only been
knocked down.  "Well well, what we got here?" he drawled, the gaps in his teeth
showing with his leering smile.
	"Felt sorry for you," Angel grinned back. "You didn't have a dance
partner yet."
	"You wanna dance with me, babe?" He barked a laugh. "I'm cool with
that."
	"Sure. You lead."
	"Heh heh..." The boxer stepped forward, fists sliding up in a long-
practiced motion. "Don't expect me to go easy on you, chickie.  They can always
put your face back together again!"
	Angel opened her mouth to reply, but then Balrog was in motion. His
slow, careful, slightly shaky movements suddenly became lightning-swift and sure
as he shot forward.  Angel figured she probably would have had trouble dodging,
if she'd actually been trying.
	"H....huh?"
	Angel grinned, then regretted it a little. Her jaw actually ached from
taking that shot.  Well, a bit. She swatted the boxing glove away from her face.
Balrog took a step back, too stunned to respond.  "Nice shot, stud."
	"You took my punch. NOBODY takes my punch! W-what the hell... wait, what
the fuck's with your stomach?"
	"Trade secret, sweetie. But hey, watch this!"  Angel grinned, funnelling
the chi away from the earth chakra tattoo on her stomach that had made her near-
invulnerable. "Now, see, I'm hot stuff!"
	Balrog might have agreed.  Or he might have taken another swing at her.
Or he might even have run away.  But Angel figured she'd have to live with never
getting to know. Her foot slashed up in a thrust kick.  One hand, the one she
hadn't swatted away, moved reflexively to block her kick. It snapped like a twig
from the slightest brush of her foot, falling uselessly out of the way as the
arc of her attack continued, snapping into Balrog's massive, protruding jaw.
	Then he vanished. Angel grinned. That wasn't unusual. When she hit
someone with everything she had from her fire chakra, she wasn't always fast
enough to follow the arc of their bodies. She looked up... ah, there he was. She
had just enough time to see the body of her opponent arcing downward, flipping
lazily end over end in the air, before it passed behind the giant wall that
surrounded Bisonopolis and out of sight.  He probably wasn't dead.  But he
probably wasn't a factor in this fight anymore, either.
	Angel turned, cycling her chi back up to the air chakra.  She tossed off
an ironic salute to Rose and Pluto, still obliviously fighting their battle on
the rooftop. "You can owe me one," she chuckled. Then she turned and-
	"Angel."
	Angel stopped as the voice, more familiar to her than any other in the
world, spoke softly into her ear. "Chris?"
	"Of course. I told you I'd be in touch once you reached Bisonopolis. Are
you currently alone?"
	Angel nodded, walking around the leg of the statue just in case Pluto,
Rose or the Dolls happened to look over this way. "Yeah."
	"Good.  I want you to come meet me."
	Angel blinked. "You're here?"
	"Of course.  I wouldn't allow the risk that Bison might once again have
Ukyou under his control.  As well, there are other considerations here." He
paused, then spoke again with dry humour.  "Besides, you've been gone awhile.
It's boring without your company."
	Angel laughed, a little nervously.  "Where should I meet you?"
	"Just follow my directions."

*

	Trust Ranma to find the single most stereotypical, tourist trap, campy
bar in all of Honolulu. There were tiki masks on the walls, palm fronds hanging
over the tables and girls in grass skirts serving the drinks. Ranma was slouched
over the bar, absently stirring a straw through some sort of purple and red
concoction.
	"Not exactly the kind of drink I'd picture you getting," Nabiki said as
she sat down next to him, tucking her feet up on the rung of the stool.
	"Huh?" Ranma looked at her, blinking a few times. "Oh hey, Nabiki. We
leaving yet?"
	"In the morning," Nabiki answered. She caught the bartender's attention
and ordered a martini. "So what is with the drink, anyway?"
	Ranma looked down at it. "Ah. I wanted to get a beer, but..." He
frowned. "This is the kind of thing Minako would have ordered. She always wanted
me to take her to Hawaii. The one time we tried to come here we sorta got
involved with this band of pirates and this teenage runaway slaver ring..."
	"Teenage runaway slavers?" Nabiki frowned.
	"Yeah. You'd think teenage runaways would have something better to do
with their time. But there they were, trying to enslave the whole world..." He
frowned and stirred his drink again. Nabiki blinked. There was probably a good
story there, but she decided to let it pass. He sighed. "Man, I miss her."
	"Minako?" Nabiki asked.
	"Yeah," Ranma frowned. "I guess I never realised it..." He shrugged.
"It's like you get used to something being there until you don't even notice it
until it's gone..."
	"Oh please, Ranma," Nabiki quipped, taking a sip of her martini. "You
were with her, what... twelve hours ago?" Ranma raised an eyebrow. "The others
may not notice you sneaking out in the middle of the night for a swim, but I
certainly do." Nabiki chuckled. "Though I have to admit, you are one very
dedicated man. Few people I can think of would swim all the way back to
Southtown every night to spend the evening sleeping with their girlfriend."
	Ranma chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. When he did
that, he looked just like... Nabiki grimaced and pushed that thought aside.
"Heh. Well... you know, I swim faster than the boat travels so I just
figured..."
	"Your secret is safe with me," Nabiki mock-swore, putting her hand over
her heart and everything. "Though personally, Ranma, I feel slighted."
	"Huh?"
	"Throwing over your fiancee for some blonde girl three years younger
then me, it's practically cliche."
	Ranma blinked a few times. Then blinked some more. "Oh!" he said,
snapping his fingers. "That mess. Damn, I'd completely forgotten about that."
	"I guess there are some things in this world more important than teenage
love," Nabiki said. She tried to turn it into a quip, but ended up sounding
more... eager than she'd meant. She downed the rest of her martini and signalled
for another. Then she rethought it and adjusted the bartender's memory so he'd
bring her a straight vodka.
	"Yeah, I guess..." Ranma was looking at her with a puzzled expression.
Probably asking himself why she was here.
	"It must be nice having someone to love, however," Nabiki said, downing
her vodka. She tapped the bar and got the barman to leave the bottle this time.
	"Uh, Nabiki, I think you should go easy on that stuff..."
	"Oh shut up," Nabiki said calmly. She downed another shot and tapped
the bar a few times. But damn, that stuff burned! She felt the liquor hit her
like a boxing glove. "I plan on getting good and famously drunk, thank you very
much."
	"Uh... so what's the occasion?" Ranma asked.
	"Aside from us walking into one of the most dangerous places in the
world with a potential traitor or three and almost certainly going to die?"
Nabiki hissed. Ranma frowned at her. Nabiki briefly considered the shot glass,
then decided that wasn't getting her drunk nearly fast enough. Not if she had to
put up with Ranma. But who else was she going to get drunk with? Pluto? Rose?
Akira? Ukyou!? (Did Ukyou even drink...?) And she'd be damned if she was going
to get drunk alone. So she tipped the bottle into her mouth and took a good long
swallow. It didn't hurt as much this time, and the warm pleasant feeling came
faster.
	"Nabiki-"
	"It's all her fucking fault, you know," Nabiki said, cutting him off.
"Fucking bitch. Ever since..."
	"If this is about Angel again-"
	"Angel? HAH!" Nabiki took another swallow. She looked around. You know,
she was starting to see the appeal of this place. Kinda... what was that word
that meant 'cute' but 'old'? "I mean Ukyou." Nabiki slammed the bottle against
the bar, creating a pleasing bang sound. "Fuck her! She mentions it once, and
now I can't get it out of my head." Nabiki took another swallow and gave a long
sigh, slumping forward. That was more comfortable. It had nothing to do with the
fact that her stool was swaying backward. "She didn't even know what she was
talking about. Now... now I can't get him out of my mind."
	"Him?" Ranma said cautiously.
	"I can feel him, you know." Nabiki mused, sloshing the bottle in her
hand. It was half empty now. Or half full. It was at the exact halfway point.
Which only made it appropriate she was drinking it with a half-and-half guy.
Nabiki snorted and laughed. Ranma was looking at her warily now. She tried to
smile at him, but at some point it turned into a sob. "Everywhere he goes, there
he is. All across the world. Not lost anymore. Always finds his way." She
sniffed and took another swig. "Never even thinks about it. Never even thinks
about ME." Her hand tightened around the neck of the bottle. "I'm in the past.
Forgotten. Better left buried. Just another clusterfuck in the story that is his
life."
	"Aw man, this ain't right..." Ranma groaned. "You're not supposed to be
crying!"
	"And why NOT?" Nabiki snapped indignantly. "Besides, I'm not crying."
	"Yes you are," Ranma grumbled. "But you're Nabiki! Queen of the criminal
underworld! You ain't supposed to be all mushy."
	Nabiki tried to jab him with her finger but he dodged it by swaying the
entire bar sideways. She gave up and took a drink instead. That felt better. "So
I'm not supposed to have feelings... is that it?" Nabiki looked down at the
glossy finished bar. "That's what it takes to win the game. Never have anything
invested personally. Always be willing to cut your losses. Take the small
defeats without a word, without a care, because you are focusing on the big
victories...
	"But some losses are too big."
	"Nabiki..."
	"Ranma, what do you think of Hotaru?"
	Ranma stiffened, then looked away. "You're drunk, Nabiki. We shouldn't
talk about this now."
	"She has to die, doesn't she?" Nabiki said slowly. Ranma didn't answer;
he was looking anywhere but at her. For some reason Nabiki felt exceptionally
clear-headed. She could feel him. He was with her, and they were heading north.
Except, he wasn't leading anymore. She was. And he was afraid.
	"I... don't know, Nabiki," Ranma said finally.
	"Did you love her?" Nabiki asked him bluntly.
	"Huh? No... I mean... she was a cute kid and all but..." Ranma shifted
uncomfortably. "I guess she was all right and..." He sighed and his voice grew
somber. "I liked her. A lot. I... when I think of what happened to her..."
Nabiki stared up at him. Was the great and unflappable Ranma Saotome actually
getting teary-eyed? She could swear she saw tears there, floating at the bottom
of his eyes... but that could have just been the booze. "I failed her," he said
finally. "I should have..."
	"Fuck that," Nabiki grunted, taking a long swig. "You didn't fail her.
You couldn't have done a thing. She was... taken while you were fighting Bison,
right?"
	"Yeah," Ranma said darkly. "Another thing I owe him for."
	"But she has to be stopped."
	"Nabiki..."
	"Do you think... do you think Ukyou can do it?" Ranma stared at her.
"Nobody else can. They tried." Nabiki chuckled. "I even wondered if Link was
going to..." She shook her head. "Nothing can stop her. I KNOW it."
	"Nabiki, you should give me the bottle. You're not really making sense."
	"She's using him," Nabiki continued, ignoring him. "I can feel it. She
needs him for something. But what?" Nabiki took another swig. "It won't be good.
I know it. It'll kill him. He knows it. But what else is he going to do? Leave
her? Of course not... he's RYOUGA HIBIKI... he doesn't abandon people. He'll
fight her, if it comes to that... but he'll lose. He'll die." Now Nabiki knew
she was crying, but she couldn't help it.
	"Damn it, I'm twenty-four... I'm supposed to have outgrown this shit,"
Nabiki groused, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Here I am, whining
into a bottle of alcohol with Ranma Saotome of all people..." She looked at
him. "No offence."
	"Uh... none taken..."
	"I don't think she can do it," Nabiki picked up an earlier thought at
random. "All that trouble. Seven years of planning. Playing everyone against the
middle. Opposing Bison. Dealing with scum like Krieg and Zoicite... putting
myself on Chris' hitlist..." Nabiki sobbed. "I don't think she will do it. I
know she can... she has to... but I don't think she can."
	"Can what?" Ranma asked.
	"Kill her." Nabiki looked at him, her eyes widening. "She has to kill
Hotaru, Ranma. It's the only way to stop her, to save..." She looked down. "She
has to kill her, and I don't think she..." At some point, Nabiki must have
passed out because she didn't remember anything after that.

*

	The sky overhead finally opened up. The rain came down in sheets, a
literal torrent that soaked through clothing virtually instantly. The sound of
the rain turned the city into a musical. It pinged off the glass and plunked
into concrete. It clattered down onto car roofs and babbled through a million
drains and gutters. The sky flashed white and a second later the thunderclap
shot through the sky.
	Nabiki stood in the rain, staring up at the palace. It was directly down
the street. A huge statue of a man, sitting Buddha-style. Bison certainly liked
to see his own face.
	What was she even doing here? She had no reason to fight Bison. She
wasn't a martial artist. Certainly her powers made her formidable, but Bison
was... he was to her what Ranma was to a vampire. Certainly they had more raw
power, but Ranma had talent and skill and a winning edge. By all rights she
should turn around and go home.
	Except she couldn't. Because Ukyou needed her. Nabiki's hand clenched
the wishing sword tighter. It all came back to her, didn't it? Nabiki was sorely
tempted to wish she had never met Ukyou, right there. Then maybe she could go
back to the way she was. Back when the only person she really cared about was
herself. Back when she didn't believe in a destiny you didn't write for
yourself.
	But she couldn't take back the past. Where Ukyou and Chris were
concerned, trivial things like an omnipotent wishing sword held little sway.
There was no guarantee she would succeed if she made that wish. Besides, if she
did that she might never have met... Ryouga.
	She concentrated a moment. There he was, still moving north. Hotaru was
still leading. They were entering the tundra now. What could they be heading
towards up there? There was nothing...
	Except Tethys. Nabiki grimaced. Another of Ukyou's enemies. How
convenient. So... was that where it would happen? An endless empty field? That
described the arctic plains nicely. One more step to Ukyou's prophecy then.
	Nabiki wondered if Ukyou knew. If she knew about what Hotaru had become.
Nobody had told her... How would she react?
	Nabiki flicked her eyes to the side. It appeared she had no more time
for thinking about the future.
	The three Dolls emerged from the shadows surrounding her on all sides.
Two of them looked like twins. They were Chinese beauties, one wielding a staff
and the other a pair of nunchaku. They looked like they knew how to use them.
The third was the pink-haired singer from before.
	"You should have tried a surprise attack," Nabiki suggested.
	"You sensed us several blocks away," the pinkette (Enero?) replied.
"Attacking from stealth would have been folly."
	"You're right. But attacking me at all was stupid, so why not go the
extra step anyway?" Nabiki said, smirking. She crossed her arms.
	"Because I have psychic powers as well," Enero told her. "Bison has
infused us with the Psychopower! Together we are one. It makes us resistant to
your mind control. But there is no way for me to disguise my defences."
	"Uh-huh." Nabiki yawned. "Here, little Doll, is where I give you a
language lesson. 'Resistant' is not the same word as 'immune'." Nabiki snapped
her fingers and the three Dolls jerked, their eyes rolling back into their head
and then their bodies slumping to the ground.
	"Enjoy your nap, girls," Nabiki called as she started towards the
palace.

*

	The boat bobbed in the water, the soft moonlight coming down from
overhead. There was no wind. The water was perfectly still. Ancient sailors used
to call this a dead calm, Ukyou thought. She could see why. The ocean was a pane
of black glass, stretching in all directions. The stars were reflected in its
perfectly smooth surface. Ukyou looked west, but could not tell where the sea
ended and the sky began.
	She felt Rose approach before she heard her. She didn't even have to
focus to determine who it was. Rose's aura was unlike anyone else's. It was
clear, like a perfect crystal. It was cold, like an arctic wind. There was no
spark there. No fire like she could feel burning in the auras of all her
companions.
	Rose was only half a person.
	"It is a beautiful night," Rose said, sitting down on the railing,
dangling her legs out over the water. Ukyou was standing at the bow, but she
looked down at the purple-haired woman. Rose's voice was low so as not to wake
up the others but it carried clearly in the utter silence. "Forgive my
intrusion. If you wish privacy, I will leave."
	"No, it's okay." Ukyou turned her face away again. Rose obviously had
something to say, so it was best they let her get it off her chest. "I just...
can't sleep."
	"Bad dreams?"
	Ukyou grimaced. "No. Not bad dreams." She looked down. "Something
worse."
	"Oh?"
	"Bad thoughts," Ukyou admitted. "I can feel them, squirming around
inside me like maggots. They drain my will, undermine my conviction..."
	"Thoughts of...?" Rose prodded her again.
	"Failure," Aaron admitted. "It's been... my constant companion." He
stretched out his hand, splaying his fingers out across the invisible horizon.
"All this potential. All the talent. They always told me I would go far. That I
could do anything. But I never went far. I was never willing to commit. Because
of failure." Ukyou lowered her hand. "I've always lived in the shadow of people
greater than myself. Ranma... he was always so much better than me. Then he
abandoned me, left me behind. I was convinced it was because I was a failure.
That I hadn't lived up to him. So I tried so hard, always fighting on because I
never wanted to fail again."
	"You can hardly say you live in his shadow, Ukyou," Rose pointed out.
"I've studied you ever since I woke up one day, sweating and afraid because of
the future I saw. You aren't... you really do have a talent inside you that far
surpasses anything Ranma could ever hope to achieve."
	"'Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are
powerful beyond measure,'" Ukyou quoted softly. "Being bigger than the other guy
just means you have further to fall."
	"In a sense, yes." Rose pulled out a deck of tarot cards. "Do you mind?"
	Ukyou shrugged. What did it matter? Rose pulled a card from the deck,
levitating it with a simple trick of chi above her finger. "This card is your
past. Death. Reversed. An ending, but also a fresh beginning." She drew another
card, the Death spinning lazily around her body in slow circles. "This is your
present. The Wheel of Fortune." She looked up at the stars spinning slowly
overhead. "An epiphany. An understanding of your place in the world? Maybe. But
be careful. Such revelations can blind us." The Wheel of Fortune joined the
other card, orbiting about her body. "And lastly, your future." She drew the
card slowly. "The Lovers."
	"A relationship. A connection," Ukyou said for her.
	"You and Bison?"
	"No!" Ukyou snarled. "I want nothing to do with him. I want my child
back, that's all."
	"Why do you fight so hard for this child? You've never held it. You've
never even seen it." Rose looked at her, her eyes reflecting nothing. "Until the
doctor told you, you didn't even know it existed."
	"I can't explain it." Ukyou looked down at the water. It was too dark to
see her reflection. "I can... feel it. It's... a part of me. Blood. Birth. I
just feel... I can't abandon it there. There are too many people I abandoned."
	"So... will you kill him, to save the child?"
	"Yes," Ukyou said without hesitation. "God help me. But I would. I don't
even know her, and I would..."
	"Would?"
	"I would kill an army." Ukyou clenched her hands into fists. "I don't
know what I wouldn't do, what I wouldn't risk..." Ukyou trailed off. Why was she
feeling this way? It... it didn't hurt. She had expected it to hurt. She kept
waiting for the pain to come. The pain of failure, the pain of despair. Just
like it had hit her on that field in England, amongst the flaming ruins of the
Ex Machina. But it wasn't hurting.
	It felt wonderful. Even knowing that the child was with Bison. Even
knowing that she hadn't been brought into this world for love. Even having never
touched her and...
	...and she could almost feel her. She could hear her voice, distant...
an echo of an echo from many miles away down dark corridors. She stretched out
her hand. Someone was taking a bundled object away from her...
	Ukyou came back to herself, and realised she was crying. She reached up
and wiped the tears away. Had that been a memory? She choose to believe it was.
It was her memory. Her memory of her child. And it filled her with... joy. There
was no other way to describe it. That child was joy, and she would kill to
protect her.
	"How many are you willing to kill, Ukyou?" Rose said softly.
	"What do you mean?" Ukyou said, suddenly wary.
	"You know as well as I what will happen." Rose raised her hands and the
cards in her hands suddenly flared before being consumed with purple flame.
"Bisonopolis, if not all of Thailand... it's him. His plan was to replace the
chi of everyone with his own. So that they could not survive without him."
	"And if I kill Bison... millions of people could die..."
	"Not could. Will." Rose stood up. "How many people are you willing to
kill for one child, Ukyou?"
	"Bison has to be stopped," Ukyou said, her words sounding hollow even to
herself.
	"That is neither here nor there." Rose dismissed her excuse with a wave.
"You aren't fighting Bison because he is evil. You are fighting him for that
child. How many will you kill to protect it?"
	"It won't come to that," Ukyou said, her voice dry.
	"Why not?"
	"Because I'll find another way!" Ukyou hissed.
	"What other way?" Rose's eyes narrowed. "You know what this battle is.
It's the end of him, or the end of you. I can see it. I can feel it. Destiny
lies heavy upon this journey. At the end of it, one of you will die."
	"I won't let that happen," Ukyou insisted. She looked down at her hands.
	"Is that your solution then?" Rose asked. "Will you use your miracle
power to make it all go away? Solve the problem of Bison by divine fiat?"
	Ukyou looked up at her. "You know what that means. If I try something
that large. I can't control the power. It backlashes. It... twists things.
Breaks them. If I try something that large... I could..."
	"Yes, you could." Rose paused. "Will you?"
	Ukyou clenched her fist. Then she sighed and released it. "I can't say,
Rose. Nobody can say. That isn't the way it works." She looked up at the woman.
"The decisions that determine the outcome of our lives... we can't make them in
advance. We can't follow some plan, some rigid dogma." She looked west again. "I
can't say what the situation will be when I have to make that choice. I don't
know what I will have to gain, or what I will have to lose." Ukyou straightened.
"But I'm sick of being afraid of it. I'm sick of looking forward to the future
and dreading what I can't control. Every moment, every day I make decisions that
will affect the rest of my life. This will just be one more."
	"You've made bad decisions before," Rose pointed out.
	"And good ones." Ukyou looked at her. "I don't have the wisdom to know
what the right choice is ahead of time, Rose. Nobody does. When the time comes,
all I have to do is believe what I'm doing is right. Because... there is nothing
else we can do." Ukyou sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. "Does that
answer everything you came here to ask?"
	Rose smiled, a cold smile but nonetheless filled with a respect that
Ukyou had never expected to see from her. "Yes it does, Ukyou Kuonji."

*

	Ukyou landed on the shoulder of the giant statue which contained Bison's
palace. The rain was coming down hard now, pounding into the metal like a
million deranged drummers. She grimaced and adjusted her grip on the Silence
Glaive.
	"You might as well come out; I can feel you!" Aaron shouted into the
downpour. There was a ripple and then a wave of purple sparks. She rose from the
floor like a ghost, her arms stretched upward. Her eyes were closed until she
was all the way onto the roof. Then she opened them and focused on Ukyou, her
stance becoming hostile.
	"Lotus Infinite," the Doll said, her chin-length hair going from
pristine to plastered against her skull in the space of two words. "I can not
permit you to pass."
	"Nancy." Ukyou spun her glaive around her, assuming a stance with the
weapon held in front of her, blade pointed at her heart. Ukyou wondered which of
the Nancys this was. There had been two, one that had been befriended by Yomiko
Readman, and the other that was her enemy. In the end, did it matter? Yomiko
had died trying to protect Hotaru when Ukyou could not. She owed it to the
memory of a good woman to not harm the one before her. "We don't have to do
this. You know that Bison wants to meet me, face to face."
	"My name is Eidolon," the woman said, shifting to Ukyou's right. "And
perhaps you are correct. But my orders are to prevent you from reaching Bison's
presence."
	"So why you?" Ukyou said, following her. Aaron extended their senses,
taking in the rest of the palace. Akira had drawn what Ukyou was certain was a
very accurate image of the inside of the fortress. But Ukyou wouldn't have
needed it. She could sense it. The heart of this city. The Psychodrive. Beneath
them...
	"I am the only Doll equipped to fight you at your full strength,"
Eidolon said.
	"Oh... right," Ukyou smiled impudently. "I was told I could ghost
through things before. I guess that makes sense."
	Then the time for words was over. Eidolon was flashing across the space
between them. Ukyou shifted sideways, her feet skidding along the slick metal.
The Doll skimmed past her, turning and striking with a roundhouse kick as she
did. Ukyou raised her arm to block but the blow phased through her forearm
without pause, leaving a trail of purple sparks. The blow caught her in the
temple and stars exploded across her vision.
	Ukyou reacted instinctively, thrusting out with the butt of the Glaive.
Eidolon tried to shift backwards but the thick metal mace-like end of the glaive
flashed into her chest... and straight through it. Ukyou was still falling
backwards, and she moved without reacting at all to her weapon ghosting through
Eidolon's incorporeal form.
	Clamping her other hand onto the haft of the polearm, she spun it. The
blade end suddenly reversed position. Eidolon was pushing forward, obviously
believing that her ghost form would be immune to the desperate attack. She was
wrong. The woman let out a scream as the blade slashed a bright red line across
her shoulder. A centimeter or more back and it would have taken her arm off.
Eidolon stumbled.
	Ukyou stepped into her, her knee coming up and catching the woman on the
chin. The Doll flew back gracefully, landing on the metal roof with a soft
clang. Then Ukyou stepped back, spinning the Silence Glaive around her again.
	"This weapon, it channels Oblivion itself," Aaron informed her. "It
doesn't matter if I can't touch you. It can. It can destroy anything."
	"That doesn't matter." Eidolon stood up slowly, ignoring her pain. Aaron
could feel the psychopower flooding the Doll's system, banishing pain, doubt and
fear. There would be no talking her down. His hand clenched the glaive. He could
kill her...
	No. He owed Yomiko that much. He owed the memory of Hotaru not to murder
an innocent. They banished the glaive with a thought, letting it vanish back
into whatever otherspace it went. Eidolon blinked, confused for a moment. Then
she came through the storm, lightning flashing behind her. Her fists launched
out, once, twice, three times. There was no way to block the blows, so they
dodged, pushing their body to the limit.
	The third dodge threw them backward. Aaron could feel the metal
beginning to curve down beneath his feet. They were running out of roof. Fine.
Ukyou threw herself backward, arcing up and over a thrust kick. She pirouetted
in mid-air, turning her backwards leap into a swan dive.
	The side of Bison's statues slid past, just out of reach. He could feel
Eidolon coming down after them. She skimmed down the side of the wall, one hand
and one foot leaving a trail of sparks as they slid into the steel to prevent
her from freefalling. Ukyou reached into her coat and snapped her hand out,
sending a thin line of sticky noodles flashing across the space between her and
the next building. It caught on a cornice there and she abruptly turned her dive
into a vertical swing. Eidolon leapt out to follow her, trying to intercept her
path.
	Ukyou released the line just before colliding with her. The water around
them flew back in all directions with the force of their impact. Ukyou smashed
her knees into Eidolon's stomach, while she got an elbow to the face for her
trouble.
	Then they were falling again, descending towards the earth in a flailing
ball of limbs. Again and again Ukyou's strikes passed harmlessly through her
opponent, and just as often her own blocks did no good. She could feel bruises
forming along her ribs and sides from the punishment. But she needed to buy
Aaron time.
	Then, halfway down they felt it. It was a shift, a subtle change in the
aura, but it was enough. One moment, Eidolon's attack was passing through her
left hand. Her fingers were curled into a claw, aimed straight at Ukyou's heart.
Then Ukyou's right hand smashed into her jaw with enough force to send her
flying back into the palace. The metal dented around her.
	A second later and she was out of sight. Aaron spun them, aligning with
the ground. With a thought, he summoned the glaive again. The weapon extended
below them, pointing straight at the ground. With a wordless scream he released
the Silence, obliterating the pavement. A hole in the earth opened and then they
were falling into the sublevels of the palace.
	Eidolon was back with them a moment later. Ukyou spun her body, allowing
her feet to run against one of the walls, sliding down it. She managed to
somehow bleed off her momentum before hitting the floor and thus was only
partially stunned when Eidolon erupted from a wall, trailing purple sparks and a
line of red from her shoulder.
	Aaron brought their free hand up, and his palm deflected the first of
her blows. The Doll staggered back, surprise on her face. Ukyou gestured,
bringing the glaive to bear as she rushed in. A thrust to her face forced her to
dodge, allowing Ukyou to bring up her leg in a kick at the Doll's chest.
	Eidolon ghosted through the blow, continuing downward. Then she stamped
one leg into the floor to stop her momentum and began to pivot into a kick.
Ukyou's leg had suddenly reversed direction, however, and it came back down into
the leg Eidolon was using to support herself. She gave a cry as Ukyou's ankle
crashed into the back of her knee. Something cracked.
	Eidolon vanished, disappearing into the floor in a fountain of purple
sparks. Ukyou continued her kick, planted her foot and brought the glaive down
on the floor. Matter boiled away like morning mist and then Ukyou was heading
down after her.
	Eidolon was waiting for her. She came in with an elbow that Ukyou dodged
by shifting her head to the side. The Doll continued forward, her body
flickering as the lights overhead sputtered and dimmed from the damage. Yet
Ukyou was always one step ahead of her. She tried feinting, striking with
phantom limbs, but Ukyou just let those pass through her without pause. Her
hands and weapon parried all the material blows, but she was still being driven
back.
	They had fallen into some sort of office. A large picture window looked
out of it into a warehouse below. Ukyou allowed Eidolon to lead her there. Then
she leapt back, smashing through the glass pane. It shattered around her and
Eidolon followed. The glass blossomed around them and Ukyou narrowed her eyes as
it passed through the woman's mostly intangible body.
	Except for the arm she was striking with. Ukyou snapped her glaive up,
smashing the haft into the crook of her opponent's elbow. The Doll screamed as
the force of her own blow and Ukyou's combined to shatter the elbow joint.
	Ukyou landed first, and Eidolon was only a second behind. But this time
Ukyou came in, her polearm flashing and spinning so fast it resembled a silver
waterfall. Eidolon retreated and retreated. Her body phased through obstacles,
passing harmlessly through crates and equipment. She would catch them at
unexpected angles and suddenly shift momentum, doing whatever she could to get
away from her implacable enemy.
	Ukyou was an engine of destruction. Where Eidolon passed through like a
ghost, Ukyou left shattered ruin in her wake. Her blows cleaved machinery in
two, smashed vehicles to bits and tore chunks out of floor and wall.
	It took only one mistake for it to end. Eidolon stepped forward, moving
within the arc of Ukyou's weapon to avoid the deadly blades at its tip. She
screamed, striking out with her uninjured hand. Aaron waited, then at his signal
Ukyou's hand flashed up and caught the Doll's wrist with one hand just before it
struck them. With her other hand she pulled on the glaive, pulling it up so that
the haft vanished into Eidolon's chest where her heart would be. It was
surrounded by purple sparks, but on the other end the bottom of the blades were
pressing against the flesh of Eidolon's back. The Doll's green eyes widened.
	"Ho... how... you didn't ghost once..."
	"I can sense it, the subtle change in your aura when you dematerialise.
It takes long enough that I can react before you are finished." Ukyou jerked the
hand a bit. "Don't even think of moving. I can draw the Silence Glaive through
your chest faster than you can get away. You'd be dead before you even finished
ghosting this hand."
	Eidolon's eyes narrowed. "I would gladly die."
	"Yeah. Dying is easy. Living is hard," Ukyou said softly. Then her knee
came up and caught the woman on her bad leg. Eidolon screamed, and while she
was distracted Ukyou released her hand and slammed her fist into the woman's
jaw. She banished the glaive even as the woman that had once been Nancy Makuhari
flew backwards. It vanished in a spiral of sparkling lights, so that Nancy's
body fell to the ground among a shower of glittering sparks. When she hit the
floor, she was fully solid. She was also unconscious.
	Ukyou looked down at her a moment, then bowed her head and clapped her
hands together twice. "I'll find a way to save you. But first, I have my own
child to save."
	Ukyou turned and walked to the nearest wall. There was an elevator
there. It opened to admit her and closed just as swiftly behind her. Without her
touching a button it began to descend. She closed her eyes and summoned the
Silence Glaive again. Ukyou didn't believe the gods answered prayers, and Aaron
didn't believe in God period. But they prayed nonetheless. To who?
	Did it matter? If something out there could help them now, they didn't
care who it was.  The door opened with a hiss and Ukyou opened her eyes. She
stepped forward into the Psychodrive.
	It hit her like a physical force. The place was so full of hatred. So
full of rage. It boiled up from below like a volcano, wave after wave of
purified, untainted passion. It felt like coming home.
	The Psychodrive was still far below them, deep in an abyss in which
Ukyou could not see the bottom. Lines of red light crawled up the walls of that
abyss, radiating to nodes implanted in the walls. The chamber was long and
narrow, maybe twenty meters wide. A bridge was laid out before her, leading
to the far end of the chamber. Where Bison was.
	Ukyou looked around. None of her friends were here yet. Logically, she
should wait for them. They would have a better chance together.
	But to hell with logic.
	She walked forward, her hand clenching the weapon of Oblivion firmly. It
took a few minutes to make her way to the end of the chamber. Then, she paused.
There he was. The entire back of the Psychodrive was in darkness, but she could
feel his power radiating out from that darkness like a miniature sun.
	"Bison, you know what I've come here for," Ukyou said.
	"Ah yes... the prodigal mother."
	Ukyou frowned. That didn't sound like Bison. Not the Bison she
remembered. It had the same tone, the exact same megalomaniacal lilt... but it
was off. Too high pitched. Too soft. Too...
	"What have you done with my daughter, you son of a bitch?" Ukyou
screamed into the darkness. She knew. She knew but she didn't want to believe.
But of course, it made perfect sense. What else would he need her for? But still
she found herself praying again. praying to God or Buddha or anyone who would
listen.
	Please, don't let it be true.
	"Son of a bitch?" Bison chuckled and then he... or rather she, emerged
from the darkness. She was wearing a variation of Bison's outfit, a red military
jacket with a long purple cap and the short-billed hat with the winged-skull
emblem on it. But the jacket had been cut much tighter, open to the third button
and emphasising the generous curves of its owner. The hem flared into a skirt
that came down just below her hips. Below it her legs were exposed until the
tops of her slick red stiletto-heeled boots peaked at mid-thigh. "I think you
just insulted yourself, mother dearest."

*

	"Take that! And that!" JunJun cackled. "Hah! Feel my power!" She smashed
her hand down on the ground. "Perfect finish!"
	"I don't want to play this anymore," VesVes sighed, looking down at the
cards arrayed between them with disdain.
	"You just don't want to because I'm winning," JunJun said accusingly.
She began to gather up the elements of her precious deck.
	"Now, if we animated the pictures on the cards and made them fight for
real..." VesVes continued, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
	"Lady Cologne already told us not to do that," CereCere mentioned from
in front of her mirror.
	"But we haven't even done it once!" VesVes whined.
	"She still told us not to do it. Remember what happened with those old
manga you found," CereCere pointed out, motioning with her makeup brush.
	"Hey. It's not my fault!" VesVes groaned. "It was Vegeta."
	"Vegeta is a fictional character," CereCere reminded her.
	"With a hot butt."
	The two looked at JunJun. She felt her cheeks heat up and sputtered a
bit. "Oh c'mon. Like you didn't think it, too!"
	The two paused. Then sighed and nodded.
	"Great ass."
	"Glutes of steel," CereCere added. The three sort of drifted off then,
looking blissfully towards the ceiling. CereCere giggled girlishly at one point.
	"Hey guys, whatcha doin'?"
	"AH!" CereCere fell over. "Nothing! Nothing!"
	PallaPalla had done her usual trick of seeming to literally appear out
of nowhere. She was standing by a large curtain near the side of the room,
giving them all a look of wide-eyed innocence. Her finger was pressed to her lip
thoughtfully. JunJun laughed nervously. The thought of talking to PallaPalla
about boys seemed... icky and wrong, so she decided to change the subject.
	"You've been gone a long time," she pointed out.
	"Oh! That's right. I've been playing with my new friend!" PallaPalla
said cheerfully. It was then that everyone noticed that she had something on her
shoulder. It was a small creature, an octopus, about the size of a particularly
fat housecat. It was resting on its stubby little tentacles, but used one of
them to wave cheerfully at the three of them. Its tiny little snout made a
disgustingly cute little sound and it closed its eyes as if smiling.  "Can I
keep him?" she asked.
	"Where on earth did you find such a thing?" CereCere said, clearly
disgusted.
	"Oh, around..." PallaPalla mused. She reached up and idly rubbed the
octopus' scalp. "Poor little thing was hurting and alone. I think its friends
abandoned it."
	"I think it's disgusting," CereCere said, sniffing.
	"I don't know, he's kind of cute." VesVes smiled. Then again, she wasn't
called 'The Beast Tamer' for nothing. Back when they had been living in Elysium
VesVes used to hunt down all sorts of strange creatures that emerged from the
sleeping minds of earth's dreamers. Compared to the tyrannosaurs made entirely
out of marshmallow peeps or the seven-headed dire badger that you could milk for
vanilla parfaits, a land octopus was totally mundane.
	Of course, thinking of Elysium suddenly made JunJun remember all about
it. She looked down, summoning her green orb to her hands. They hadn't been to
the land of dreams in over seven years. It was there that they had lived with
Nehelenia since... since Before. It was from there they derived their powers.
But... they had never returned. For a moment, as she held the orb, JunJun
thought she felt a cold chill creep up her arm. It was worse than anything, it
felt like an utter lack of warmth, like all the life was just ceasing in her
arm... then it was gone, and the world was back to normal.
	"I don't see why she can't keep him," JunJun looked up. "I mean, we lost
all our pets when the old man blew up the Dead Moon Circus. What's one now going
to hurt?"
	CereCere sighed. "Very well. As long as you promise to keep it out of my
possessions."
	"Oh don't worry about that. He's a real gentleman!" PallaPalla smiled at
them, then turned to the curtain and grabbed something from behind it.
	The trio of Amazonesses felt their hearts stop, for just a second. The
man PallaPalla had pulled out from behind the curtain was clad from head to toe
in a black body suit, painted with white lines to resemble bones. Even his face
was invisible behind his mask. He wore a red scarf, which somehow flapped behind
him dramatically.
	"Good afternoon, ladies!" the man said, posing with his hands on his
hips.
	"Isn't he just the cutest?" PallaPalla squealed. "And he knows all kinds
of tricks!"

*

	There were few people that knew of the existence of this room, much less
its location. It was far beneath the cavernous world that Tethys ruled over. Up
above was the city-cave of D-Point, the heart of the Dark Kingdom. There, all
the people that Tethys had gathered to her banner over the years lived their
lives. The youma lived among them, at peace.
	They called it the City of Black Ice.
	Most of them knew what Tethys' goals were. She had willingly shared the
secrets of her magic with them. There were scientists in D-Point that dedicated
themselves to researching magic in all its forms. For the people of D-Point, the
research of the so-called Second Circle was more than a hobby. It was a way of
life.
	Most of the youma who lived there still required life energy to
function. But Tethys had forbidden them to feed off each other or off the
millions of humans that called the City of Black Ice home. At first there had
been objections.
	Those hadn't lasted long.
	Now, they needed to discover the truth about themselves. For them,
discovering how to manipulate the Second Circle wasn't just a matter of
improvement. It was a matter of survival. It was a truth that Tethys herself had
found hard to swallow. So she had not simply told them the truth.
	The truth was that she, and every youma, was a weapon. They had been
designed by Metallia, carved out of the souls of humans and ambient magic into
tools of war. A war that Metallia could never win. Metallia had a great flaw in
her, a flaw that had eventually led to her destruction at the hands of a being
much weaker than her. That flaw had been passed on to all her creations, every
single youma.
	That was the way it was supposed to be. Because Metallia herself had
been designed. She was a spawn of Chaos. A god-like being forged by the
incarnation of conflict and war millennia ago during the Sailor Wars... the
great battle between good and evil that had raged across all the galaxy. She and
others like her had been designed with one purpose: to wage war.
	An endless, eternal war against the forces of good, the Sailor Senshi.
There was no purpose to this war. It was conflict for its own sake. War for the
ends of more war. And every time one of the spawn of Chaos provoked the Sailor
Senshi into battle... Chaos fed, and grew bloated. Thus it had been Chaos that
had led to the downfall of the Silver Millennium.
	Tethys stepped out of the wall and started down the corridor. This place
could not be reached by normal means. It existed miles beneath the polar ice
cap, far beneath where even the deepest caverns of D-Point reached. A sheet of
solid ice, one mile thick, separated it from the rest of the world. With her
power over water, Tethys could easily gain access. She could also prevent anyone
else from ever reaching this far.
	"Lady Tethys, is that you?"
	The voice was crisp, strong and clipped with a noticeable British
accent. Tethys sighed and placed a hand on her forehead.
	"Victoria, what have I told you?"
	There was a pause, then the straw-haired vampiress emerged from the
shadows. She wore a tight black uniform that highly resembled the one she had
been wearing when Tethys had rescued her from England. Tethys, of course, had
replaced the outdated insignia with emblems of loyalty to her. Still, Tethys
didn't know why Victoria liked to wear such... tight clothing. She certainly had
a very impressive figure, to be sure. But did she need to wear a jacket that fit
like a second skin, a skirt that barely came down to her thighs and knee-high
heeled boots?
	It was... distracting.
	"Oh... sorry. I'm not supposed to say anything, am I?"
	"Not until you know it's me," Tethys said, repeating herself. "And if it
isn't me...?"
	Victoria's blood-red eyes narrowed and she smiled. "I deal with them."
	"Excellent," Tethys said, reaching out and patting her on the shoulder.
"Have you been well?"
	"I've been fine..." Victoria evaded. "It gets... a little lonely down
here, sometimes."
	Tethys nodded sadly. "I wish I could replace you, but..."
	"But nobody can even know what's down here, much less be trusted to
guard it," Victoria said, her voice taking on that stoic quality famous among
Brits.
	"Exactly." Tethys paused. "I promise I will come visit you more often in
the future. But events in the outside world have kept me... busy."
	"Word from Pluto and Rose?" Victoria asked.
	Tethys hesitated. They were walking down the corridor now. "Yes..."
	"Well?"
	"They're in Bisonopolis..."
	"Is that good?"
	"That depends." Tethys held up her hand. "If they fail to defeat Bison,
I will have to step in. But doing that now would spoil my plans. I would prefer
Ukyou came to me of her own volition, not that I wrest her from Bison like a
prize."
	"I see..." Victoria trailed off. They had reached the central room now.
It was pitch-black except for a single beam of light that came from the ceiling.
A complex system of reflection and refraction from the surface created that
light. Tethys was rather proud of it.
	"How is he?" she asked.
	"No change... as usual."
	Tethys walked into the crypt. The coffin was on a raised dais, so that
it was just at waist-height when she stood next to it. She looked down at the
pristine body of Alucard... the ultimate vampire. Her hand hovered over him.
Then it came to rest over the hole in his chest. She closed her eyes and felt...
nothing. There was nothing there. Not even so much as a slight distortion. But
she knew there was something there regardless.
	The last scientist to study that wound had been consumed by...
something. Something otherworldly. His body had warped and twisted the moment he
touched it, and then he had been torn asunder, ripped into a million fragments
that skittered off along the creases of reality and vanished into realms Tethys
didn't wish to explore.
	This was her victory. That power. How could one gain revenge on Chaos,
the incarnation of war? One could just as easily strike down the law of gravity
or kill the concept of time. Even the very act of fighting, of struggling
against it, would feed Chaos such that it would only grow stronger. Tethys
smiled. No wonder it had grown so powerful these last seven years. With a world
such as this one to feed off of, the only wonder was that it had not already
conquered all creation.
	"But one person can kill even you," Tethys hissed. "It has been
foretold. Even war can die." She raised her hand. "And the same power that she
used, lies in this comatose body." She chuckled. Once she had Ukyou, that power
would be hers.
	She turned and walked back over to Victoria. Victoria looked at her
meaningfully. "Are you hungry?" Tethys asked. Victoria paused, then nodded. Her
expression was a mix of reluctance and acceptance. Victoria had always had a
problem with what she was. Maybe one day she could get over it. Tethys smiled
and pulled her hair away from her neck, bending her head to the side. "Then
drink."
	Victoria paused for a long time, staring at her Queen's neck. The first
time that Tethys had done this, she had practically had to force the young
vampire. She had been convinced she would kill Tethys. But Tethys' power was far
beyond that. Simple blood was nothing to her. Besides... it had the most
interesting effects on the vampire.
	With a hiss Victoria came in, her mouth becoming a field of fangs.
Tethys winced as the sharp teeth pierced her neck, drawing in a sharp breath
when Victoria began to feed. Her body shuddered as Victoria pulled her closer,
pressing their bodies together. And for a long time, they remained there, one
feeding off the other.

*

	It was a perfect scale map of Japan. The peaks of the mountains, the
bends of the shoreline, all of them etched out to the smallest detail in a web
of green light. There was even a flicker of blue along the edges of the coasts,
suggesting the ocean. It hovered above the floor as Akane ran her finger along
the edge of it. The image shimmered where she touched it, but did not lose
coherence.
	"Here." Akane paused.
	"Are you certain?"
	Akane turned to look back at Washuu. The little girl was sitting on a
small cushion that hovered in mid-air above the floor of the lab. Her legs were
crossed, one kicking idly like she was the innocent child she appeared to be,
but her eyes were very serious as they studied Akane.
	"Yes." Akane looked back at the image. "I'm very certain."
	"How is this possible?" Katsuhito murmured. He was rubbing his chin,
leaning in towards the image. "I thought that the magic this Akio evoked
prevented anyone from remembering Ohtori's exact location."
	"That's a good question," Washuu said, as she began to type at her
holographic keyboard.
	"Maybe he forgot to erase Akane's memory like he did Rei's?" Mamoru
suggested.
	"That would make sense..." Katsuhito said, but he didn't sound
convinced.
	"Ah-hah... there it is." Washuu smirked and spun herself around in mid-
air. "Tricky little bastard, I'll give him that."
	"You found it?" Rei gasped. A general murmur broke out across the room.
Mamoru crossed his arms and looked down at the ground. Marz was trying to get a
good look over Washuu's shoulder. Satsuki knelt, blending into the background.
Fevrier snorted.
	"I don't see what the big deal is," she muttered.
	"Big deal?" Rei snapped at her. She glared at the ex-Doll and Fevrier
glared right back. Akane could swear she could see sparks shooting between them.
"This is Sailor Moon we're talking about. She can defeat a zoalord!"
	"So?" Fevrier crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "Plenty of things
can defeat a zoalord. Tethys, for instance. I don't see us all going out of our
way to track her down."
	"That's because Tethys is evil!" Rei shot back.
	"And sitting in a false paradise for seven years while the world goes
straight to hell is much better?" Fevrier snapped.
	"You wouldn't understand..." Rei snorted.
	Washuu sighed and looked at Katsuhito. "Reminds you of two other girls,
doesn't it?"
	"Same spirit, but less property damage," the old man said, chuckling.
	"Fevrier, I think Akane is right." Mamoru said. "We should find Sailor
Moon, bring her back into the fight. It's time."
	"Oh, and what makes you think that?" Washuu said, suddenly interested.
	"I... don't know." Mamoru shrugged. "It's this... feeling I have. This
feels right. Like it's what we're supposed to do."
	"I see..." Washuu murmured. "And what about you, Akane?"
	Akane frowned and crossed her arms. She could feel the Star Seeds
pulsing in her vest pocket. They hadn't felt this active since... since she'd
first gotten them. "I don't know, Washuu." Akane looked down at the floor. "I
think... I think something important is about to happen. I'm pretty certain it's
about Sailor Moon."
	"Could it be because of the power from beyond our world? The one you
experienced when you died?"
	The room went silent. Akane looked around, realising all eyes were on
her. How had Washuu even known that? Why had she gone and broken the big secret
in front of everyone? Akane shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like to think
about the brief time she had spent in the next world. Her mind shied away from
it. She had experienced something profound, been touched by something... beyond
this world while she was dead.
	"Yes." Washuu leaned back. "I think that's it. Isn't it, Akane? You
agree with me."
	"I'm not certain..."
	"Don't be coy, Akane." Washuu smiled. "I've done a great deal of
research into you. I wanted to know why Gyro thought you were so important. Why
Chris chose you. Why Ukyou chose you."
	"I'm not special," Akane snapped. She hated being called special. She
was just like everyone else. Except she was willing to stand up and be counted.
	"Maybe once." Washuu laced her fingers under her chin. "But not anymore.
And it was Sailor Moon that did it to you." Washuu smirked. "Oh yes. The Third
Circle. Sailor Moon doesn't even realise it. That's what Akio is after from her.
Sailor Moon has a conduit to the forces beyond this universe, the same ones that
power Chris and Ukyou. When you were dead, you felt them, and she brought you
back."
	"Sailor Moon?" Akane murmured.
	"Yes." Washuu looked at the screen again. "She may be the key to it all.
The key to saving the world, to destroying Chris, to ending Galaxia and
Chronos..." She looked around at them all. "It's imperative that you all head to
Ohtori at once."
	"I agree," Mamoru said.
	"But... the illusions there, won't we be just as vulnerable as Rei was