It's not scientific method it's my method!

by Natomon01

When Leslie Tobin Mcgwire defends a softspoken exchange student he never thought he would fight a war to save humanity. The story depicts this Tokyo Mew Mew fanfiction character as he searches for peace from the emotional scars of his sister's death.

I'd always liked foreign exchange students. They'd come for maybe a month or two, show off their math skills, temperament, native dress, and profanity. Then they'd leave us with set of polaroids and a desire to never learn another language.

I specifically liked the shy ones since I had a knack for starting a conversation and eventually a prolonged correspondence. You see I wasn't really that popular myself so I would extend my hand in solidarity, we'd become the bosomest of buddies and I'd get a new skill. Now that's foreign exchange!

These skills or new interests included things like rhetoric from the Greeks, techno from the Germans, DVD cracking and shin-yi martial arts from the Chinese, and a good singing voice from the Russians.

So naturally when I heard that the next one was from Japan I was only too happy to seal a lasting friendship. With blood. Because that's what happens when you get between a rather small blond oriental kid and four or five large aggressors who seem to think that violence presents good foreign relations.

You see when I first saw Ryou he was dragging a book bag that must have been larger than he was across the playground. He stopped underneath a tree where he sat down and proceeded to engage his psyche instead of his body. "Guess he probably can't teach me kendo" I thought. "Drat"!

It was "The Crew" that decided to engage his body.

You see there's one on every playground and it usually consists of a smart one, one who can't keep his mouth shut, a large hulk, and at times the leading lady (Most often the supposed girlfriend of El Smart one).

As it happened Great Hulk lumbered into Ryou's sunlight. Ryou just moved his position slightly and kept reading, chatty got his attention with a mangled Japanese greeting and when Ryou looked up, Honkeytonk Woman grabbed the book and tossed it to Wise Guy.

I didn't want to watch, I already knew what was going to happen. I turned around and started heading towards the school doors when I heard a noise behind me.

"Flop"!

I looked over my shoulder to see the aforementioned book laying on the asphalt blacktop. "Huh". I wondered, "What did Japanese kids read for fun anyways"? I bent over and picked it up when I was sure that "The Crew" wasn't looking. I was surprised by the weight of it and immediately opened it up to ascertain the content. Among the spidery and incomprehensible Japanese Kanji I saw figures and diagrams that anybody can associate with... "physics"!

"A textbook"?! "Have I found a kindred spirit"? I thought.

One of the reasons that I didn't have many friends was partly because I actually put some effort into school. It didn't take very much to stand out academically among the "In Crowd". My academic preeminence however forced me into "The Out Crowd". I wasn't very included in anything that the popular kids would do.

But I wasn't picked on either. This I owed to my God given physique! Alright....it's not like I was Arnold Schwarzenegger or even the strongest baddest kid on the playground, but I had a well known ability to outrun aggressors and sometimes turn to give em a bloody nose.

Consequently they didn't single me out much anymore. So I was free to pursue my typically nerdish leanings of computers, Popular Science, and sometimes baseball.

Ryou on the other hand had none of my physical attributes. Well that's not completely true he probably could have outrun them, what with that wiry torso and all. But that would mean leaving his books behind and anyone who's known him for any length of time will tell you he'd never do that.

So for maybe a week or two Ryou just took everything that they dished out on him.

It was a Friday afternoon on lunch break that I actually ended up defending him without planning to do so.

As it happened I had actually managed to climb the tree that Ryou would always sit underneath.

"Why doesn't he just pick another tree"? I wondered.

And just like always here comes "The Crew". I looked down on Ryou as his enemies approached.

"Hey"! "Genius kid"! Jeered Chatty. "I just wondered If you might wanna give something to charity"?

Ryou looked like he was about to speak when the leading lady cut him off.

"It's for save the Dorks at recess fund". She said in a sarcastic and patronizing tone.

"Why in heavens name do they do this"? I wondered. By the time I'd finished wondering Wise guy had grabbed the book and tossed it up and down a few times before he flung it high into the branches of "my tree"!

Ryou just stared at him with a blank gaze.

It's possible that they were too busy with Ryou to notice that the large hardcover textbook didn't come back down, at least, not immediately. When it did I arranged for it to follow a rapid descent pattern converging on a predetermined set of coordinates. Translation: Heavy object hits Wise Guy on the head.

I landed a few feet to the left of him and the goose egg that he was now nursing like a little kid with an "owy boo boo". "So it's true, bullies really are just big babies".

Nobody spoke. I just stared at all of them. They knew who I was but it didn't stop "The Hulk from giving me a large dent in my skull.

But "Wise guy" seemed to have his ego satisfied for the day and walked off saying, "I'm sure your momma doesn't want you to get hurt".

"Neither does his"! I shouted back at him.

That day was when our relationship kicked off. It was chiefly symbiotic at the beginning. I blocked punches and he read his science books to me. I also adopted a tougher looking appearance in that I grew my already shoulder length platinum blond hair out about a foot and a half more and tied it with a leather thong. My image was slightly that of a warrior.

We'd also walk home from school together being that some of the larger predators used his route as a hunting ground.

I'd often wondered who lived in that huge mansion on the northern side of the bay. "So their rich; why doesn't he just hire a bodyguard"?

It was one day when we'd both taken heavy flak that he actually invited me in under the guise of tea. I'd never had tea before, but what he really meant was that he knew my mother wasn't home and that I needed first aid. Tea was definitely a part of his mother's first aid ritual and I enjoyed it as much as I could tea without sugar.

His mother on the other hand reminded me of my own in two ways first she seemed to carry herself like mine with the feminine air but firm moral strength. Secondly she played the piano just like mine.

Mrs. Shirogane would patch our wounds when we came home together and for some reason she gradually started calling me Daisuke. I don't really know how that happened but it did. It's possible that she chose this as a term of endearment considering that Daisuke means helpful one. I never minded having a Japanese name. It was sort of a gesture of acceptance into the family.

On and off I was able to meet Ryou's father who did some kind of technical archeology that I didn't understand very well. What a man of the house, he even worked from home.

I did however squeeze some kendo moves from Mr. Shirogane's research assistant. Now he was a character, a total gentleman and a genius who went by the name of Keiichiro. Due to our impromptu sparring he would often go back to work with grass stains on his lab coat.

I'd bonded well with Ryou's folks in fact I might even go so far as to say that they'd all become a second family to me. I was being included in their family outings, I could drink un-sugared tea without gagging, I liked physics now, and I was learning Japanese at a fever pitch. Mr. Shirogane even said that they'd take me with them when they went back to Japan for a few weeks in the summer.

But the fates are a sadistic bunch, and they seem to like tragedy.

It took both me and Keiichiro to hold a frantic and crazed Ryou back as we watched his home burn down. He stopped struggling almost immediately when he saw it. We saw it too.

The "it" in question used to be a fossil in a slab of rock. I'd seen it before and I'd always thought it was a joke that Mr. Shirogane thought it was once alive. But it was alive now and it was more frightening than funny. It moved away into night sky almost challenging us in the way that it moved.

Ryou's parents became the first casualties in a war that would turn Myself, Keiichiro, and Ryou into soldiers. We returned the next day to find nothing left. Most of what the fire hadn't destroyed the firefighters had.

I half thought that Ryou was going to cry but I was wrong, and as far as I know he's still holding back those tears.

"I'm going to finish it"! He said decisively.

Keiichiro and I looked briefly at each other and then back at him.

"Finish what"? We both said.

"The Mu Project, I'm not going to let them succeed. I remember all of it, all of my father's research, it's the only way to defend the Earth"!

I didn't know what to say except that I was with him whatever this Mew nonsense was. It was at that moment the three of us became brothers.

The Mu project sounded absolutely insane. Aliens?! Or more accurately an ancient species of humans? I'm not a UFO fanatic, but after what I'd seen that night I was inclined to sharpen my perspectives on a great many things.

I asked simply what we had to do.

Ryou simply asked me to be present when his father's will was opened two weeks later. I've never liked suits or even known what was worse, wearing one or being surrounded by them. I had to do both while I listened to Keiichiro being named the executor of the Shirogane estate.

The dispensation of the family fortune was not the only thing in the will, there was also a secret clause that specified the location of a safety deposit box in a San Francisco bank. When we opened it we found hard drives and instructions on how to complete the Mu project.

These instructions called for experts in three different disciplines, we drew straws and I got physics. Not just any physics but Quantum Physics I shuddered and regretfully agreed.

It was easier academically on Ryou and Keiichiro they already had almost everything they needed as far as education went. I suppose that even I had a rather easy time considering that I was going to school on Ryou's dime and I was the only sixteen year old who passed the San Francisco State University entrance exam that year. I suppose I was proud to drop out of the insane public school system.

I mentioned earlier how we were brothers, that is, in the figurative sense of course, but sometimes we fight like brothers. We all have our differences and they sometimes would come out when we'd meet each week to discuss our progress.

In our exclusive family Ryou is both the youngest brother, oldest brother and the father, being that he makes the decisions and talks down to the rest of us and needs our protection.

Now don't get me wrong I respect his opinions; and his knowledge base makes him a more than apt leader than Keiichiro or myself, but I also resent being ordered around by someone who's a full two years younger than I am.

When we'd meet each other we would usually go for dinner at a place in the eastern San Francisco bay area called the "Stinking Rose". Now don't let the name fool you this place is an excellent if not high-dollar place to eat and what's furthermore it's dedicated to cooking entirely with garlic!

I started calling us the "Bad Breath Boys" one night and Ryou was the only one who didn't think it was funny.

"Don't trivialize our group! Don't you realize how important our mission is?!" he snapped at me.

"Look it was just a-" "Yeah I know exactly what it was! It means that you don't take the danger to this planet seriously!"

"Look" I retorted "I don't have to be here right now and what's furthermore I do take it seriously! That's why I'm here! Why else would "I" study Physics?!"

Poor Keiichiro always seemed to be caught in the middle when Ryou and I had an argument, and I could hear him gritting his teeth this time. He smiled nervously as he leaned in to Ryou's and My field of view.

"Why don't we talk about something else tonight." He said cheerfully. "I had a great day in chef school."

Oh... yes that's right. Our activities would require a low profile so apparently were going to be running a night club or something. I like the guns and glory Idea just a little better, but I supposed I'd to have to settle for wearing a tuxedo and enthralling the Japanese masses with badly sung American pop music.

Keiichiro managed to change the subject but he couldn't change the feelings of animosity that now existed between Ryou and I.

Ryou and I didn't make up until after "the accident". This time tragedy struck yours truly, but unlike the Shirogane's I wasn't killed nor was it of alien contrivance.

You see I'd been working as a lab assistant in order to facilitate attaining my major faster and I was cleaning up one of the university chemistry labs when it happened.

First off, for an unknown reason someone had mixed several large beakers of aqueous hydrogen chloride solution and set them on a small cart next to one of the lab stations. Secondly another careless individual had dropped one of the soap dispensers on the floor near the cart. I was aware of the soap on the floor but when I saw that someone had left one of the gas valves just slightly open I forgot about the soap and rushed to turn it off. While I was walking back I slipped on the glassware detergent. When I fell my brain shut down and I looked for the first thing that I could see to break my fall, which just so happened to be the cart holding the beakers.

Just to clarify, you see hydrogen chloride is not such an innocent little chemical as it might sound. When it's mixed into water it becomes a very mean substance that's known as hydrochloric acid.

When I started falling I grabbed for the edge of the cart and was able to get a hold of it, but the absorbent pad that was underneath the beakers was the part that I'd grabbed. The pad pulled away from that cart like a tablecloth and when I hit the floor six beakers of acid rained down on top of me.

What's worse is that I was concussed and I lay there stunned for about ten minutes before Mr. Dennis the department head dragged me out into the hall and called for the paramedics.

I was very badly burned on my face and neck, and I'd inhaled enough hydrogen chloride gas to kill off half the alveoli in my lungs. That was nothing compared to what it did to my eyes; I lost about sixty percent of my vision.

When I woke up I was in hell my face burned, my eyes burned, and I felt like I'd swallowed a handful of broken glass. I tried to open my eyes but I found that they were taped shut. I reached up toward my face but a hand grabbed my wrist.

"Don't do that!" Said a familiar voice.

I tried to answer Ryou but I couldn't speak, my voice was nonexistent except for a small raspy squeak.

"First of all you're in Mercy Hospital and no you're not going to die, and secondly I'm so sorry for the way that I've acted toward you."

I was speechless both literally and figuratively. This was the Ryou I used to know. Maybe this should've happened sooner.

I couldn't answer back so I just clasped his hand in a silent gesture of forgiveness.

When they took the bandages off my face I could only see a few feet in front of me and my right cheek was now mottled and scarred. My vocal cords suffered too and as a result my voice was raspy and dry.

"I guess I can't sing for our cover now" I said in jest "but I guess I can do stand up!"

It was true, my voice now sounded a little like Mel Brooks.

The doctors fitted me with some makeshift glasses and I could see rather clearly again. It seemed like almost the entire science faculty has sent me flowers, and cards telling me to ask if I needed anything. I even had the dean come down personally to apologize for the mishap and he offered me a complete scholarship for the remainder of my major. I heard later that some heads rolled for what happened and somebody even got prosecuted.

I announced later on that I was going to make up for lost time. I insisted that my physics professors send me taped lectures and class material. So that I could study while I recovered and Keiichiro managed to get all of my professors to administer my finals in the hospital room.

But this reassertion of my academic prowess came with a price. I expended so much energy on my studies that my recovery was hampered. The sheer stress aged me considerably. My hair turned white and my face displayed several sets of wrinkles that weren't there before. I was eighteen years old and I looked like I was in my forties.

I received my diploma in quantum physics with a minor in chemistry late next year. Keiichiro had his doctorate in genetics and a diploma from Cordon Bleu and Ryou...well Ryou was just Ryou. He may not have had a piece of paper but he had everything he needed.

We embarked on the next phase of our mission which was to pick up on the Mu project where Mr. Shirogane had left off. We took another trip to the safety deposit box where we recovered a key card to a storage bin in a security warehouse.

We weren't ready for the sight that greeted us. We found crate after crate of artifacts that were supposedly from the ancient civilization. We didn't know where to begin so we spent a week examining Mr. Shirogane's finds.

I found a hard drive containing a shipping manifest which also explained where the objects were found. Apparently in 1981 after repeated nuclear blasts yielded a large sinkhole in the Kazakhstan tundra a set of perfectly preserved ruins belonging to a previously undocumented civilization were uncovered in near pristine condition.

The Soviets invited a select group of archeologists to examine them, and Mr. Shirogane was among them.

He realized that this was a civilization that wasn't a traditional type of human and also realized the implications as he learned more about them. When he discovered this he smuggled as many of the objects as he could across the iron curtain with the help of the CIA and MI6. "Sad" I thought "He never got very far in his exploration."

The following week Ryou and Keiichiro announced that they were returning to Japan to start work there. Ryou and Keiichiro were convinced of some genetic marker that will influence the battle to come and what's furthermore it's relatively confined to the oriental gene pools of Korea, China, and Japan.

This left me with a host of research to complete and I wasn't even sure where to begin. I started by sorting out the objects that were contaminated with radiation and then sorted them by size and the location where they'd been found.

I soon realized that there was no way I could perform documented experimentation in a storage unit so I made use of the credit card that Ryou had been kind enough to leave me. I purchased nearly half a million dollars worth of analytical equipment and I even ended up modifying some of it for my unique requirements. I moved it into the rather large house I was living in and at times didn't leave for days. The abundance of lab equipment made me rather famous in the neighborhood, but not for a good reason. You see one night I was running several tests at once and my twenty first century lab caught up with a twentieth century power grid. We were without power for three days.

Most of the artifacts were useless junk but I did find and analyze over thirty pieces of extremely advanced technology which I eagerly wrote back to Ryou about. He seemed indifferent about these wonderful devices that I'd been able to reverse engineer, and said that if we can't weaponize it it's no good. "Of course we can weaponize these things! In fact I could be the new superman if I had a suit full of these gadgets." Which is what I'd say and he'd simply reply that they're not what were looking for. "Fine!" I thought. "I'll keep looking."

Boredom can find you even in the most stimulating work environment. So I'd decided to go out and rent a movie one night. I was walking to out the door when I glanced at a page of one of Mr. Shirogane's few surviving research journals, where I saw a paragraph that alluded to a particular artifact that I thus far hadn't examined too thoroughly.

Specifically it referred to a pair of them. "That's strange" I contemplated "we have one but not the other? Where did it go?"

Later that night I tried in vain to concentrate on George Clooney as he pulled off the world's first casino heist, but that paragraph was stomping on my head and allowing me no room for free thought.

I eventually punched the off button and went back to the table where I keep all the written journals. I found a picture of the object and immediately recognized it. It was a metallic rod about two feet long with a bulge in the center. The bulge looked like it might be an enclosure, but for what I didn't know. I looked harder at the picture. "Yes!" "It was an enclosure!" I could clearly see the separation line between the two twin halves.

I could hardly sleep that night as I wondered what it could be.

First thing in the morning I rushed across town and retrieved the rod from the warehouse. I looked at it with burning curiosity as I waited for my sausage mcmuffins. I ate quickly and licked my fingers as I drove home.

There's something to be said for the scientific method... it's far too slow. I could hardly sit still through each test and examination I put the rod through. There was definitely something inside it. But what!!! Whatever it was it didn't show up through x-ray or neutron bombardment. The two procedures did however show me how to open it.

I carried the container to one of the glove boxes and prepared a sample container to catch whatever issued forth. I positioned a thirty four tesla magnet at one end and closed to glove box. Opening the rod was simple; I just touched one end with the magnet and they broke up like an unhappy marriage. I watched as my mystery substance flowed into the sample tray. It was clear liquid. It looked like water. I put it under an optometric analyzer and it showed as pure deionized water.

"Water?!" "This thing was a glorified water bottle!?"

All that suspense for nothing! However my scientific side won the moment. "Alright. One last test."

I set the water sample in the test chamber of the optometric pulse chamber (OPC) and while I waited for the capacitors to charge I read one of Mr. Shirogane's research journals. Apparently he'd tried a similar procedure on several artifacts. "Maybe I'm onto something."

The computer flashed a message that the charging cycle was complete. "Ok.... Pulse!"

Concentrated photonic and magnetic energy rippled through the sample and shook the test chamber. I walked over toward the chamber to find that the sample was no longer there. But what had replaced it was a sight to behold.

It was a mass of some kind of luminescent matter. It was pulled tightly into a little ball that almost looked like it was alive in the way that smaller sparks of energy seemed to radiate from the center. "What was this?" I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes before putting them back on. "No! Still there! Wait a minute why am I not recording this!?"

I barreled toward the terminal that controlled the lab's cameras and switched them on. "Alright! Next order of business... find out what in heavens name this stuff is!" I checked the instruments for signs of radiation. There was none. So I pulled on a pair of gloves and carried the almost weightless sample across the room. After hours of bewilderment from a substance that didn't seem to even be there I carried it back to the test chamber where I planned to do a neutron bombardment. But for some reason my other stupider half put forth the idea that the best instruments are the ones you're endowed with at birth. I don't know why I agreed.

I actually touched it! It didn't seem to react at first. It was a few degrees colder than the surrounding air. I put my hand deeper into the mass and then I squeezed it. Something happened then!

It dispersed into smaller sparks that would group together and flow toward each other. "Must be some form of electrostatic attraction." I mused as it beaded up and down my hand. I brushed the sparks off of my hand and watched as they reformed the spherical mass.

I once more touched it but this time something different happened. I was holding it in one hand when I was seized by the feeling all the hair on my body standing up straight, like when you touch a van de grauph generator, but it increased until all of my hairs felt like needles that were bursting through my skin.

I managed to drop it back into the sample chamber but seconds later some unknown force tossed me across the lab into a bank of instruments.

I lay there slumped over and unable to move for what seemed like days but eventually I managed to sit up. I was for some reason unable to grasp that this had just happened to me. It seemed more like it happened to someone else. To say that my head was swimming was an understatement. My brain was mush and something was doing the backstroke in it, "probably that stuff".

I couldn't stand up so I dropped to all fours, my skin felt like it was slithering all over my body. I was suddenly seized by a very strange compulsion. "I have to sleep! Now!" I fought my eyelids as I crawled to my bedroom like a small child. It was agony! All I knew was that if I closed my eyes I would fall asleep then and there. I saw my bedroom door from miles away. I was a thousand pound man now just moving an inch at a time.

I did eventually reach the door. "Rejoice all ye saints" the door wasn't closed! I oozed into the room like molasses where I summoned all of my strength to climb onto the bed. I ended up face down with a mouthful of bedding. "I'm going to suffocate" I thought. I jerked my body as hard as I could and found myself lying on my back. "Sweet victory!! I can pass out!!!"

What followed were more like perceptions then that were dreams. I felt myself being pressed into a soft surface by an unseen force. I saw myself in the third person but before the accident I perceived Ryou and Keiichiro as we moved toward each other and merged together over and over again each time we were forced outward to see what we had become but each time my head was turned aside so I couldn't see. The last time before I woke up I saw it! The double helix!

I came to still mentally impaired I raised my head to see the sun setting across the bay. I seemed to think it was morning though. I sat up and felt a rush like the first day of summer vacation!

Yeah, the only thing that would've made it perfect is if I could've had the morning song to replace the original Zorro theme, which was at the moment rolling around in my head mercilessly.

I turned to the side to glance at my clock-radio but it was laying on the floor. I grabbed my bedside lamp and actually had my wish half granted! That is the Zorro theme was gone.

I regained my awareness with a jolt. "The lamp must have a short" I thought.

I was bewildered by my previous thoughts. "Summer vacation indeed"! Then I remembered the lab. "The lab! The sample!"

I rushed out of my bedroom and tore down the hallway toward the lab. I saw the gas chromatograph laying on the floor in pieces along with two racks full of broken circuit boards.

I turned toward the (OPC) where the sample should have been. It was gone! "No! Wait! It was water again."

I grabbed the sample container and carefully put it into a stasis locker.

Before I did anything else I had to call Ryou! I practiced my victory speech as I walked toward the phone. When I got there I saw a total of sixteen new messages. I listened intently as Ryou and Keiichiro's voices went from curious to annoyed to worried to frantic. The last message was from Ryou who said he was flying to San Francisco to check on me and that this had better not be a joke.

"I guess I can speak to him when he gets here" I though smiling to myself.

I watched the messages scroll by on the caller I.D. box and then I saw the dates. I did some quick math and realized that they'd been recorded over a period of three days! "I'd slept three days"!

I was stunned.

I was walking back towards the lab when I heard and felt the sound of something being crushed under my foot. I looked down to see that I'd just stepped on my glasses. "Wait a minute! Without these things I shouldn't be able to see what I've stepped on!"

I held my hand in front of my face I could see every contour on my skin! I ran to the picture window to see the last of the sun.

I could see the houses and buildings on the hilltops; I could even make out Lombard Street! I had to find a mirror!

I tumbled into the bathroom and fumbled with the light switch, but when I turned it on I found a familiar yet unfamiliar face staring back at me. The skin on my face was smooth and flawless my hair had color again!

I frantically pried at the edges of my face as I tried to remove the mask! "Solid!" Talk about a beauty sleep!

"Was this even real?" I searched for some confirmation that it was and received it in the form of a growling stomach. Never have I felt hungry in a dream!

Ryou arrived to find me making war on a rather large pizza. The sauce dripped like blood from my fingers as I slaughtered my enemy with necessary brutality.

He didn't bother to knock but he made his presence known by loudly tromping down the hall when he saw me at the table.

He stopped cold when I turned around and we stared at each other for several minutes.

I broke the silence.

"Yes you're awake... and... so am I apparently."

"What did you-?" I cut him off.

"After pizza" I said.

Well Ryou was impressed. I know that because for once he didn't say anything insulting about my find.

I'm not entirely certain that he really knew what to do at first even though we'd found our weapon or at least something to give us a chance.

He stayed the night, but I don't think he slept a bit and I for some reason didn't feel tired.

When he got up he actually made us breakfast! I figured that this must be his way of thanking me for my contribution. Even though he said he'd only cooked so that I wouldn't put beer in the flapjack batter.

After a thoroughly bland set of pancakes and soggy hash browns but rather tasty bacon we journeyed back toward the lab where we cleaned up from the last few days.

Yet strangely enough Ryou now seemed rather uninterested in the sample as I continued my observations.

Instead he parked himself in front of one of the lab terminals and set up a video conference line with Keiichiro. They talked for about twenty minutes before he called me over. Keiichiro was glad to see me and was understandably surprised to see my restored features.

"That was a very stupid thing to do" he said in an uncharacteristically frustrated tone.

"Yes" I agreed. "Yes it was. But... I sort of felt like I was meant to do it... I really can't explain it".

"I think it's time we shared our findings like we used to" said Ryou. I guess we didn't do first hand exchange very much anymore these days, all I'd done since Ryou and Keiichiro had left was to email them once a week and to call when I though I'd found something.

I started the ball rolling by explaining that all I'd really done was discover a seemingly harmless substance that when put into excitation would produce an energy that nobody had encountered before. "Oh. By the way." I added. "You should keep in mind that I don't think this is really a substance. At least... not in the traditional sense. You see when it goes into excitation it actually seems to lose its properties of inertia and mass."

Keiichiro was as stunned as Ryou and I had been when he heard all this. I even showed him the videos of the discovery.

"Tell me everything you two know!" He said in yet another uncharacteristic tone; this time one of excitement.

"Well I can't really tell you everything on account of the fact that all I've been able to conclude is what I've told you thus far and that under the right conditions of scientific stupidity it can be a fountain of youth" I replied.

"Why don't we tell him the specifics of how we're designing the Mews." Said Ryou. "If he knows what to look for maybe he can find something specific.

"Oh yeah that's right" I though. With all the monotony of the artifact analysis I'd forgotten about the Mews.

Our overall project is to create an effective weapon. The late Mr. Shirogane however hadn't specified what, how, or where. Anyways Keiichiro and Ryou had ended up discovering a set of statistics from the Human Genome Project. Keiichiro was convinced that there was a biological defensive pattern hidden in the human genetic makeup. I of course was the physics major so I honestly didn't know how to contribute to all the DNA babble, but anyone could understand that what we were trying to do was to create supersoldiers. Both Ryou and Keiichiro of course said that I was way off and that I shouldn't think of them as soldiers per se.

"Well we've determined the genetic penetration level and the proximity and probable number of the subjects." I listened as intently as I could this stuff is just barely within my line of reasoning.

Keiichiro continued. "We've calculated that there are five or six suitable candidates within the distribution of only the far oriental genome that have occurred over the last seven to twenty-five years."

"Ok! Hold on" I said putting up my hand. "In plain language there are about five or six "people" who've been born over the last seven to twenty-five years in China, Korea, or Japan and have a genetic predisposition to be super soldiers. Is that right?"

"More or less" agreed Ryou. "But it's more possible that they'll be closer to seven years old than they will to twenty-five".

I was surprised by that, and I don't get surprised very often these days. I formed my words carefully "So what are you suggesting that we do even if we find these kids? Are we just going to tell their parents that were going to take little Billy and turn him into a genetic freak?"

"First off" Keiichiro replied "I think it's highly unlikely that any of them will be named Little Billy. What we are sure of beyond a shadow of a doubt is that they're going to be female."

I hit the roof!

"Little Girls!!!" I shouted. "That's just plain cruel!"

"Calm down!" Said Ryou putting his hand on my shoulder "That is necessity. And what's furthermore we're not going to ask them. They'll volunteer once we enlighten them about the stakes. That's the kind of people they'll be it's in their genes. Besides it wasn't very long ago that we were all considered kids."

I did calm somewhat. "This is unreal" I said "But still were turning little school girls into genetic freaks-!"

Ryou cut me off. "Actually they already are. Nature saw to it long before they or we were born for that matter."

Keiichiro spoke again "All of them have a predisposition for protection and camaraderie all we have to do for them is to wake it up, and intensify it."

"How?" I asked.

"Red data animals. In the States you call them endangered species.

"Yeah I know this" I said.

"There are certain traits within these species that will intensify their own by unlocking their inert genetic markers and causing them to manifest a host of abilities."

I was staring off into space as I listened and biting the tip of my finger. "Introns" I said without thinking.

"Your catching on" said Keiichiro grinning.

"Messages from God" Ryou said. We both stared at him. "Well that's what some people say. The modern evolutionary viewpoint is that they're junk DNA from previous forms but I honestly don't care much about what it means to everybody else. What does it mean to us?" Said Ryou in a resolute tone.

"Moving on" Keiichiro said breaking the silence. "We can determine the appropriate species that we'll need to call on but what we've been looking for up till now is a means for detecting and endowing our fighters with their abilities. I think... we think... that it's just been discovered."

I nodded my head in agreement but at the same time I decided that we can't get ahead of ourselves. "Look" I answered "Granted this stuff is rather interesting and no doubt powerful, but what assurance do we have that it's exactly what we need?"

"Well let's find out" Keiichiro said as he stood up on the other end and came back with a laptop containing a familiar set of computations that he'd made Ryou and I help him with about a year ago. "Even if your makeover hasn't told you something let me reassure you with this. Tell me what the natural recycling frequency of our discovery is."

I asked Ryou to grab my tablet PC and began reading through of the data I'd gathered. I stopped when I reached the energy frequency. I read it carefully to make sure they both heard. "558.9 gigahertz."

I watched Keiichiro's face as he grinned from ear to ear. "Exactly what we're looking for, and it's almost exactly how it was calculated."

I'd laughed at those calculations as a needless waste of time when he'd first made them but apparently he'd just been seeing something that Ryou and I couldn't. He'd actually foreseen this discovery.

I smiled as well and looked over at Ryou who simply nodded his approval.

"Well...! Let's celebrate!" Said Keiichiro rubbing his hands together.

"Oh don't worry about that" I said grinning wryly "Ryou made the breakfast of champions. I think he's partied out for the next month."

"Shut up and get me the phone!" barked Ryou "I'll pay for the takeout."

I found later, when I actually assembled some useful data on what we'd discovered, that I should have been killed by my stupidity. I had through the grace of God touched the sample during a recycle sequence that from what I've been able to determine happens once every five years.

Think of it like this; if you're climbing a mountain then you eventually have to come down so that you can climb it again. Every once in a while the energy cycle takes a dip and recycles for about a month so that it can start the climb again.

If I'd actually touched it any other time I don't know what would've happened. Alright, honestly, I do know what would've happened. I'd be sitting on a cloud. But that's beside the point.

Granted it is safe to handle in the right conditions though. That fact that I wasn't killed in this case was simply one of those chaotic anomalies that physicists, like me, are forced to be rather fond of.

I soon found that this wasn't matter or energy but both at the same time! We of course agreed unanimously on the value of my discovery.

However, where we clashed was on how to name our find. I held that a scientific and systematic name with just a hint of symbolism was the way to go. I advocated "M7-Terra" as an appropriate name. The M stands for Messcion (Messiah. As in this stuff is our savior). 7-Terra refers to the energy potential of a discreet unit of the substance in terra joules.

Ryou vetoed it immediately. "My father worked till the very end to discover this, I should have the privilege if naming it."

I realized then and there why the other artifact was missing and why an ancient chimera had come back from the dead. His father had discovered it and it took his life.

I relented and compromised by saying that it could have two names, one for the books and one for conversation.

I personally was getting tired of the obscure Greek letter Mu, but apparently he was using the word in a different connotation all along.

"Mew!! As in the sound that a kitten makes?!" I ranted in disbelief.

"Sorry that you feel that way...but that's the way is" he said.

Our new discovery was now known as "Mew aqua".

Ryou went back to Japan the following week with a sample of M7- "excuse me" mew aqua. I sweated that one out. I didn't know for sure how the sample would take to being divided, but it worked without any side effects.

As far as exploration of the rest of the artifacts was concerned things cooled off. Sure there was still plenty of junk to investigate, but with the help of a small detection array that I'd made from my optometric array and some of the reverse engineered alien technology I'd been able to learn how to detect the signature produced by the alien's technology.

There didn't seem to be much more of value inside of the storage unit. I was however able to locate a type of holographic technology that presented a stunning simulation of some type of natural disaster. Must've been their version of a camcorder. I personally wouldn't have designed my holograms to throw chunks of rubble at the user, but I managed to get it turned off after I got only a few bruises. I figured that properly reverse engineered it might present a combat simulator for the Mews or at the very least a nice high-tech toy for me.

It wasn't very long before Ryou and Keiichiro emailed me a new set of problems. "As if I didn't have enough already trying to become the leading expert on a dangerous substance without a proper name."

But they did give me a consolation prize. They also emailed me a virtual walkthrough of the fine dining establishment of which we were soon to be the proprietors. Albeit the décor was a little bland, but I figured they weren't finished planning that yet. The best part was the lovely set of pentagon style bunkers and labs beneath it all centering around a briefing center that made the US War Room look quaint.

I eagerly sent my requirements for operating a lab to Keiichiro so that he could include them in the final plans.

Apparently Ryou was planning to live in the place; a thought which scared me. I guess that would be his prerogative though. We would of course all have our own offices, which I guess could always be considered a second home. But Keiichiro had found and reserved me a nice looking snazzy apartment in Odaiba. I figured it wouldn't take more than a week to turn it into a bachelor's pad.

When you're as busy as well as work and duty crazed like I was things can kind of get like when you're eating a chocolate bar or worse a sub sandwich and then some kid comes by and for no logical or sane reason shoves it down your gullet with all his might. Believe me I've seen it happen, and it's not pretty.

I suppose that from Ryou and Keiichiro's point of view they were only asking for something small when they shoved a new set of problems down "my" throat, but it was a little overwhelming from my point of view. They wanted two new pieces of technology reverse engineered off of the alien technology. First off they wanted a portable device that would cause the M7-terra aka mew aqua to go into excitation and to feed that energy to one of our operatives and their super-genetic complex and in turn send their abilities into excitation.

Quite a feat if you ask me but I did have the know how but wasn't certain of the time frame and what's furthermore "I'm not an engineer." Which is what I told Ryou, when he asked me why not I simply said that besides the obvious I'm not lazy enough.

That last part was a jest and Ryou knew that I was just communicating my frustration. I supposed that's why he let me outsource for the next task which was to develop a small artificially intelligent mobile sensor platform that would also have the ability to retrieve alien specimens for study by use of a controlled subspace vacuole. What a mouthful.

I started construction on the "broach batteries", which is what I'd named them. Through necessity I'd decided that they needed a low resistance and chemically neutral substrate material to encase the reactor points and the mew aqua fuel. I ended up deciding on gold.

I was pondering this necessity when I walked past a jewelry shop in uptown San Francisco.

I gazed into the window where I saw a large solid gold broach. "Hello beautiful." I sauntered into the shop and ordered six more; being that I didn't know how many more I'd need.

Sure they were a bit girlish and gaudy with a specially carved heart-shaped rhinestone in the center, but it saved me the trouble of having to make them completely from scratch.

Our mobile sensor unit was more of a challenge for me being that I didn't have any programming skills and thus can't give it any kind of personality or intelligence for that matter. And what's worse is I'm definitely not mechanically inclined and thus would have difficulty designing and building the electrostatic repulsive locomotion systems that it would require.

Ryou was kind enough to send me a tentative blueprint, but even so that wouldn't be enough.

"This just isn't fun anymore" I though one day. "I've been swallowed by a mountain of responsibility and I've alienated everyone except my brothers in arms. Wait a minute! Not... everyone."

The individuals that I was thinking of were a pair of Chinese engineering students that I'd known in college. Seng and Hu-li.

They were brother and sister and were a tightly knit team.

Just to clarify I wasn't the one who'd alienated them they'd alienated me with their constant insistence that my life would benefit greatly from more romance. This being in the form of a new date every week. I'd grown tired of this and stopped doing my homework with them. "It's just so hard to refuse someone who can't pronounce their pronouns or articles."

I did some checking and I found out that they'd ended up at MIT and were doing their paid internships.

They were just the pair I needed. Seng was a programming major who specialized in artificial intelligence and Hu-li was a robotics major.

They were more than glad to hear from me again and were even more enthralled by the cash incentive I gave them to agree on a don't ask don't tell policy as far as the project was concerned. All I had to do was tell them just enough to complete their tasks and tell them that they'd been right all along as far as the ladies were concerned.

R2000 was conceived at MIT but it was completed in Keiichiro's lab after I'd inspected what Seng and Hu-li had done and added everything that I hadn't been able to tell them about.

When I'd first received the package and got a good look at R2000 I guess I wasn't as surprised as I should have been. I'd always suspected that Hu-Li had a Hello Kitty complex or something. Because R2000 certainly had a plush and stuffed toy kind of façade to mask his true purpose.

He certainly had a persona to match as well. I was more relieved to have R2000 out of my hair then I was pleased to see his face. At least Ryou didn't complain after Keiichiro had finished assembling him.

Since everything has to come to an end it seems only logical that it has to start somewhere as well. Mu project bad day number fifty-six started out with a knock on my front door at round six in the morning.

I thought that it must be my neighbor telling me that I'd left my lawn sprinkler on again, so I stumbled out of bed got my self tangled in my bathrobe and finally made it to the door where instead of my neighbor I found a policeman or rather a police woman standing on my porch.

"Just need to tell you sir, your car's been broken into."

"What?"

"I'm afraid the someone's pried open your passenger-side door lock and gone through your car."

That made me stand up straight.

I walked into my driveway to find my car just like she said. It's not exactly like there was anything that I really liked about the car except the fact that at the time of the break in had contained Ryou's birthday present. I knew that one-thousand dollars worth of paint balling gear wouldn't attract attention if it couldn't be seen by prying eyes, but I suppose that crooks tend to get lucky every once and again.

This sucked, I thought. Cause this gift was as much for Keiichiro and myself as it was for Ryou; paint balling is one of the few "fun" things that he still liked to do.

I'm not usually one for strong language, but at that particular moment in time I was inclined to rattle off a few choice words in my vocabulary. Or rather, Ryou's vocabulary; you see I really didn't know exactly what they meant, since I'd never made a point of learning Japanese explicatives, but I'd heard them often enough to know that's what they were. One just knows profanity when he hears it, regardless of what language it's in.

I had a lot to do that day so I went back inside and began eating stale breakfast cereal.

I was sending my Cray supercomputer system to Ryou and Keiichiro so that they could build it into our new base of operations. I would be crippled without it, but I guess I'd just have to wait for an hour rather than a few seconds to get my big calculations solved. Anyways the representative for the shipping company showed up around ten in the morning and did his best to assure me of the safety that my cargo would travel in.

I ushered his movers into the lab where they gawked at my setup for about five minutes before they actually started putting the very fast, very expensive, and very fragile hunk of a supercomputer into the shipping crates.

I winced every time they stuck the crates with a hammer.

Possibly the most frightening and most exhilarating part of the day happened when I received a telephone call from Ryou.

"Probably calling to badger me about the Cray. I'll just have to play rough with him."

I picked up the phone and spoke in the gruffest most irritated voice I could muster. "It's on its way I just sent it, you'll get in about three weeks."

"Would you shut up!" Cried a frantic Ryou. "We have a major problem here!"

"I highly doubt that my day can get worse" I thought.

It got worse. In fact it got really bad, or rather it had been getting bad for the last week but I'd only been told just now.

You see, about a week ago I'd ended up shipping the bulk of the M7-tera to Japan so that we could all combine it with the broach-batteries and genetic programming when I actually finished my research and came to join them. The sample however, had other plans.

I'd sent it with a high security courier; as in the kind that carry guns, have questionable legal status and handcuff themselves to the container just to keep track of it. They'd promised me that my gold bullion, "wink wink", would reach its destination without feeling a thing.

It was sealed in a special case but I guess the airport security devices must've done something to it because it arrived in a rather sorry state.

Ryou hurriedly demanded that I tell them what would happen theoretically if the sample destabilized and chain reacted.

I'd explored that possibility a while back, but didn't see how it could because I never managed to make it unstable and before this occurrence I'd figured that there probably wasn't anything we could do to make it unstable.

"Look there's nothing you or I can do to make that stuff unstable, so stop worrying! Besides even if it was I doubt it would chain react right on the dot."

Keiichiro proved me wrong however, when he came on the line and described the sample's behavior.

"It's changing its volume to mass ratio at an extremely high frequency, and what's furthermore the ratio of mass to volume is decreasing! In fact it melted the inside of the transport vessel!"

I froze, "that's not supposed to happen." I'd never been able to get its temperature above forty degrees Celsius let alone hot enough to melt a graphite-silicon polymer.

"Uh are you using the optometric detection array I sent you?"

"Yeah" said Ryou.

"Ok, what's the delta frequency of the mass-volume ratio?" (Fancy talk: I asked him how fast it was changing)

I heard a flurry of motion on the other end before Keiichiro came back on. "1300 megahertz."

"Well that's weird if it was going a heck of a lot faster I'd say that it was reaching critical ma-."

"Uh-oh!" I thought, or maybe I said it out loud, I don't remember. The point was that the sample "was" reaching critical mass albeit slowly, yet sadly not slow enough. I wasn't immediately sure how to tell them that if we didn't stop it there would soon be a crater that would literally be the size of Texas.

"I gotta sit down" I said as I nearly collapsed into one of my kitchen chairs.

I, for some strange reason began to wonder why I actually had kitchen chairs "Lord knows I hardly ever eat in there, that's why I have a home theatre. Maybe I should just go ahead and give them to those new neighbors down the street. Or maybe I have them for situations like this one."

I massaged my temples gently as I tried to make sense of the approaching annihilation of Japan's Kantou plain and my two dearest friends.

"Ok, you two still there?"

"We're waiting" Said an impatient Ryou.

"Look, from what you tell me we've got about eight hours before that sample hits critical mass."

"And what happens then?" Said Keiichiro.

"Do you really have to ask?!" I replied sarcastically.

"Here's what were gonna do: You see I think that the current matter energy level's been screwed up. How? I don't know. The important thing is that it's gonna discharge in a short time if we don't do something.

Were going to make a new set of energy levels and hope that it'll disperse the instability."

"How?" came the predictable reply.

"Were going to split the sample among the broach batteries. Today! You should get ready to combine the samples and the genetic programming. Cause we're on the clock here."

There was a long silence on the other end. I could hear scuffling feet and a door slamming as someone left the room.

Ryou came back on the line: "Alright, I know we've got everything we need here; it'll just take us about three hours to set things up. But would you mind telling me why we can't just divide the sample into pieces by hand?"

"Gah! I don't have time for a physics lecture" I thought. "Look Ryou all you need to know is that we need to eliminate all electrostatic attraction between the M7- uh "Mew Aqua" samples."

You see one thing that I'd never touched on was that this stuff, no matter what you want to call it, never actually completely splits itself apart. There is always an electrostatic energy level binding the divisions together. It's actually my theory that if given long enough an activated set of samples would actually find their way toward each other.

But unless we could calculate a new set of energy levels and completely split the samples the coming energy discharge would cause untold havoc.

If we were successful then the worst the discharge could do would be to cause premature activation of the "Mew Project".

Ryou handed the phone off to Keiichiro: "We should be able to set up our equipment to do all the actual sample manipulation, but were going to need you to perform the computation. How long will it take you to set the algorithms up, you know the ones you showed us at Christmas?

I can't exactly remember whether my heart began palpitating or whether it stopped, but I think I'd probably have been a cardiologist's dream come true at that particular moment. I realized that it would take me about five days. Minimum! To be able to perform the necessary computations with only the few small computers now at my disposal.

"I need the Cray!"

But by this time it was driving away in the back of a large truck.

What followed was perhaps the greatest act of non-Hollywood action the world has ever seen, and most definitely the greatest act of random insanity that I'd ever perpetrated, next to touching the Mew-Aqua sample of course.

I dropped the phone, barreled through my front door, and actually started running after the truck on foot. The truck and it's precious cargo were however about a quarter mile ahead of me! I could see the truck in the fading daylight from my point of view on top of one of San Francisco's taller and steeper hills.

I quote Bill Cosby: "What a terrible set of hills to build a city on, or around, or in!"

It's true. Transmission repair companies abound here and I've been a customer more than once let me tell you.

I watched the truck as it made it's way toward the harbor road; strangely enough I didn't notice that I wasn't breathing hard like one might think after I'd just sprinted a few thousand feet.

My mind was more geared toward catching up to the truck or getting ahead of it and cutting it off. An endeavor which any logical contemplation would reject as insanity, but I wasn't thinking logically or sanely for that matter. I was desperate. I can account for my mental state as the product of the day's events, but I don't think that my energy came from there as well.

From the moment I'd left my home I'd felt some kind of energy that I don't think was adrenalin, in fact I don think that any human has ever felt that kind of energy before.

I realized that my only hope of cutting them off was to run straight down the hill while dodging all obstacles at the same time.

"A mere trifle" said my new awareness.

I bounded down the hill across people's flower beds, swinging over people's hedges, and when I reached a set of houses built into the hillside I jumped onto the roof of the first one and sprinted across the rest where I didn't seem think about what would happen when I reached the end.

I didn't care. I could do anything! At least that's the way I felt.

A barbeque broke my fall as I landed, and no it wasn't lit. The wire grill crumpled in just the right way to absorb the impact.

I jumped back up and kept running. A compulsion more from fear of my neighbor Mr. Tremblay; you see he moved here from Arkansas after he got home from Vietnam and it's rumored that he still keeps his shotgun handy.

I swung myself over his backyard fence just as I heard his back door opening. "Crazy kids! If I still had my legs I'd be kicken yer ass!!"

"Well at least he doesn't know for sure who I am."

You see I wasn't exactly the most popular individual in the neighborhood, especially after the little incident where I deprived the neighborhood of electricity. You see we didn't have a crazy cat lady "Thank God", but due to my large array of computers and from the frequent visits of my Japanese friends I'd since become the neighborhood's crazy computer guy. "I though that I'd explained dozens of times that I'm a physicist!"

Two more fences, a trampoline, and a swimming pool later I ended up next to the bay road just as my target vehicle came driving past.

Once again without thinking I lunged at the passenger side door and less than ten seconds later found myself sitting in the passenger seat while the driver stared at me in disbelief.

The first words of my mouth weren't "Stop!" or "Turn around!", but instead I just said "Why in Heaven's name don't you lock your doors when you drive!?"

"I...it w-was locked" he stammered.

I looked over at the door which at the moment was swinging freely and unable to close due to the now bent and torn latch.

I looked back up at him with my eyes almost as wide as his. I broke the silence: "I guess I owe you guys for that one."

Well, getting the Cray back to my lab was the easy part, and the movers were only too happy to keep their mouths shut after I lined their pockets with an undisclosed amount of precious metals.

"At least all that gold, silver, and platinum that I'd bought for an earlier and unsuccessful stage of the project didn't go completely to waste."

I would've preferred to sell it in order to recoup my losses due to the burglary that had started my bad day.

"At least I can get the locks fixed on my ca-... My car! Why didn't I just jump in my car and catch up to them that way instead of risking my life on a downhill sprint!? The danger level of which was probably greater than the Cooper's Hill Cheese Race! Jeez I can really be a total moron sometimes!"

It took me about five of our precious hours to reassemble the intricate supercomputer and then to reactivate it and run the necessary diagnostics.

When I called Ryou and Keiichiro back they'd been running around wringing their hands and trying to figure out how to contact me. Ryou had even tried calling my mother since she was in town for the month.

I explained that I had to go and get the Cray back from the movers. I figured that I'd explain what I'd done to get it later since I definitely didn't need them yelling at me about what an idiot I could be.

I was surprised at how little time we took in order to solve our little problem. I mean in retrospect it's really not surprising since we at least sort of knew what we were doing. It felt however, like we'd been standing there for years.

Things actually went off relatively without a hitch. I worked out a direct link with our lab in Japan and the computer system in my lab All I had to do was push a few buttons to coordinate the actions of the sample manipulation array in Japan.

At the end we had a set of perfect little divisions of Mew-Aqua. (By that time I was getting a little more amiable toward Ryou's strange and in my opinion inappropriate name for my M7-Tera)

Our problem was solved except for one last problem; one that was almost as big as our first one.

You see we had one too many sample divisions. All we'd done was to essentially separate the unstable substance from the stable. This extra sample was possibly still moving toward critical mass. Although the released energy would be less than the previous estimate, if in fact it was, but any explosion would still be equivalent to Hiroshima.

Well I suppose that it's not politically correct to say that this stuff explodes, it's more like everything else around it explodes.

We'd established a video conference line and were quickly juggling ideas about how to handle this potential problem.

Ryou showed me the fruits of our labor as he held up our five samples which at the moment were neutral and encased in five pneumatic injector guns. "Hm... the genetic samples seem to give each one a different color once combined. I'll have to investigate that later."

Ryou of course rained on our parade by holding up a sixth injector gun that was filled with the remaining sample.

"We could save it for further experimentation" suggested Keiichiro. "The separation has definitely slowed the rate of collapse."

"That's true" I replied. "It probably won't be much of a threat, at least not for a couple of years."

"And if it suddenly and spontaneously decides otherwise we wouldn't have time to deal with that problem" said an impatient Ryou. "Just remember you've been wrong about this stuff before."

"Oh... I'm pretty well aware of that. By the way did you try combining it with one of your super-genetic concoctions?"

"Yeah" said a rather disheartened Ryou. "That was the first thing I tried. It meshed pretty well actually, but sadly didn't stabilize the sample."

"What DNA sample was it?"

"Iromote Wildcat."

"Well I suppose it might stabilize if we used it on one of our prospective candidates" Keiichiro nervously suggested.

"Too risky" I said.

Ryou was also shaking his head. "It's already risky enough giving the stable ones to the girls. I'd never forgive myself if we hurt them."

"Well I guess we have no choice than. We should get rid of it as soon as we can" I said.

"I could arrange to lease a deep sea fishing boat or something like that" Keiichiro added.

"Yeah good idea. Sink it Davy Jones let him deal with it, won't hurt anyone that way. Uh... the sample mind you, not the boat."

Keiichiro nodded and turned to take the injector gun from Ryou who for the last few minutes had been sitting in quiet contemplation. He looked up when Keiichiro reached for the injector.

"I think I've got a better plan" he said as he stood up. It was at that moment I knew he was going to drop one of his bombshells.

There's this sixth sense that you get after knowing someone like Ryou, and you're just able to tell when they're planning something that you might not agree with.

The way that Ryou was holding the pneumatic injector when he stood up made me nervous. "What's your idea?" I said trying to sound as ignorant and calm as possible.

"We have no way of knowing for sure that our conscription of the Mew Mews won't hurt the girls in some way" he said as he walked out of the webcam's field of view. I could still hear him in the background as he continued speaking.

"We've got to know for sure that this won't injure them or kill them."

Keiichiro looked at me nervously before turning his eyes back toward Ryou. "How exactly do you plan to accomplish that?"

"Like this" came the terse reply.

I watched as Keiichiro sat bolt upright and then leapt out of his chair. The next thing I saw on my monitor screen was the floor rushing towards me and then static bars; Keiichiro must've knocked the camera over.

I could still hear though and what I heard chilled my blood. Ryou screamed for the first time since I've known him. I don't think that it was really pain, but rather fear. The scream was drowned out by a strange warbling sound that must've been interference with the microphone.

"Hello! What's going on! Information Please!" I shouted frantically.

Silence. I listened intently while I gripped my headset's cord turning my knuckles white.

"I-is anyone there" I timidly asked after a few minutes.

I could hear movement then someone grabbed the microphone. Keiichiro's voice came back on.

"We have a problem" he said timidly. "Can I call you back?"

"He's dead! He's dead!" Is all I could think while I waited. "The brilliant, compassionate, heroic "fool" killed himself just to prove a point! I've been doing this for four and a half years and I still think it's lunacy. Yeah that's right we all belong on the nut farm! Give me a shot at the Mew Mews; there're probably gonna be mental cases too!" I doubt my musings about our sanity were completely justified. My brain at the moment was just unloading after nearly fifteen hours on my toes. This had truly been the worst day yet of The Mu Project.

My pacing, which had continued for nearly a half-hour, was interrupted by the sound of my computer's message board notifying me that I had a web-conference caller. I hurriedly pushed the accept button and was shocked and relived to see Ryou's face filling the screen.

"You're a real moron sometimes Ryou. If your parents were still alive your father would spank you and your mother would beat you!"

"It's possible" he replied in a detached voice. He raised his eyes and looked directly into the camera for a moment and then looked away once more. "I-I'm sorry, but I'm kind of disturbed right now.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Ryou, I think we're all disturbed. In more ways then one!"

It took me about a week of telephone and email harassment to get Keiichiro to actually tell me what happened, and it's a fact the Ryou was actually rather embarrassed by his actions and their outcome.

So here's a breakdown of what I saw and the conclusions that I drew through Ryou's noble and rather stupid act. Ah yes. Scientific stupidity! Another reason that Ryou and I have been and always will be kindred spirits.

I checked my email on a Thursday morning and found a message from Keiichiro with a rather large attachment.

His message read: "Please don't let on that I told you flat out. I'm not sure that Ryou has completely come to terms with what's happened yet. When he does I'm sure he'll explain it to you himself.

Anyways our lab here is as well equipped if not better equipped than the one you've been working in, and when Ryou injected himself the cameras and the security sensors that we installed recorded some very strange data. Since I'm not the physicist let alone our expert on Mew Aqua I can't make much sense of it. That is I can't make sense of the computer data; I've got a pretty good idea why he ended up the way he did though. Enclosed is the sensor data before, during, and after. Just keep in mind that the only reason I'm sending you this is because for the sake of the project you need to see it."

"Gosh" I thought. "He's talking about Ryou like he's a frightened little kid or something. Well I suppose that it most likely was a traumatic experience whatever it was that happened."

I downloaded and unzipped the attachment which was a folder containing four files. Three were sensor data labeled "pre", "during", and "post", and the last was a video file. "Ok, here goes" I said as I clicked on the video file first.

I could see why Ryou was a bit reluctant to tell anyone about what he'd done to himself. There wasn't any sound, but I watched Ryou fall to his hands and knees on the lab floor. He looked up at Keiichiro for a few seconds before I saw a blue flash which diminished in intensity and size to leave of all things a cat! To be precise an Iromote Wildcat, although I didn't think of that at the time.

"Ryou turned into a cat?! This is crazy! A cat!? It should've killed him. Apparently I need to see the data files."

I watched the video to its conclusion where after Keiichiro, who had been sitting on the floor for several minutes talking to and petting our shape shifted friend and colleague, had Ryou suddenly return to his human form in his lap.

"I suppose that this touching scene might be a tad embarrassing in retrospect." I figured that if Ryou ever did work up the courage to tell me he would most likely conveniently omit that part.

The video alone set my mind in motion and I soon realized why he'd been turned into a cat and not killed. The three of us may be freaks but we're not the genetic kind. Our DNA doesn't have the appropriate receptor sites to fully control the alterations that the transformation process induces. A normal human genetic code or normal human body would have a large amount of trouble.

I began to wonder what would happen if I'd shot myself up with that stuff. Would I have turned into a cat? Or would I have been unlucky and gotten myself killed? "Lord knows I should've been when I touched the sample that I first found."

"Wait a second I thought is it possible that when I contacted to original sample I actually absorbed "it" into my body and not just the energy?!" I sat there for a few seconds as I contemplated this possibility.

If that was true then it would've absorbed "my" genetic code; there's just no way around it.

"Does that mean that when I was out for those three days I transformed into myself?! That's an interesting thought, but strangely enough it seems plausible given everything else that's happened.

Transforming from myself... into myself? It's sort of like "The Song that Never Ends", you know the one song that they "do" let you sing on the school bus but they soon regret it."

It was at that moment that things actually became more clear to me then it had been.

Being that this whole thing had started with an archeologist I'll use an archeological metaphor to explain my revalation.

Let's say that maybe a few thousand years from now an archeologist finds the well preserved remains of our aforementioned Cray supercomputer.

Maybe the people of the future have lost all knowledge of computer technology or perhaps computers are so advanced that they couldn't fathom that a powerful computer could be so large and inefficient. In any case these people are unable to recognize the Cray for what it is.

If they found it they would examine it thoroughly and would no doubt determine how it went together and what it was made of. They would theorize as to what it was used for and might at first determine that it was some kind of electric heater. "Boy tell me about it! I could probably have warmed my house with the Cray considering all the heat it gives off!"

But anyway my point is someone who had no knowledge of something might be able to tell how it goes together and what the different components do, but they wouldn't be able to tell what they all did as a whole and what they were used for as a whole.

Up to this point we had been the same way in our understanding of Mew Aqua. We had been able to manipulate it and to understand how it worked to a degree even enough to make it useful to us. I didn't know what Mew Aqua had been used for by the aliens, but then I realized what it did.

It's was a catalyst! A catalyst by the way is something that starts a process or occurrence. You see, Mew Aqua actually forces living matter to follow biological patterns; relentlessly! What's furthermore it supplies the energy to make this possible. When it doesn't contact living matter or more accurately a biological pattern it's simply matter and energy without direction and as we'd seen could do some rather dangerous things if the energy was released without any particular task to accomplish.

Whether it produced energy or whether it stored energy I didn't know yet.

The reason that Ryou hadn't been killed was because the genetic programming the we had entered into the Mew Aqua gave it a task to accomplish although Ryou had little control over it.

The same goes for me. When I contacted the mew aqua it no doubt eventually combined with my DNA over those three days and forced my body to follow that pattern with an energy that it had never encountered before.

The same matter energy transformation that had forced Ryou's form to alter itself no doubt transformed me into agreement with the biological pattern indicated by my DNA.

I began to further realize that if this was the case than I now had an ideal human body. I had recently begun to notice differences in my body aside from my rejuvenated appearance. Things such as almost limitless stamina, faster reflexes, and at times almost superhuman strength as demonstrated in my sprint down that hill without even breaking a sweat.

I figured that it was possible that I was still host to a small amount of Mew Aqua over which I had little control, but it seemed like emotion brought it into excitation.

Well with any luck the Mew Mews would be able to control their abilities for the most part.

The data records were actually a great deal more interesting and frightening than the video of Ryou had been. They were essentially limited to a measure of the energy released during Ryou's change of form, and the estimated distribution of the Mew Aqua sample within his body.

After a long discussion with Keiichiro we came to the conclusion that Ryou actually had the ability to essentially turn his new form on and off by bringing his newly altered genes in and out of excitation. All he had to do was to figure out how, but we came to the conclusion that if he ran out of energy while he was in his new form he would most likely remain that way. His energy limit was most likely about ten minutes.

However, what scared me was the fact that I couldn't account for the entirety of the sample that had entered Ryou's body. Try as I might there was just no way to figure out where it had gone. I ended my search for the remainder of the sample with the official conclusion that the readings taken in the lab just weren't accurate. However, unofficially I didn't know what had happened. Could the sample have gone out of phase with reality? Could the instability have jumped to some kind of parallel universe?

These speculations may have seemed rather far-fetched but keep in mind I'm a Quantum Physicist and I'm supposed to believe in that stuff.

The good news, at least for the moment, was that the instability had been neutralized and we no longer had to deal with a rather large time bomb.

I spent the next two weeks in the same deep contemplation. That is until I awoke from my think-state with a start realizing that I'd actually finished my work here in the States!

"I'm going to Japan! Finally! A place where I can live the manga volumes that I've accumulated in my spare time! I can visit one of those insane electronics conventions! I can eat square watermelon! And I can have my American accent laughed at behind my back."

Yes it's true; my Japanese is what might be considered inelegant. I'd actually asked Ryou one time what a fair equivalent of what my accent might be like.

He paused for a moment before he answered telling me that in his estimation my American accent in Japanese most closely resembled that of a drunken Hungarian speaking English.

I hoped very much that I'd improved somewhat along the way considering all the conversations I'd had with my television set.

I discussed the project status with Ryou and he agreed that it was time for me to leave San Francisco and Join them.

First off I started by disassembling my lab and finally getting the Cray shipped to Japan along with any other pieces of equipment that I'd decided were useful. I'd decided that it would be best to hire a different moving company this time though.

Second I went back to the security storage bin and prepared all useful artifacts for shipping to Japan as well.

Probably my next action was the hardest. I now had to sell everything that I wasn't taking with me, including my lovely hilltop dwelling. "Will I get used to living in a Japanese apartment?" I wondered.

The auction lasted quite a while. In fact just a little to long for my taste, being that I'd been counseled that an internet silent auction would be the best way to ensure that everything was purchased. Well they we're right about the purchase part. Everything did go, but they made me stick around for nearly five months until the sale was concluded.

I ended up having to answer the door at odd hours for the officials of about three different auction companies to come and remove stuff that had been purchased.

Just imagine my consternation upon realizing that I couldn't eat in the den because my television was now in someone else's den!

The part that sucked the most about all the waiting was the fact that I missed the moment when the fighting actually kicked off. I mean we'd known for the past four and a half years that the alien's had essentially made a declaration of war on the Mu Project, but as far as fighting went there had never been any.

That changed however with the conscription of the Mew Mews.

As we'd surmised the genetic bonding went off without a hitch. That is it at least didn't kill them, and it blew my mind that Keiichiro and Ryou's genetic data had been so accurate. All the girls existed!

One by one they had wandered into a location where they were noticed.

Ichigo Momomia was actually the last to be conscripted but the first to fight. They sent me all the data that they recorded about Mew Ichigo's birth and first fight in order for me to analyze it. "Some consolation prize. This'll never make up for not being there." I thought.

When I heard about our first engagement I was relieved that we'd been successful. "Score one for the good guys!" Yet at the same time I felt almost helpless, like I was sitting on the sidelines, despite Ryou and Keiichiro's insistence that my continued data analysis and conclusions were invaluable to the project.

I wanted above all to be there and feel like I was actually contributing.

When I saw the video and the data files concerning Mew Ichigo's recruitment I would have to say that my eyebrows raised quite a bit. Sure we'd discussed recruiting them, but Ryou had never said how. When Ryou had said that they'd volunteer for this I didn't think that he meant after the five innocent girls had been violated in a rather unique fasion. What I had assumed was that we would ask them flat out. Definitely a simplistic method, but it's far more polite. However anyone who knows Ryou would no doubt realize that manners are just not his style.

You see what happened is Ryou waited until his target was alone. Notice I referred to her as a target because essentially that's what she was at that moment in time.

Ryou and Keiichiro then proceeded to shoot her full of sleep inducing alpha waves and then they physically shot her up with a gelatin dart in the most conveniently exposed patch of skin. The dart, which contained the selected genetic programming and the Mew Aqua catalyst, hit her on her inner thigh and left a symmetrical red welt. They then proceeded to stabilize her human form with a delta ray beam.

The whole ordeal fascinated my intellectual side but still made my skin crawl. I just hoped for her sake that it hadn't been painful. I definitely would've had a few choice words for a certain someone had I been there, and Ryou was probably glad that I hadn't.

I was rather surprised to see the digital photos of Mew Ichigo's first battle. "Why the pink dress?" I thought. "I mean, not that she doesn't look good in it. It's just that it doesn't make much sense for it to be there in the first place."

I figured that it had to do with the emotional component of the transformation. Either that or ludicrous battle attire was some kind of universal constant. It most certainly is in every Saturday morning cartoon I've watched; that's just what sucked about so many of those half hour wasters!

Wait! Not entirely. You see I'd always had an admiration for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja-Turtles" and they did have an outlandish appearance. But who cares! I loved every one of those Saturday morning reptilian vigilantes; especially Leonardo!

I suppose that it was always my biggest boyhood dream to go trash some bozos with a katana, and what's furthermore I knew that I could probably do it.

I was soon fortunate enough to be able to talk Ichigo, and true to Keiichiro's estimations it seemed like she'd essentially accepted her role in our private little war however grudgingly.

When I first got to speak directly with Ichigo I ended up butting in on a heated debate between Ryou and our new colleague. When I connected my webcam conference line it seemed that there's was already engaged and I caught Ichigo in the middle of a sentence. I didn't really hear exactly what she was saying but I smiled knowing how annoyed and embarrassed Ryou must have been feeling at that moment. I sat and listened for several minutes since I want to make sure that Ryou was treating her well.

"-do I have to do this all by myself?!"

"You needn't worry about that too much" Said Keiichiro. "There are the others. All you have to do is find them." That's Keiichiro for you always caught in the middle; poor guy.

"You know the minute you stop complaining you probably will find them." Said a rather frustrated Ryou.

"Why are you screwing around with my life?!" Came the sharp retort. "Why am I even doing this?!"

I decided the time to intervene had come.

"Yes. Why are you doing this? I said in my very best Japanese."

I waited for a moment and saw three surprised faces appear on my screen.

"I thought you were going to call tomorrow." Said Keiichiro.

"Yeah sorry about that. I'm spending the day with my mother tomorrow so I figured we could talk now, but back to the matter at hand. I believe that Ichigo has a legitimate question."

Ichigo regarded me for a few seconds before turning to Keiichiro. "Who's the British guy?"

"British?!" I repeated in surprise.

Ryou and Keiichiro began to nod in approval before Ryou spoke. "You've really improved your Japanese. Your accent's a little more refined now."

"Well Ichigo I'd like you to meet Daisuke." Keiichiro said smiling as he gestured toward their monitor. "He's our other associate, and by the way, he's American not British.

"So he's an American guy that speaks with a British accent and has a Japanese name?" Replied a confused Ichigo.

"Yeah that about sums it up." I said grinning from ear to ear. "So you live in the Shinjuku district don't you? As I hear it's sort of like a tame version of downtown San Francisco."

"W-what's San Francisco like?" Came Ichigo's reply.

"Well let's see" I said stroking my chin. "Tourist traps, street cars, Hadashbury, a prison in the middle of the bay, a big red bridge that for some reason is called "Golden-Gate", and at night you can walk along "Fisherman's Wharf" and hear the same blues rift coming from about sixteen different Jazz clubs. Then if that's not enough for you there's always the thrill of living dangerously!"

"Oh.... It's dangerous?" Came the reply.

I suppose that I didn't have to go this far but I did have Ichigo's attention so I saw nothing wrong with a little grandiose storytelling to color her already stereotypical impressions of the United States.

"Well let me put it this way" I said grinning. "You're walking along minding your own business and then suddenly about oh seven pimped out rides pull into the road ahead of you and about thirty white guys jump out. Then you start heading back where you just came from when "da hood" shows up in the other direction. And as if that wasn't enough more Chinese guys than you can count jump into the street from the rooftops. Then by the time you're able to draw your ivory handled .45 caliber Smith & Wesson they-!"

"Let's not talk about that right now." Said Keiichiro holding up his hand in a quick gesture to stop.

"Yes" Agreed Ryou in a rather annoyed tone. "Let's especially not talk about it in that way."

"But what happened?!" Squealed a rather excited Ichigo.

"Nothing happened!" Said Ryou. "At least nothing "you" need to worry about. But speaking of pitched battles I'm sure you're rather proud of the results of our first one."

"Yes!" I replied. "I'm very proud, especially of Ichigo! You did far better than I ever thought possible, and I hope you liked your cancellation array."

Ichigo turned to Ryou with a confused expression. "He means the Strawberry Bell."

I wasn't surprised. "It only figures that she'd call it something different" I thought.

"I guess the least I can do, since I wasn't there, is say thanks for your selfless act."

Ichigio suddenly turned toward Ryou stamping her feet. " There! You see! These two said thank you!

Ryou simply rolled his eyes and then spoke. "Were already about ten minutes late with opening the café. Now go and get changed.... Please!"

Ichigo made an almost military about face and stomped out of the room in a huff. Keiichiro followed behind her.

I heard the door shut on the other end and Ryou came and sat back down in front of the webcam.

"I really don't think that your little anecdote was entirely necessary." He grumbled. "It didn't go down like that and you know it. First off there weren't that many guys, in fact the Triads didn't show up, and secondly "the rides" weren't exactly pimped out. They were just drug dealer ghetto mobiles. Most likely due to the fact that it was a drug-related shootout that took place in a part of town where we shouldn't have been in the first place. And lastly you didn't even have your gun with you, and your .38 caliber Beretta doesn't have ivory handles."

"Well I never said that it actually happened, but we were in the cross fire. Besides we got our pictures in the paper, and now Ichigo can't wait to meet me. That's all just good team building. But by the way why haven't you just approached the other Mew Mews and told them what they are?"

"Well that's a little complicated" he said massaging his temples. "You see we do have a fair idea as to who they are and where they live and we could probably find them if necessary. I actually did arrange for the two oldest to discover their abilities due to the fact that they're a quiet pair from what I've observed and it may be difficult for Ichigo and the others to find them."

I frowned and scratched my head for a moment before answering. "Don't get me wrong Ichigo seems like a fine kid, but she strikes me as the kind who gets easily distracted. I mean look how simple it was for me to diffuse your argument."

"True" Ryou answered nodding his head. "But I've given her some clues and she has R-2000's sensors to help her out. But you wanted to know why didn't you? Why I haven't given her any more? Essentially this is a teambuilding exercise pure and simple. I'm sure that you can see my thinking on the matter."

"I can understand" I said nodding my head."

I decided that I would have to leave things up to Ichigo and to Ryou's intuition, and I was pleasantly surprised when not throughout the next few weeks after we'd spoken two new Mews appeared on the map. Things seemed to be going just right. We were assembling our team, and our world was being kept safe; or so I thought.

Since there hadn't been an attack in San Francisco let alone on American soil since about four and a half years ago I'd figured that things were pretty safe over here, and what's furthermore, I was right. The aliens knew that our efforts were no longer concentrated in the United States, but that the only means able to defeat them was located in Japan. Because of this reasoning I didn't really spend too much time worrying about my family. So what were the odds that my own mother would suddenly wander into the line of fire.

Ok. This is how it went down. Ryou wanted to put our cover on the map as far as the cultural sense went, and so he decided to stage some kind of Victorian-Style shindig after hours. It was a good idea all in all. However, the part where he invited my mother as his special entertainment was not well received on my part. You see I'll let you in a little secret. I'm the only one of our trio who still has a mother. So I'm sure you could see that I'd want her to remain physically intact for a while longer. Especially considering that she's all I have.

Oh sure I thought that it was probably a good idea at first. Ryou and Keiichiro always seemed to get along well with her when we all used to have dinner together once a month at my childhood home. And it's not like Ryou doesn't care about her well being. She actually became a sort of surrogate mother to him after his parents died. One of the things he liked about her best was her ability to play the piano. In fact that ability had in recent years become her bread and butter. She's an itinerant individual who spends the majority of the year abroad performing in Europe. She's home in Frisco maybe one month out of the year and I consequently don't see her very much. I cherish my time with my mother whenever I get to see her and as you could imagine I wouldn't react well if I never saw her again.

That almost happened, and as it goes I wasn't too pleased with Ryou for letting her come under attack. According to Keiichiro she'd actually been clinically dead for about ten minutes until Ichigo managed to bring her back to life.

I was certain that she'd be scared out of her mind when she got back so I managed to meet her at the airport and was prepared to do a whole lot of explaining, but all she'd say was how nice it had been to see "the boys" again and what a pleasant bunch of girls that they had working at their little café. Knowing my mother she must've realized that there was a lot more going on than even what she'd seen, and that I was a part of it. But she didn't say a word. She just gave me that look that says "I know. So don't bother explaining".

I'd been waiting long enough when I finally pulled the real estate auction signs out of the lawn on what was formerly my house. It had been sold to some jazz musician who was supposedly able to cello music sound like Metallica, "I'll believe that when I hear it". "Not that I like Metallica at all".

I woke up for the last time in my bedroom, which by that time had no bed, just a couple of mattresses. I showered, dressed, tossed my travel ready luggage in my rental car and ate my breakfast off a paper plate. I later locked the doors for the last time and tossed the key under a patio flagstone, but last of all I wheeled my stainless steel Coleman barbeque grill two blocks down to Mr. Tremblay's house. "Thank God he wasn't home!"

Airports are quite possibly one of my favorite places to be in the whole world. Just the sense of adventure I feel as I walk through the doors is enough to make me high on life for a little while, and that day was no exception.

"I'm starting a new life" is the way that I felt as I waited in line to get my bags checked. It didn't even take as long as usual for our ever vigilant homeland security forces to thoroughly over examine my carryon. This was going to be a perfect day, I could just tell. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The bad luck started out as I was sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight. My cell phone rang and it turned out to be Keiichiro saying that neither of them could come meet me and that he was very sorry but I'd just have to use the directions he was emailing me.

"Ok" I thought. "No problem, there shouldn't be any trouble with that. I know how to find my way around city streets."

The second was a wolf in sheep's clothing though. There was a young lady sitting next to me with her four-month-old. She asked me to hold him for just a second if it wasn't too much trouble. I obliged and the kid promptly spit-up on my tablet PC thus rendering it out of commission until I could get the screen's cleaning kit back which was at the moment in the cargo hold of our waiting 777 jumbo jet.

And it didn't stop there. I had to watch two absolutely terrible movies in flight. I think one was some seventies throwback about zombies and then the next one was a Roger Moore James Bond. I actually don't have much of a beef with Roger Moore's James Bond except for that one called "Moonraker". I always knew that James Bond wasn't exactly down to Earth but this was just ridiculous. I managed to buy myself a distraction during that movie though by renting some kid's PSP for about sixty dollars.

We did get there in the end though and let me tell you I was one of the first guys off the plane. I guess Tokyo International Airport looked like any other airport I'd ever seen. The only real difference were those really funny looking payphones.

I rushed through customs and got my passport and resident alien papers stamped, but as I was preparing to leave the customs office a guy about my age in a suit stood up and barred the door. He smiled pleasantly and complemented my Japanese. I didn't tell him that his Japanese sounded as American as mine did. I figured he must work for US customs or something. He went on to tell me that I they needed to examine my bags and my documentation again. I didn't want to argue so I consented and he escorted me to a room where another suit, which smiled less, asked me if there was anything in my bags that I wanted to tell him about? I figured that a little humor might lighten the mood so I said: "Nothing but the rats. Mind you, they bite."

This was no terribly well received as he almost shouted in perfect American English to sit down and shut up!

I breathed a sigh of relief as I hailed a taxi outside the airport and had it take me to the shipping port not far from the airport.

I'll have to say that the view of the bay in early afternoon was a welcome sight to a jet-lagged traveler whose body seemed to think it was around bedtime. Japan was beautiful! Such a nice eclectic mix of ethnic classicalism and the post modern world.

We got to the harbor district and I figured out how to pay my fare in yen. I'd decided earlier that if nobody was going to show up and greet me I should probably get my planned transportation ready.

You see some month ago I'd purchased a vehicle that I thought would do well for work as well as pleasure and had it shipped ahead of me. I found it in the lot of the shipping company and I drove it off a few minutes later smiling broadly.

I had just an inkling that Ryou might not approve of it but I'd just say to him what he always said to me when we disagreed on something.

My aforementioned smile faded when I saw the beautiful lights in my mirror. I'm not sure I deserved everything the cop cited me for. Alright! Maybe I was driving on the wrong side of the road, but I still think he hiked up the fine as far as he did because I was an American driving a humvee. He actually seemed to think I was German at first and he told me that my English needed help. He did at least shut up when he saw my temp license and my passport. I guess he figured that his English needed work. Gosh! Idiot cops! I guess they've go them everywhere!

Finding my way to Café Mew Mew was actually pretty easy. Now finding parking for a glorified quasi-military SUV and actually believing that I'd found the right place and not a Hello Kitty nightmare was a different story. Well granted the place was the right shape, but I think there was a reason that Ryou'd kept me in the dark about the way the place was decorated.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked up the small path to the door with some trepidation. I watched as group of middle school girls exited all giggling and discussing some pop stars that hadn't been popular in the US for about three years. I reached to door and pushed it open. It smelled good, like our house used to when my mother would host her special desert contests. The place did have a dimension of home to it.

I stepped in the rest of the way and let the door close behind me. The dining room was no surprise. It was just as extravagantly decorated as the outside. "Is this what the Japanese consider Kawaii?" I wondered.

The place was practically deserted save for a cluster of young girls at one of the tables. I recognized them as Ichigo and the two others whom I'd only briefly spoken to before named Lettuce and Mint. They all wore different colors. Ichigo wore a hot pink, Mint wore a soft teal, and lettuce wore a sort of lime green. I started to walk over towards them to finally meet in person when I noticed something.

Just out of the corner of my right eye was a flash of rapidly moving yellow. I heard an accompanying whoosh as well. Suddenly I felt a certain reflex being awaken from a slumber that had lasted several years. Without looking I brought my arms down and to the right in a quick and efficient motion and secured my prey holding it at arms length. I watched as one of those circus performer's balls came rolling to a stop as my feet.

It was only when I looked up that I saw what I'd caught.

It was a little girl. About maybe eight to ten years old.

"Huh?" I thought. "They didn't tell me about this one."

The kid hung there at arms length with an expression of surprise at for several seconds. I stood there with a similar expression. The silence however, was interrupted when the kid exploded with joyful annunciations of: "It's Daisuke-san! It's Daisuke-san! The one moving into Odaiba!"

I don't really know why but that just freaked me out right then and there. It possibly could have been the jet lag, but all I could think was: "Oh my gosh! It knows my name! It knows where I live!" I might've shouted that out loud but I don't remember.

I was a little bit shell shocked when I set the yellow kid down. She somersaulted off down the hallway to the right all the while shouting her message at the top of her lungs. Meanwhile the others looked up in surprise.

"Daisuke-san!" Said a smiling Ichigo as she walked across the room with the two others in tow. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here now. As of today I'm a Tokyoite." I said trying to grin.

I jumped as a hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to see that it was Keiichiro and the yellow kid.

"You made it here." He said pleasantly. "You're probably tired and hungry aren't you."

I nodded agreement.

"Well, I'll go get us some tea and you can tell us about your flight." He walked off toward what must've been the kitchen. I turned to the girls putting on my most affable expression, but it was difficult after about thirty-six hours on my feet.

"It's nice to see you all in person. Ichigo, Mint, uh let me remember Lettuce is it?" She nodded. We three shook hands and started walking toward a table. We were cut off when the yellow kid jumped into my path.

"What about me?" She demanded. She didn't seem angry about being left out, just confused.

"Uh I don't know you yet." I said nervously.

"This is Pudding. She's only been with us about three days." Said Ichigo.

"Oh, that explains it" I thought.

"Where's my handshake?" Inquired Pudding.

"I think we already shook each other up at the door" I said. I said that chiefly to avoid a handshake at that moment because I had a feeling that I might not get my hand back in a big hurry.

Keiichiro came walking back with a tray of cups and saucers and some of his good cookies. We all sat down and I was just about to enjoy at least some small amount of nourishment for the first time in about eight hours when we heard a door slam. I looked up to see Ryou striding through the kitchen and out into the dining room. He always has the air about him like he owns the place; which at that moment was actually true. I smiled and stood up. He nodded and then turned and handed a book of some kind to Keiichiro.

"Sorry I took so long but traffic was pretty messed up for this time of day. And oh yeah" he suddenly added while looking at me. "Some idiot double-parked a Humvee outside on the street so I had to go around the long way."

"Good to see you too" I said sitting back down. "And by the way it's not double parked it's just that all you people seem to half-park your cars around here"

"I knew it was yours the minute I saw it!" he said collapsing into a chair at our table. "Couldn't you have been able to tell by looking at our streets around here that nobody in their right mind would drive a Humvee. And by the way you're going to spend a fortune on gas". "Especially here" he added. "But you of course do know what would really make me happy in this case" He said pouring himself a cup of tea and grabbing a sandwich off the plate.

"It stays" I said smiling. "I knew that you wouldn't exactly be thrilled at first but give it a chance. You wouldn't believe how much equipment you can fit into it. All you have to do is open the back and presto; there's your field lab. I even modified the turret to hold one of our sensor assemblies and all the other wonderful stuff we use in this line of work. And don't worry about the way it looks. All we have to do is find a detailing shop and we can paint it any way that we want."

Ryou just shook his head. "Alright" he said throwing up his arms "but my hands are washed on the whole Humvee idea."

Ryou finished his sandwich, got up, and walked off down the hallway to the right. Keiichiro smiled briefly.

"I'll be back in a second" he said before getting up and walking after Ryou.

I returned to my tea and got a few bites out of my sandwich. While I ate I moved my eyes from left to right and watched the girls closely trying to see what I could pick up of their behavior as they ate.

Ichigo had hardly touched her tea or cookies and was staring off into space, Mint was taking carefully measured sips while she held the cup with one hand touching only the handle, while Lettuce's hands seem to shake as she lifted the cup; at first I thought she must have some kind of condition but as it turned out it was because I was looking at her.

I was afraid to look at the "Yellow Kid", but as it happened I didn't have to. Her face very unexpectedly appeared in my field of vision at extremely close range.

I was a bit slow in my reaction for some reason, probably the fatigue, but for a split second all I did was take note of her facial features. I remember thinking "Oh look she's got, BROWN EYES!!!" I must've actually shouted that last part out loud because my reflexes kicked in right about then and the next thing that I knew I was falling backwards in my chair and I hit my head. Despite the fact that the floor was carpeted it still didn't change the fact that the carpet was laid out over a concrete slab, and it hurt to say the least.

The force that I hit the ground with probably would have stunned a normal person unconscious, but as of late I hadn't been very normal.

So I laid there in a daze and watched four faces appear up above me. Lettuce was clasping her hands together nervously and gritting her teeth. "I'm getting Akasaka san!" she said before turning and running off. The three other girls just stared at me waving their hands in my face.

I managed to sit up slowly with Ichigo and the Yellow Kid steadying my shoulders. "What did you mean by Bran Ice"? Said mint.

I was probably a still dazed or I wouldn't have begun to ramble like I did.

"Bran Ice? Oh right! You girls don't understand English do you.

What I said was brown eyes."

The girls just looked at each other as I stood up and steadied myself on a table.

"Brown eyes"? Inquired Ichigo.

"Yeah the Yellow Kid's got them. Baby browns to be exact. My mother always wished that more of her children had them" I said dreamily.

I was interrupted by Keiichiro as he strode into the room with Ryou and Lettuce in tow.

"Are you alright?!" He inquired.

I waved my hand dismissively.

"I'll be ok I just got startled and that chair I was in fell backwards". I turned to the girls. Sorry, but you're not exactly catching me at my best. We'll have to talk tomorrow."

"In the meantime" I said turning back around "I've got about thirty-six hours to sleep off."

"Idiot!" Ryou barked sarcastically. "You should've done that first thing when you got here instead of driving that "thing" Halfway across town. What if you'd fallen asleep at the wheel?"

"What can I say?" I said grinning "I do some pretty extreme things when adrenalin takes over. And trust me, you'll get an adrenalin rush too when you get behind the wheel of "that thing".

"Which reminds me It's still in the service road near the café" I said tossing him the keys.

"It needs another tank of gas" I added.

Ryou walked off shaking his head, but I know that he was curious about driving "The Monstosity".

Ryou quickly turned back for a moment grinning from ear to ear. "I want you back here at around twelve tomorrow, and being that you've shifted this particular responsibility" he held up the keys "you can arrange your own transportation".

"Yes sir! Sergeant sir!" I spouted with an equal level of sarcasm.

For the next half-hour I helped Keiichiro lock up and then had him drive me to my new home.

It was a nice apartment, I'll say that. It reminded me of those condos that you see in CSI Miami; which coincidentally is what gave birth to my humvee idea.

Keiichiro or maybe it was Ryou had been considerate enough to stock my kitchen and they'd unpacked my sheets and air mattress.

I didn't bother getting undressed but just slid my shoes off and collapsed.

I woke up with a renewed enthusiasm which died quickly when I realized why I'd woken up. My air mattress had deflated sending my spine to rest on the polished ash wood floor.

When I got up to re inflate it I realized that the reason for this happenstance was because I'd let my keys fall on the mattress before I'd fallen asleep. I pulled the corkscrew end of my Swiss Army Knife out and began wondering which of the boxes I'd packed my angora blankets in when I heard the noise.

It was scuffling sound followed by muffled thud, "Must be coming from out in the hallway" I though.

I walked into what was to become my living room and over to the front door. I listened for a moment before I opened it.

When I did open the door then I saw him. It was a kid about four or five years old; he over near the mailboxes at the visitors waiting area trying wildly to jump up high enough to extricate the contents of number twelve.

"That's cute" I thought, "I wish I had my cell phone charged or I'd take a picture. I grinned and walked over toward him; I had to check my mail anyway.

"Here let me do that for you" I said pleasantly.

He turned around and stared at me for a moment before he pointed at me and said with a rather indignant tone "My Mama doesn't like Russian people"!

I was taken aback but managed a rather amused expression. "Well then I should be glad I'm not Russian" I countered.

"But you came out of Brassov san's house, and you have an ac-…ac-…ac-!"

"Accent" I corrected him; "And you'll find that it's not just Russian people who have them. Now would you like my help with your mail?"

"But I wanna get it!" Was his indignant reply.

"Ok" I said rolling my eyes. I grabbed him under his arms and lifted him up toward the mailbox he eagerly grabbed the box's contents and I set him back down. I watched as he stuffed the contents into a tote bag and then lifted his hands to be picked up again.

"But you already got your mail, didn't you"? I inquired.

"I have to get the other boxes" he answered.

"Why…"?

"So I can play mailman with it" He said looking at me as if this was the sort of thing I should know.

"But that's other people's mail" I said gesturing toward the boxes.

"I know that. I have to make sure it gets delivered he said gesturing toward the front doors of several apartments. I could see that the apartments were actually built with mail slots in the doors.

"Oh boy" I sighed under my breath.

"Ok" I said; "let me rock you world, and when I say that I mean let me explain something to you." I dropped to my knee and put my hand on his shoulder. He eyed me inquisitively.

"The mail's already been delivered, and what's furthermore where I come from taking other peoples mail is a federal offense. Now I'm not as sure in this country yet, but I do know that Japan had a federal government. So it's my guess that this would fall under that same category".

The kid eyed me with bewilderment.

"Ok… the simple version… you could get in trouble."

"I could?!" He said; his eyes growing wide.

"Oh you already are young man" came a new voice.

We both looked up to see a young woman in her mid-twenties standing a few feet away from us. She bent over quickly and snatched the black tote bag that the kid was holding and rifled through its contents for a few moments before lifting her head and staring at the kid with a look that I remembered seeing on "my" own mother's face many times in the past.

"Well! You can explain this to me later." She said holding up a handful of letters magazines and a manila envelope that just so happened to have "my" name on it.

"But first maybe you can explain why you're outside the house when you're already grounded! Well Sai?!"

I stood up and looked back down at the kid, or Sai who was now quaking in his boots in a most literal and figurative sense.

She turned her head and saw me for probably the first time and her face changed immediately from one of paternal rage to embarrassment.

"Oh! I'm so sorry I-…. I haven't seen you before."

"Leslie Mcgwire." I said quickly.

"Oh! Mcgwire-san you finally made it I-" She turned her head quickly back toward Sai and barked: "Get back inside the house!" Sai scurried into one of the open front doors and disappeared.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that" she said, and promptly bowed. "Yeah that's right in oriental cultures you often bow when apologizing" I realized.

"It's fine." I said dismissively. "He doesn't do that often does he?"

Absolutely not!" She said quickly.

I Chuckled in spite of myself. "Here let me help you" I said as I grabbed a handful of letters and magazines out of the Sai's bag. "After all I did have a hand in this."

We began sorting out the mail I tried to make some small conversation.

"So you son tells me you don't like Russians very much."

She looked up surprised for a moment before she answered.

"What?! I-…oh." She paused for a second before answering.

"I don't or rather didn't like a single Russian. Brassov-san."

"Yeah your son said something about him having lived in my apartment."

"That's right he would come home late, more drunk then I thought possible, Then he would lose his glasses and not be able to stick his key in the lock. Then He'd come to my door and pound on it until I came out with my master key and unlock his door. What's worse is he'd play the loudest most annoying music you've ever heard!"

She was fuming now but caught herself and tried to smile once more.

"You must be Ikumi-san then. The building super."

"That's right Mcgwire-san." She held up an envelope and squinted at the name. "Leslie Tobin Mcgwire?"

I nodded as she handed me the envelope. I looked at it and smiled.

"It's from my Mother. Wait! How does she know what my new address is when I haven't given it her yet?"

"We just know those sort of things"

I began walking back toward my apartment and realized something that gave me a jolt back into reality. "I have to get back across town in two hours!" I thought "and I don't know the lay of the land so to speak."

I turned back toward Ms. Ikumi.

"I have to get to Shinjuku where's the nearest train station and have they all left yet?"

"Relax." She said. They run every twenty minutes here.

"Really I think I like this place" I thought as I dashed back into my apartment and tore open half a dozen boxes before I found some of my clothes. I took a cold shower; the water heater wasn't turned on yet, and dashed out the door wearing my khaki trench coat. I was figuring that I would probably have to wait till lunch to eat anything but Ms. Ikumi and her son flagged me down at their door and Sai apologetically handed me a small cloth wrapped bundle which turned out to contain a pair of rice balls like the ones Ryou's mother used to serve us. They quickly disappeared before I'd reached the train station.

I realized as I stood in line that they were using a type of kanji that I wasn't familiar with on all the ticket kiosks. I punched buttons at random just hoping there was an English interface somewhere. There wasn't, or if there was it certainly wasn't apparent.

"I thought this was supposed to be a technological state." I grumbled to myself" "Doesn't user friendly mean anything here?"

I was about to just push the biggest looking fare charge and hope that it at least went through Shinjuku when I felt something that I'd never felt before. It was like I was being physically pulled like a magnet. Of course I wasn't really moving or being pulled but the feeling seemed as though it were someone tapping on my shoulder urging me to look at something. It was gone a half second later but I stood there for what must've been several moments before someone really did tap me on the shoulder.

I looked to see a boy of about fourteen or fifteen gesturing for me to look behind myself. I suddenly realized with a start that I'd been holding up the line.

"I'm so sorry!" I said apologetically.

He smiled pleasantly. "Do you want me to read that for you?" He said politely and gestured toward the ticket kiosk.

I nodded eagerly and he stepped up to the screen and began pushing buttons.

"So are you going to Osaka?" he inquired.

"No, I'm going to Shinjuku. Is that what I typed in?"

He laughed and began to print me a ticket with a much smaller charge than the previous one. I quickly stepped away from the line and began walking toward the platform. I noticed that the boy was walking beside me.

"Thanks for your timely assistance, I'm Leslie by the way" I said extending my hand. He took it and nodded.

"My guess is that you're American."

"What gave it away? Was it the fact I couldn't read or my accent?"

He paused for a second before answering. He seemed to be contemplating how to reply. "Your choice of footwear." He said quietly.

I looked down to realize that I was out in public wearing a pair of combat boots. I must've put them on by accident.

I smiled nervously as I replied. "These aren't for the public to see they're for paintballing." I could tell he was holding back laughter as the train pulled up and we both stepped on.

I tried to make conversation as best I could.

"So is Odaiba a good place to live like I hear?"

"Well it's expensive. So it's probably good for someone, but I wouldn't know for sure, I don't live here. I was just here for a kendo tournament that ended up getting cancelled." He replied.

We rode on in silence for several minutes before I realized that he was staring at me intensely. He would look away every time that my eyes shifted his way which was a sure sign that it was me he was staring at. I utilized a mirror in the upper right hand corner of the passenger car to get myself a good look at him for the first time that morning. He was about average height for his age with rather bushy black hair and rather smoothly integrated features on his face. His eyes were a rather dark natural brown color; not exactly the baby-browns that my mother's so fond of though.

They say that the eyes are the window of the soul and I can tell you right now that it's not true! At least not completely, and that eyes don't mean the same thing to everyone who sees them. I've been misjudged for years because when people saw my grey eye's they'd either act like I was something of a wonder or that my brain was made of concrete. It's true that grey eyes are a bit rare and in my opinion they in themselves are something of a wonder but it doesn't exactly place me at either end of the personality spectrum. For these reason's I'd resolved to judge people not by the many colorful endowments that issue forth from the human body but by the actions that person undertakes; a resolution which I constantly fail at. I don't know why I bothered making that that a priority. I can't seem to escape from human nature. So I made a quick summation of what the boys his eyes told me. I figured at the time that it was probably about as accurate as that phrenology fiasco in the early twentieth century, but his eyes seemed to be more of a soft exterior that conceals a complex inner self. Keiichiro's eyes are the same in that capacity. My stare at the boy sitting next to me was an analytical endeavor whereas his gaze seemed to be something else. He was searching my face for something.

I returned to reality as the train P.A. system announced that my destination was up next. I stepped off the train at the stop and saw that the boy had stepped off with me.

"Well are you going to ask me?" I inquired.

He looked at me surprised. "Uh, Ask you what?"

"Well you were staring at me for the majority of our trip. I assume that you want to ask me something."

"I'm sorry." He replied. "But I just got a sort of Déjà vu kind of feeling since we left the train station. I was trying to see I recognized you face from anywhere."

"Well it's a small world" I said dismissively. "Maybe you have."

"Or perhaps he saw Mother when she was over here" I mused.

"Well it's been nice chatting, and once again thanks for your help." I said as I started walking off towards the commercial/residential district which was home to a rather extravagantly decorated small business. I realized something as I walked off and turned back quickly.

"I forgot to ask. What's "your" name?"

"It's Masaya!" He shouted back smiling.

"Well maybe I'll see you around Masaya!" How was I to know that I would be correct. Everybody says that knowing full well they'll never meet again.

Be this official notice that my life is a comedy of errors.

It was only about twenty minutes back to Café Mew Mew on foot, but as it happened I was delayed. Delayed with good reason too; by none other than my active initiation into the war effort.

I was walking briskly through a rather nice looking park when I heard it. I began to muse as to what type of bird that it could be until I realized that I wasn't hearing a bird; it was a young woman screaming. That's when the row picked from behind a line of trees and ornate hedges. The sound became a roar like a bear or a lion but it was distorted, almost like a perverted version of the sound. The tree line shook like it does at the beginning of Jurassic Park and once again I heard that roar. It might not be a t-rex but something was on the loose, and I had a good idea what it must be.

That was about when testosterone kicked in and my curiosity outweighed any trepidation. "This was after all what I was here to do. Wasn't it?

I dashed toward the trees and dove headfirst into the hedge that separated the foot path from the trees. I landed on my chest but quickly got back up and continued running while dodging tree trunks. I could see up ahead where the trees ended. There was another hedge, but this one was a good deal shorter than the last and was only about waist high and on the other side was a soccer field and a sight that none of R-2000's sensor data could have prepared me for.

I knew the basics about how a chimera is formed from what I'd discuss with Ryou. Apparently they're supposed to be parasites which use their host's DNA to give their energetic life force a physical medium. Whatever they're supposed to be on the scientific level, they're just straight monsters when it comes down to actually seeing one. It was difficult to tell what this one had been, probably a dog, but it was easy to see what it was now; spiky hair, fangs, about as tall as a house, and nine tails. It was also fast, incredibly fast for something so large. It had its attention focused on something near a set of footpaths and realized what or rather who it was when Mint landed about ten feet away from me. She jumped up and dashed forward before pushing off from the ground and becoming airborne.

"That's right she can sort of fly can't she." I remembered.

I realized at that moment that there was another airborne figure flying or rather hovering around above the warzone.

"Kish!" I almost said aloud.

I'd heard some from Keiichiro about this smug and irritating extraterrestrial. He's superficial, vain, arrogant, and very dangerous.

I watched as three other figures dashed back and forth on the ground. I saw bursts of energy lick this way and that as our four well intentioned heroines attempted to pacify this new menace to public safety.

"Wait a second! What's the point?" I began to wonder. "If we're fighting a war there seems to be no lasting value in simply terrorizing the populace. That's what this is!" I realized. "It's terrorism!"

I'll admit that the "T-word" is used all too often these days, but this was terrorism. That is if you look at terrorism in the strictest sense as simply to terrorize. This was simply Kishe's idea of a day in the park, and it made me mad!

I turned my attention back toward the girls. It was still obvious that they didn't know too much about fighting as a team. They needed to hold the chimera's attention so that Ichigo could cancel the genetic bonding, but they were just running around taking pot shots at it. All the while tiring themselves out.

I could hear Kishe's gleeful laughter and watched him all the while my anger was growing.

"I need something long I thought as I picked up a pair of stones. That something was actually right in front of me.

It had probably been a sign post at one time, but the sign was long gone and the hedge had grown up around it. I grabbed and tugged at the vertical steel pole. It lifted easily and I stepped out from the bushes. Nobody had noticed me thus far and that was to my advantage. I quickly judged the distance, tossed my rock up in the air and swung my makeshift bat.

"I still have my swing" I thought happily to myself as the rock smacked the Chimera in its right eye.

My grin faded as the anima's gaze suddenly focused on yours truly. I jumped away just as one of its prehensile tails slammed down where I'd just been standing with enough force to leave a small crater. I also realized suddenly that I was now standing in a tree, and so did the monster. It lunged at me and I swear that I could see my reflection in its eyes. I had nowhere to run.

My mind raced and in a last desperate strike I heaved the signpost at my impending doom and closed my eyes waiting for the inevitable.

"Libbon Strawberry surplise!" Shouted a familiar voice with all the enthusiasm and bad pronunciation of youth. I heard a loud rush and when I opened my eyes I saw nothing where the chimera had been.

Three figures dashed up under my tree to see who had thrown my two projectiles.

Ichigo still hadn't seen me for some reason and she turned abruptly to address a now frowning Kish, or rather just to look him in the eye.

I waved to an astonished trio beneath me and gestured to them to pay attention to their teammate before searching for a way to get down from the tree without hurting myself. "What is it with me and trees?" I wondered. "As I recall I met the Guy who started my involvement while I was in a tree." I found al low branch and swung myself down to the ground. I next began to walk over toward the girls stopping momentarily to pick up my new weapon.

As I got closer I could hear Kishe's Jeering and taunting. It was obvious that he only considered this some kind of game and was reasserting his intent on the girls. I could see that he had little regard for humans and considered them mostly weak and panicky little insects. And he's right. That is about the panicky part.

"Let's rock his world." I thought. "I've been meaning to introduce myself." But how to do it was the question.

I personally would become immediately and aggressively defensive even to the point of violence if an equally aggressive character stepped out in front of me and interrupted "my song" So to speak. The trick would be for me to play things nice and see how he'd react.

"I guess the dumb American will have to serve here." I realized.

I swung the steel pipe over my shoulder and spread a lazy grin over my face.

I marched right up to Ichigo while completely ignoring Kish.

"Good morning Ichigo!" I said happily.

"D-Daisuke san! What are-"

"Well the brochure didn't say anything about a really big monster that terrorizes urban areas." I said, adding a little bit of thickness to my American accent. "I suppose that I should expect some of that being that that this is Tokyo."

Ichigo looked at me like quizzically as did all the other girls.

"I guess the fight's over" I said looking around. "Good job on that everybody."

Out of the corner of my vision I could see Kish rolling his eyes.

"You really have recruited some unskilled weaklings" Jeered a smirking Kish. "They just barely defeated my little weapon only after someone started throwing rocks at it.

I turned quickly toward him with a feigned look of annoyance on my face. "Did I ask for your input?" I turned back to the girls. "Who's your floating friend?" I inquired.

The girls looked at me in astonishment.

"But that's one of the aliens." Said Mint.

I laughed out loud as much as I could at the moment. "But that's a punk Kid!" I chuckled. "I mean granted he is floating in midair and He's got those really big ears that make him look like a demonic Mr. Spock.

Once again I watched Kish from the corner of my eye. His expression turned to one of surprise and frustration.

"You can drop the Charade human!" Kish snarled.

"Thanks!" I said turning back toward him. "You don't know how tough it is to pretend to be an idiot when you're not one."

"Who are you?!" Kish demanded.

"I should like to ask you the same question but since you're not going to answer I won't bother. Besides I do know that we have things in common you and I. We're both soldiers in defining conflict and we both want to save this planet, but we differ in the desired outcome for our respective races and in who will lead the next epoch of this world."

Kish clearly wasn't prepared for a philosophical and ethical discussion and shook his head in annoyance.

"You're brave Human but you can't compete with Deep Blue!"

"And who pray tell is that?" I asked as calmly as I could. This was really very exciting for me. I was learning more about Kish every second and I was earning his respect as well as his enmity, but now the mention of this "Deep Blue" gave me a load of new questions. Was it a weapon? Their organization? Their word for Mew Aqua? Or was it their leader?

"You'll need more than rock's to defeat him" laughed Kish.

Well Ryou had been right, Kish was extremely vain. He was letting his mouth run without anyone in the driver's seat and I was gaining a wealth of knowledge. I know at the same time however that Kish wasn't stupid and he was bound to catch his bragging before too long.

"Maybe you could tell us how to defeat Deep Blue without Rocks" I demanded sarcastically.

"I don't think you could defeat me with them!" Kish said. His grin took on almost a deranged and insane quality. "Let's have a one on one! This world could always do without another of you huma-."

His voice stopped short as the rock I still had in my pocket went sailing past his head grazing the tip of his ear.

"If you want we can be enemies tomorrow, but I have things to do today." I could tell that Kish was getting ready to charge but stopped when the girls stepped out into his way.

"Don't touch him!" Snarled Ichigo.

Kish snorted in annoyance. "I guess you don't have any honor hiding behind four little girls. I'm not through with you yet." With that he stepped out. I call it stepping out; it's really shifting out of phase with normal space, and it would be quite the problem for us in the future.

As soon as Kish had left Ichigo turned around to face me. "It's not true! What he said about you."

"Don't worry about my ego. If he really had meant what he said before he left he would've said it several times before. He was just trying to rattle my cage so to speak. I'd also like to say thank you for defending me. It really does mean a lot."

We were interrupted as a familiar pair of figures came running up a nearby footpath toward us. I began to walk towards Ryou and Keiichiro grinning all the while, but found that they weren't smiling at all.

"What was that about?!" Demanded Ryou.

"Good morning to you too Ryou" I said ignoring his previous comment. "I'd like to say I'm rather pleased with how well the Mews handled this latest development.

"Really?!" Came Ryou's sarcastic reply. "I would've thought that you were more pleased with yourself! Honestly putting yourself in harm's way like that. You don't have a prayer of defending yourself against an anima!"

"Actually…" Said Keiichiro putting his hand on Ryou's shoulder in an attempt to calm him "as I recall you threw yourself into the line of fire during Ichigo's first battle."

"That's right, he did!" Piped a smiling Ichigo.

Ryou rolled his eyes. "Head back to the café."

Ichigo scowled as she turned around and walked off with the rest of the girls at times looking back at us with curiosity.

"We need to talk." Said Ryou.

"Yes we do" I agreed.

Ryou turned and began walking back along a small path that circled the park. Keiichiro and I followed him.

"I supposed" began Keiichiro "that you certainly look the part of the American vigilante. With your combat boots and trench coat."

"I didn't really plan on dressing this way" I replied "It just happened."

I could tell that Ryou wanted to laugh but wiped the shadow of a grin off his face before he continued to vent his frustration.

"You mean it happened just like you so cavalierly toyed with death about ten minutes ago."

"I'm glad that you're concerned for my well being" I said reassuringly. "But I had to break the deadlock between the girls and that thing."

"I'm actually pleased that you did so" replied Keiichiro. "Without the fifth member they're exposed on one flank, and even then they don't really know much about team fighting, but I highly doubt that you're capable of filling it."

"Oh I'm well aware of that, but I just got mad when I saw how that Kish character was treating the girls like his playthings. I just made a spur of the moment decision."

"Yes it was a spur of the moment decision" Affirmed Ryou nodding his head. "I've become intimately familiar with your testosterone oriented "spur of the moment" and "seat of your pants" decisions. I've been driving one around lately."

"He loves it." Mouthed a smiling Keiichiro.

I decided to change the subject.

"I've asked you a lot about Ichigo and company lately but what can you tell me first hand about the aliens?"

"Good question" Keiichiro replied. "We were actually going to enlighten you back at the café."

Ryou glanced at his watch quickly before he spoke. "Yes let's get moving."

I stared at my watch for a few seconds before I realized that the face had somehow been shattered during the fight. I touched it and the glass crumbled to little pieces. It was two-thirty already.

We approached the humvee which was parked with the grill extending a full half a meter over the curb and into the bushes.

"I'll drive!" I said in my most deadpan Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

"No you won't." Replied a straight faced Ryou as he pulled the keys out of his pocket. "But you can ditch that thing in your hand. What is it anyway?"

I realized with surprise that I was still carrying the signpost.

"What this? It's something I picked up." I said grinning and waving the other end in his face.

Ryou's eyes went round. That in and of itself was so comical that I almost started laughing, but I was more surprised by that fact that I'd managed to surprise Ryou on his own turf.

"What?" I inquired.

"Keiichiro, come look at this." Ryou said motioning toward the object in my hand. Keiichiro was already gawking at it.

"This is just a length of steel pipe guys."

"It's a concrete filled length of steel pipe." Keiichiro said as he motioned for me to drop it on the ground. I did and was surprised to hear not a clank but a resounding crack as it hit the paved sidewalk taking a large chip out of it.

"Did you see how he was handling that thing earlier?!" Ryou said in amazement.

"It must weigh fifty kilos!" Keiichiro added.

I bent over slowly and picked it back up. I felt its weight now as I cradled something that must have been as heavy as six or seven lead bars.