AN: And here's the start of the next chapter:

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu, was something of a disgrace. It wasn't because it was underfunded, it wasn't because it was understaffed, it wasn't because the staff did shoddy work or were poorly trained, though certain disgruntled individuals would argue that all of these things were true. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital was a disgrace, because the building company had decided to cut costs, using the 'brutalist' architectural style to justify his 'utilitarian choice.'

The fact that he'd been using sea shells and beach sand as aggregate in the concrete the building was constructed from suggested to many that he had gone well beyond being merely 'cost efficient.' Though the building had been up for less than half of its intended usable life-span, internal bracing had needed to be installed in order to prevent partial internal collapse, and plans had already been made for demolishing and replacing the structure before it injured the hospital's patients. 'Unfortunately' the plans the architect had been using had been 'lost' in an office fire, preventing a full investigation into the entire fiasco.

Even more unfortunately, the team of shrouded individuals infiltrating the hospital concealed beneath illusion spells were not aware of the hospital's un-sound nature, and neither were any of their targets.

((()))

Something moved, and it seized my attention immediately, most likely an artifact of my heightened predator's instincts. I couldn't see it, I couldn't smell it, I couldn't hear it, but I could sense it. I could, in a way, feel it, or rather them, because there were three of them, and they had just infiltrated the hospital via the roof. And 'infiltrated' was unquestionably the right word, because they were magical, and more, they were trying to hide that magic.

'Potential hostiles inbound,' I sent via Telepathy to Cait and Lynette, 'I'm going to go investigate.'

"Got it," Cait whispered, too quietly to be more than a murmur to human ears, but readily detectable to mind; Lynette just nodded, and I slipped out of the lobby outside the OR where the burned child was being treated.

((()))

"This is Striker 2, I've sighted one of the potentials. Civilians present, and two Ki Adepts."

"Do you need support?"

"Unknown Five, the subject appears to be a mid-teen Japanese female with unusually long hair; no sign of training or threat by stance. Request Striker One or Four for better analysis of subject."

"Granted. I'm routing Striker Four. Three, what's the status on that Matrix?"

"Definitely an active Psychic in the building, I'm looking at layered defensive enhancements. Be warned, they may already know we're here."

"Confirmed."

((()))

Ami, Makoto, Minako, Usagi, and Rei, were all clustered together in the third floor lobby of the hospital, the floor on which the burned child was being treated. Ami knew that burns were one of the harder to treat injuries; there was little modern medicine could do beyond clean the wounds and hydrate them, but she hadn't shared that little tidbit with the others. Usagi was freaking out enough over the entire affair as it was. When Ami's mother wanted to comfort or reassure her, in the past, she would do so by educating Ami about the subject at hand in a patient, reassuring manner; Ami felt the urge to attempt a similar method, but had already learned in her brief weeks of knowing the flighty blonde, that such an attempt would be counter-productive with her.

Rei was handling the entire affair stoically; living at one of the few shrines managed by a 'serious' practitioner of Shinto mysticism, she had grown up meeting many grievously injured or ill patrons of the shrine. Injury and death were far from new experiences for her, and she had almost unconsciously slipped into the role of comforting Usagi while she fretted and cried over the injured child that had literally dropped into her arms.

Minako helped Rei as she could, but something painful was gnawing at the edge of her memories as she thought about death, and it kept distracting her. To a number of the others in the lobby who were waiting for word regarding family or friends of their own, Minako's expression reminded them of those who had already seen personal loss.

Makoto, to all visible signs, seemed to be dealing with the situation worse than any except for Usagi, stalking angrily around the lobby, her muscles tense, her hands regularly clenching into fists until she remembered to relax them, frustration clear on her face. She wasn't the only person in the lobby dealing with injury through anger, but she was certainly the youngest, as well as the most dynamic about it. Makoto was also the first of the girls to notice when Saeko walked into the lobby, looking strangely exhausted given that she'd been gone less than an hour, and somewhat unsettled.

"The girl will live," Saeko announced as she approached the girls, "Gates-sensei is apparently a miracle-worker, the child won't even lose any of her limbs; it looks like she'll make a nearly-complete recovery."

"Nearly?" Ami asked hesitantly, a tinge of fear in her voice.

"Even with skin grafts," Saeko said, shaking her head slightly, "There's nothing modern medicine can do to remove all of her scars. With long sleeves, gloves, and some use of cosmetics, she should be able to pass unnoticed in public, but anyone who sees her in a swimsuit will know she's been burned."

Ami looked her mother in the eye, then looked meaningfully towards Usagi. Saeko turned to look at the blonde, and in an uncharacteristic loss of composure, flinched upon meeting her soulful, teary-eyed gaze.

"Ah," Saeko said awkwardly, before visibly shaking off her uncertainty, "Don't worry about it. It'll take time, but the child will grow up fully healthy, and given some of the things Gates-sensei showed me, I wouldn't be surprised if treatments for the cosmetic damage will be available by the time she's in her twenties as well."

"I'm so relieved!" Usagi gasped out, bursting into tears all over again, and Saeko winced.

((()))

'Cait, someone has infiltrated the hospital under magical stealth. Two are on the fifth floor, and I'm moving to intercept, the others are likely heading towards the girls on the third floor, please look after them.'

'I'm on it,' Cait replied 'Lyn is stuck with the doctors that treated the burned girl, if things get loud who should she move on first?'

'The girls,'Jaeger replied, 'Even if I can't put down an attack on Beryl, they'll have a hell of a time putting me down.'

Cait nodded as she felt the mental link wane, then crossed the scrub room she was in to where Lynette was being harassed by a pair of local doctors, and whispered the results of her conversation with Jaeger in the older woman's ear, before moving off to join the Japanese teenagers Jaeger had managed to pick up somewhere.

((()))

"This is Striker One, potential in sight. Subject is a Japanese female, early to mid twenties, tall for her ethnicity, dark haired, attractive features, and under heavy sedation. No sign of any form of security, am proceeding with caution."

"Confirmed Striker One. Striker Three, prepare for extraction as soon as One verifies viability for transport."

"Affirmative Five. Be warned, I am detecting an active Psychic moving through the building, possibly towards us."

"All Strikers, that makes one Psychic, two, possibly three Mages, and three Ki Adepts. Either someone got here before we did, or we're looking at the home team, be prepared to use alternate fallback points if mission is foiled."

"Affirmative."

((()))

Two of the infiltrators were slipping into Beryl's room, and I suspected that one of them had noticed that I was tailing them, though I wasn't certain. Either way, there was no reason for me not to trail them into the deposed queen's room, especially given none of the hospital staff were currently therein. A brief glance at her chart and use of the medical knowledge crammed into my school allowed me to ascertain that her seizures had stopped quickly once she was sedated, suggesting she may have been instead suffering from emotional trauma or some form of PTSD.

Given what I knew had happened to her within the last couple of days, I considered that far more likely than some form of neurological disorder. She had lapsed into a largely-peaceful sleep since they'd applied the sedative, though they hadn't removed the restraints holding her to the bed, and after one of the invisible (to the naked eye at least) individuals locked the door, the other one present within dropped their spell, and inspected first Beryl, and then the chart, themselves. To Jaeger's considerable surprise, the man was carrying a short sword and a combat shotgun, as well as wearing what looked like a kevlar-weave cloak over a set of low-profile body armor.

"We'll need a proper scholar to get the details on this," The man said quietly, "But it looks to me like this woman fought off a possession recently, timed to about when everything went to hell. No traps I can detect though, time to move her."

The second individual decloaked, revealing a substantially younger man, barely into his twenties by the look of him, who raised a hand to touch Beryl; I decided it was time to act, and I moved.

((()))

((()))

Leo Kazinski knew that he was the rookie, the 'new guy' on this op, that the only reason he had been picked for the operation at all was because of the abrupt and overwhelming manpower crisis that the Praetorians had found themselves suffering from, and he'd expected to be picked on a bit by his teammates as a result. He hadn't expected the opposing force to pick on him as well.

When Leo reached out to lay a hand on and teleport one of their primary objectives out of the operational area, a grip like iron clamped down on his wrist, pinning it in place centimeters from the subject.

"The lady will be staying right here," A guttural voice growled as Leo instinctively twisted in place, lashing out with an arcing blast of electricity, which ricocheted off of a barrier above the interloper's skin, grounding itself in the hospital's tile floor, the voice continuing unperturbed as his hand was pulled steadily away from the unconscious woman, "And there is no violence permitted within the hospital."

The man was huge, easily over six feet, and powerfully muscular; Kazinski was no bio-kinetic, and was not remotely surprised that the man was completely overpowering him physically.

"Let him go," barked Kazinski's teammate, Striker One, sweeping his shotgun into his hands and bringing it to bear on the unconscious woman in the bed, "Or the woman gets it."

"You'll not be shooting her," The interloper growled, "You need her alive. What do you want with her?"

Striker One said nothing for several seconds, and Kazinski realized he was relaying information to Five, who was the OpCor.

"One, Three, Eliminate the interloper and proceed with securing objective."

Kazinski winced; he'd hoped to settle this bloodlessly, but Five had made the call, and she was in command of the operation; Striker One didn't even take the time to wince, he just opened fire.

The Shotgun's sharp report barked twice, heavy buckshot crashing into, and partially through the interloper's defensive screen (something Kazinski was beginning to recognize as a form of Telekinetic force-field. Blood spattered from the interloper's arm, the crack of gunfire echoed painfully within the room waking the subject in spite of her being sedated, and then the interloper counterattacked.

No weapon was drawn, no Psychic Power was employed, the man simply lunged across the room, seizing Striker One in a bear hug, and slamming him into a wall. The Shotgun barked twice more, firing at point blank range, sending a flurry of pellets ricocheting off of the hostile Psychic's force field; Kazinski couldn't tell if any managed to break through, but he threw his own contribution into the mix, slamming a bolt of lightning into the man's back.

The hostile roared in pain as his flesh was seared by Kazinski's power, before smashing Striker One's gut with his knee, then seizing the man's sheathed sword, and hurling it at Kazinski. The throw was awkward, and Kazinski easily deflected it with a burst of electromagnetic energy, before smashing another bolt of energy into the hostile's back while the man worked to pin Striker One down. Reasserting its protective force, the telekinetic screen absorbed most of the damage, barely enough to singe the man getting through, but Kazinski's attack still managed to knock the hostile off balance enough to give Striker One another chance to return fire.

Lightning and shotgun barked in unison, the electricity diverting the majority of the field's protective effect, allowing the shotgun to tear a bloody hole through the right side of the hostile's chest, dropping him to the floor, limp.

"Damn," Striker One breathed as he stepped back, reloading his shotgun as he moved "Tough bastard."

"Psychokinetic Armor," Kazinski said with a nod and a wince as he yanked Striker One's shortsword out of the wall behind him, "He was a fairly powerful telekine, on top of his raw physical strength."

"Psychic?" One said, raising an eyebrow, "He's-"

One froze for a second, and Kazinski immediately froze as well, instinctively surveying his surroundings for potential threats. The only hostile he could see was down on the floor with blood flowing out through the hole in his chest, but more importantly, the door (which had been locked) was open, and the subject's bed was empty.

"Shit," Kazinski breathed.

((()))

"One and Three are engaging for possession of subject hereby named Alpha. Status on Subject Beta?"

"In the third floor lobby, Two Ki Adepts present, though one of them is too green to pose a relevant threat. Third Ki Adept has begun to approach."

"Confirmed Striker Two, Striker Four?"

"No Mages in lobby, one from further out in floor, currently stationary, I suspect she has not detected us. Recommend move now."

"Affirmative. Take the subject."

((()))

Makoto felt something in the instant before she was struck, and her instincts acted in perfect synchroniety with the most alacritious part of her consciousness; right arm swept inward and upward, left fist lashed out, and grazed against the edge of a just-revealed man's cheek.

Suddenly, Makoto's anger and frustration had an outlet.

"You're going down you creep!"She shouted, already moving into an offensive sequence she had synthesized from Shotokan, western Boxing, and Muay Thai.

Adroitly recovering from the unexpected counter-attack her foe parried the first blow, but her third shifted from the powerful full-body blows favored by Muay Thai to a sharp jab more typical of Boxing, and caught her foe by surprise, slamming into his cheek, rattling his jaw, and nearly knocking him off balance enough to land the follow up, only managing a bare deflection.

He wasn't off balance for long though, settling into a blistering counterattack of his own, forcefully driving Makoto into a retreat across the lobby, until she caught the final thundering blow of his offense with an aggressive forearm block, the collision of fist on forearm sending an audible smack resounding through the lobby.

"Muay Thai, Shotokan, Boxing," The man, roughly Makoto's height with a powerful build that made him seem far larger than her, said with a sharp nod, "You have studied the same offensive schools as I."

"Kempo too," bit out as she started a counter-offensive, which he promptly took control of and riposted against, landing a painful blow against her shoulder.

"You're good girl," He replied as he drove her back again, nearly to the wall of the lobby, "But you made one critical mistake."

"What?" Makoto snarled as she deflected and blocked the rest of his offensive series.

"You fight alone," The man replied as a searing beam of light crashed into Makoto's side, momentarily blinding the gawking onlookers in the lobby.

"Shit," The newly-revealed mage near the door of the lobby breathed, "I don't think that-"

"Who says she's fighting alone?" Cait growled as she back-handed the mage halfway across the room, before stalking forward to advance on the wiry martial artist already in the room.

"What she said," Makoto growled, twisting streamers of light writhing against her flank as an ephemeral barrier ablated and subsumed the lance of energy which had struck her side, revealing that she hadn't been harmed in the least by the attack.

"Shit," The martial artist breathed.

((()))

AN: Makoto failed to notice she was being crept up on by an invisible guy, so he got the drop on her (90 to her defense), his attack modifier was better than her defense modifier, and he deals more damage than her. Makoto says 'LOLNOPE' and open-rolls (crit-successes) her defense, gets a counter-attack, and shuts the bastard down.

Then she did roll well enough to detect the second ambusher, and her Ki/CP abilities made up for her being worn down defensively, allowing her to completely tank the surprise attack.

Seriously Makoto, why you so awesome?

((()))

Negative 56 Life Points apparently looks like a big old hole in your chest. A big old painful hole in your chest; note to self: Shotguns hurt when applied to self.

Fortunately, I still had a solid six hundred and some Zeon on hand, and the handy-dandy Recover spell, just waiting to give me 500 LP in exchange for 250 of that Zeon. It was a bitch to charge the spell up through the pain, but fortunately, Anima doesn't really do much in the way of 'concentration check to not lose your spell to distraction,' so once I had all 250 Zeon charged, I was as good as new.

Literally. There wasn't a mark on me; Recover could heal damaged organs, bones, the works (possibly even major diseases), and it replaced the parts of my lung and ribcage spattered across the hospital floor with no issue whatsoever. No pain is great fun after having a hole blown in your chest by a combat shotgun; the bits of me that had been blasted out of me still littered the floor though.

Ew. Me-bits.

If nothing else, my decision to take (keep really) Eternal Blood was a bit of a big deal; I was exactly 1 LP past 'you may die from this damage' into straight-out 'you're dead-dead' territory after those last two shotgun blasts, and considering what else I hadn't taken, I was glad I'd compensated for my own errors.

And they were some pretty damn egregious errors at that; I'd let myself get distracted by all the cool-shiny Psychic Abilities, Spells, Ki Abilities, yadda-ya, and left my actual Attack and defense numbers on par with a level one character. Some level one characters had higher combat stats than I did, and I was level eight. Sure, I could cast my Recover spell to make up for damage lost, but if I'd been smarter in how I spent my DP, I wouldn't have taken that damage in the first place.

Also, if I'd been smarter, I would've remembered to use my Improvised Ki Abilities to punch people in the face much harder, rather than just trying to grapple the apparent larger threat into a pin. Attempting to 'Immobilize' someone by the Anima system, once you actually laid hands on them, was entirely dependent on raw Strength, not skill, and I was stronger than shotgun-man, which almost let the tactic work. Unfortunately for me, that whole 'outnumbered' thing came back to bite me.

Unfortunately for them, they apparently hadn't watched Zombieland (nevermind that it's not coming out for another decade or more), and failed to double-tap, or even just visually check to make sure I was dead.

So, time to go track them down and start on Round Two.

((()))

Something was wrong. Beryl didn't know what (aside from the obvious shotgun-and-lightning fight in the hospital room she woke up in), but something was definitely wrong.

She was Fujiwara Beryl, on vacation in Malaysia, and had been visiting Kota Kinabalu in order to watch the eclipse, when...

She didn't know what. She didn't know why even that seemed wrong, when everything she could see and sense added up with that. She had her faculty ID from Todai in the bag she'd grabbed from beside her bed, she had her passport (complete with short-term Visa stamp for visiting Malaysia), she had her...

Soemthing. She had her something that she knew she carried with her, even though she couldn't name it, couldn't find it in her bag, and given that all she was 'wearing' was a hospital gown (most unfashionable!), she certainly wasn't carrying it on her person anywhere else, but she was still certain that she 'had' it with her somewhere. Just as a terrified part of her heart and mind were insisting that there was something missing, something that it was good to have missing, that she never wanted to see, hear, or feel again.

And all of these things were racing through her mind as she scurried hurriedly through the halls of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, vaguely wondering why none of the orderlies or other hospital staff had intercepted her yet, despite her garb.

((()))

Natsuna Sakurada wasn't particularly fond of paperwork, but she'd learned to tolerate it through the course of her career; even with a small army of assistants, there were some things she simply had to handle by herself, and she wouldn't have risen as far as she had if she wasn't willing to tackle such bureaucratic issues head-on.

That didn't make attempting to sort out the legalities of 'checking in' a child with no known legal identity (who had been magically healed of life-threatening burns!) any less irritating, especially when there were much more interesting things to be involved with. Like getting Gates Lynette and her daughter to spill the beans on the magical transforming cat, curses, and healing spells.

When her wrangling with the legal department of the hospital was interrupted by a building-wide alarm, Natsuna was almost relieved, and disappeared with her two (covertly armed) escorts to investigate the cause. By the time the legal secretary she'd been speaking with had overcome her shock at hearing the alarm, Natsuna was long gone.

((()))

Makoto had learned nine different martial arts, four of them very aggressive styles, taught by second dan or higher masters of their respective arts, but she had never seen someone fight as aggressively as Caitlyn Gates did. If Makoto hadn't been furious, she probably would have found it to be terrifying.

Their foe had shifted to a purely defensive stance, a tactical choice inhibited by the fact that he was unskilled in any recognizable defensive-oriented art. While Muay Thai, Shotokan, and other aggressive arts certainly had defensive elements, they had nothing that could compare to Aikido or Lama, and the man suffered for it. Makoto and Caitlyn steadily forced him back into a corner, gradually battering his defenses down, and forcing the odd shot through against his ribs or shoulders, the two of them simply more than he could handle by himself.

Then the mage re-entered the fight, announcing his presence with a pair of stone spikes, erupting from the floor beneath Makoto and Caitlyn. Riding on an adrenaline high, their combat awareness was sharp enough that they easily evaded the attacks, but it did force them to back off, and bought their beseiged opponent breathing room.

"You take sparkle-boy," Caitlyn growled, "I've got fists here."

Makoto nodded, and turned to charge the mage, who was already gathering energy for another spell.

((()))

"Striker Three, Two and Four have been engaged by competent adversaries. Reroute and engage immediately."

"Affirmative."

Kazinski said nothing further, teleporting immediately to where the group's psychic 'channel' told him Striker Four was, leaving Striker One to finish tracking down Subject Alpha by himself. Striker One was only fifty feet away from Subject Alpha according to their tracking spell anyways.

Jaeger, however, was just as close to Striker One, and he was also faster.

((()))

When the hospital's evacuation alarm sounded, Lynette finally had a valid excuse to get the pair of local doctors she'd worked on the burned child with to stop harassing her, one that she was nigh-infinitely grateful for. She took advantage of it immediately, exiting the scrub-room she'd been stuck in for the last half-hour, and looking for someone to flag down and ask what was happening.

Then she received a triplet of mental 'pings' from Caitlyn, in a pattern that gave Lynette more cause to be wary than the hospital's alarm and all the near-panic it induced did. Powerful magical foes were in the building, and they wanted to fight.

((()))

It's easy to 'hide' in a crowd, especially when they're half-panicked, and running from the angry-looking man wearing a trench-coat and brandishing a shotgun; shotgun-boy was sharp enough to at least occasionally glance behind him, but not sharp enough to spot me, and I was better at masking my magical presence than he was detecting it.

I thought I had him by surprise when I tried to seize him around the shoulders, but either he'd spotted me (unlikely, he should have just turned around and shot me), or he was more on edge after I'd gotten ahold of him last time (more likely), and had no intention of letting me trap him again. He twisted around as he slipped out of my grasp and his shotgun barked twice, but my Psychokinetic Armor absorbed the rounds with no issue, and I lunged at him again.

He read my intentions like a book, and dropped another pair of shells directly into my chest at point blank, nearly stunning me with the pain as they breached my shields and nearly crushed my ribcage. That made me... angry.

Pumping Ki into an already adrenaline-infused attack, I pushed forward through the gunfire, and seized him by the forearms, forcing the weapon away from me.

"That hurt," I growled.

"You should be dead," He replied with forced calm, revealing an Italian accent as he did so.

I replied by turning and slamming him into the wall, forcing him to either drop his gun or let me crush his throat with it; he tried to kick me, but I shrugged it off, my Psychic Armor not failing me this time. I twisted in place, forcing both his hands together, seized them with my left hand while pinning his chest in place with my left shoulder, then started to beat the shit out of him with my right fist.

((()))

"Striker Five, First hostile has recovered from shredded lung and ambushed me, I'm pretty much finished here."

"Affirmative Striker One, see you back at base."

((()))

It took half a dozen blows to pound shotgun-boy into unconsciousness, and to my considerable irritation, as soon as I dropped him to sag against the wall, his body disappeared in a flash of teleportation.

I pushed the matter out of my mind; I still needed to find Beryl.

((()))

The situation was ugly when Kazinski arrived, literally ugly; he showed up just in time to watch Striker Four take the fist of a teenage girl clear through his chest. Kazinski had seen death before, but he'd never seen it dealt out like that by a teenage girl who was rather obviously wearing sweats over a swimsuit.

Neither, apparently, had the girl herself; once she had pulled back into a balanced combat stance, she stared down at the man whose heart she had just crushed, and locked up. Kazinski had seen death before, but he was still inexperienced by the standards of his unit, and nothing in his training had prepared him for dealing with someone going from 'angry killer' to 'vulnerable teenager' in less than a second flat.

Fortunately, he didn't need to; seconds later, the doors that led into the room from an adjoining staircase opened, and two men armed with handguns swept into the room, immediately focusing their attention on him. A well-practiced gesture raised a shield that absorbed their fire without so much as a flicker, and Kazinski found himself re-focused on the tactical situation.

"Striker Five," he reported silently, as he retreated towards the doors men with guns hadn't just entered through, "Four is dead, Two is-"

The muscular young woman that Striker Two had been fighting (and slowly winning) against tore her clothes to shreds as she abruptly erupted from a five-foot-eight woman into a nine-foot-too-much Werewolf.

"About to get his ass kicked by a bloody Werewolf. Operation is FUBAR."

"Striker One was just knocked unconscious and his teleport trigger activated. I'm withdrawing the rest of you now." Five replied.

"Roger that," Kazinski sent with some relief, just before something cold and metallic snapped into place around his wrist, and something blunt introduced itself briefly to his head, taking his consciousness with it when it left.

((()))

Lynette attached the other half of the dimensionally-locking cuffs she'd used on the hostile to an Immobile Rod she also withdrew from her 'Bag of Holding' (really more of a fanny-pack), and took stock of the situation in the lobby. The first thing she noticed was two bodies, one that locked to be a corpse, disappearing in a flash of teleportation; closely followed by the fact that Caitlyn had gone Were, Ami and her schoolgirl friends were still in the room, and Natsuna had just walked in behind her bodyguards/assistants.

"I swear," She said, looking up at Caitlyn with a scowl, "It never changes. I let you out of my sight for ten minutes, and somebody's trying to kill someone. What did they want this time?"

"Hell if I know," Caitlyn growled, the deep voice of her were-form causing the teens in the room to flinch, "When I got here, there were only two of them trying to kill Kino there," Caitlyn nodded towards Makoto, "Who I think may be in shock from accidentally killing one of them."

"This time?" Natsuna cut in, "This is a frequent occurrence for you then?"

"It depends on where we are at the time," Lynette responded as she crossed the lobby, moving towards Makoto, "And change back, Caitlyn, you're scaring the girls."

The white werewolf rolled her eyes, an unsettling expression to see on such a large predator, before rapidly shrinking down into Caitlyn's human form, though of her clothing, only her swimsuit survived both transitions.

"So you're usually attacked in hospitals, but not on beaches?" Natsuna asked as she began moving towards the huddled cluster of frightened teenagers, who were trying (unsuccessfully) to hide behind Saeko, who looked to barely be holding things together herself.

"More like the other way around," Lynette said with a sigh as she carefully reached out to lay a hand on Makoto's shoulder, causing the girl to flinch violently, but finally turn away from the bloody spot that a corpse had just recently disappeared from.

When she looked down and saw the blood and viscera on her fist, she started screaming.

((()))

"Beryl," A deep male voice called, and she flinched in her hiding place.

It wasn't much of a hiding place; a janitor's closet exiting off of the hospital's central stairwell, but it was all she had really been able to find that she could reasonably expect nobody to look in. Apparently, whoever was following her had decided not to be reasonable.

"I know you're in there Beryl," The man said again, "I've driven one of the attackers out of the hospital, but I don't know what happened to the other yet. I've been tracking you by scent, but they were probably using something more esoteric, and will find you at least as easily as I did."

Beryl winced; she didn't recognize the voice, but context made it fairly clear who it most likely was that had followed her here, and she had no idea what to do, no experience or frame of reference for developing any plan beyond 'call the police' to deal with the situation.

"Beryl, I'm not going to enter a small enclosed room with a half-naked woman without her invitation unless death or the like is on the line," The voice continued, somewhat exasperated, "Which it isn't, but it could be soon... Actually..."

Silence passed for a few minutes.

"No, it isn't," The man declared, "I've had word from my compatriots that they've driven off the rest of the attackers. Would you feel more comfortable if I asked a female doctor or someone similar to meet you in there?"

"Please?" The half-composed, half-needy reply leaked from Beryl's lips before she realized what she was saying, and she had to fight down the urge to curse herself for it.

"I'll do that," The man said affirmatively, "I shouldn't even need to leave the stairwell to do so, so just scream if someone else causes you trouble in the meantime."

Footsteps faded away, and Beryl wasn't certain if she'd just won or lost an argument that she wasn't sure she'd had.

((()))

I didn't actually need to walk away, of course, I could have just used Telepathy from where I stood, but in my experience, letting someone having a panic attack have the impression that they have some control over the situation is far more likely to make things better, rather than worse. Within reason of course, I was trying to make it clear that I wouldn't force my way into her immediate presence if she didn't want me to, not give her a deadly weapon to use while she was freaking out.

It was still hard to properly parse the tangled jumble of memories and attached emotions from the last couple of hours before Usagi had dropped her Ginzuisho-bomb, but I was pretty sure Beryl had been a lot more composed and defiant right at the end. Of course, she'd had a purpose behind that, if she'd lost all her memories of magical abilities (and had something else jammed in her head instead), then it would be hard to formulate a coherent plan for dealing with the situation at hand, even with a strong will.

And I knew from personal experience, that even the strongest-willed individuals tended to flounder when they had no way to figure out how to deal with a situation they found themselves in. Fortunately for Beryl, she wasn't going to have to deal with this one alone.

"Lynette," I called as I stuck my head through the doorway into the third-floor lobby, and saw her trying to comfort a panicked Makoto.

She waved me away, so I turned to look at Caitlyn instead, who was busy with Saeko and the girls, leaving the only one woman in the room who wasn't already dealing with someone in the process of a nervous breakdown; Natsuna. She saw me turning to look at her, and read my expression well.

"What do you need, Neko-san," She asked, giving me one of those looks as she spoke.

"There's a woman freaking out in a janitor's closet two floors up," I said, keeping things simple since I wasn't sure if Natsuna's new memories incorporated Beryl in some way or another, "She was one of this attack's targets, and I think it would be better if a woman coaxed her out of hiding, especially given all she's wearing is a hospital gown."

"I'll go pry her out," Natsuna said, before nodding towards an unconscious body beside her, "But you have to keep an eye on tweedle-dum here for me in the meantime, I've got questions for him."

"I can do that," I said, knowing fully well that she wouldn't just be questioning him if I was still around when she got back.

((()))

It took some doing, but Natsuna had experience with talking people down from tense situations, and she was a charismatic woman in Beryl's (apparent) peer group, so they had a fair bit of common ground for her to work from. Dealing with the fallout from the attack on the hospital was considerably harder, but between Natsuna's own position as Superintendant General of the TMPD, Beryl's status as a cousin of the Japanese Imperial Family, none of the local police were willing to try to hold any of those present after they'd had their statements regarding the attack taken.

Jaeger's human form 'disappearing' after the attack gave the police someone else to focus on anyways, even if he did leave a written statement before pulling his vanishing act, and letting Ami carry him out of the hospital; moving their captured member of the strike team without anyone noticing was more of a trick, one which Lynette handled adroitly.

Eventually though, they all ended up back on Natsuna's chartered cruise ship, and questions were asked.

((()))

"So," Natsuna said cheerfully once they had settled into her primary stateroom, "Magic, or something functionally indistinguishable, is real, and at least the three of you know how to use it. What's up with that?"

Caitlyn, Jaeger (in human form) Lynette, Natsuna (and two of her assistants/bodyguards), and Saeko were the only persons present, the girls having been sent to bed (Makoto with a sedative to help her sleep). All of the young adults had been clustered together in what was usually Natsuna's master suite, with a spell from Lynette keeping them from being woken (or eavesdropping).

"I couldn't tell you about this world," Lynette said tiredly, nursing a touristy drink (complete with paper umbrella), "We've only been in this dimension for a few weeks, and we've spent that time hunting for Jaeger here. The only magic users we've encountered here are either dead, or on this ship, with one outlier I'm not sure about."

"Would that outlier be a threat?" Natsuna asked more seriously.

"I don't know," Lynette said, shaking her head, before leveling a painfully serious gaze at the younger woman, "Did you know that during the start of the eclipse, there was a pitched battle in the streets of this city, one you were taking part in?"

Natsuna flinched slightly at 'you,' but didn't break Lynette's gaze.

"I suppose someone messed with our memories since then?" She asked.

"Yes," Lynette said, "And they messed with ours too. We're just more hardened against magical memory-modification."

"This raises another question then," Saeko said, her voice harsh and her face somewhat gaunt as she glared at Jaeger, "Are you a cat or a human?"

"I assume this is a concern for you because I've been sleeping in your daughter's bedroom for the last few months?" Jaeger said calmly, looking a little fatigued himself.

Saeko nodded jerkily.

"I used to be human," Jaeger said with a sigh, slumping slightly in his seat, "A creature far more powerful than I cursed me into the form of a cat, before binding my powers and banishing me from that Earth. Tell me Mizono-san, have you ever been physically attracted to a creature not the species you were born as?"

Saeko shook her head, more cautiously this time.

"I have now had the misfortune of experiencing that," Jaeger said, his face twisting in disgust, "If cats were intelligent, it might not be so squicky, but I've been living in a body wired with completely different hormonal focus than what I had as a human. This form you see now is a magical affectation I've only been able to take on as of today, and if it is dispelled or I run out of energy to sustain it, I'll revert to the feline form you're familiar with. As far as my, ugh, 'sexuality' goes, human woman are currently much along the lines you might think of a cat; cute, perhaps even a 'gorgeous creature,' but nothing more and nothing less. In spite of that if you'll recall, I've made a point of being in the common areas of your home whenever either of you have been changing or bathing," Jaeger paused to take a deep breath, closing his eyes as he did so, "Can was change the subject now? Because I can promise you, as upsetting as it may be for you, it is far more disturbing for me."

"Yes, let's," Caitlyn said, looking particularly pained by the subject matter, "Like Lyn said, somebody dropped a mass memory-modification spell earlier today, and that's probably why that assault team showed up at the hospital. People notice when that kind of magic gets used."

"I'd thought that was likely the cause," Natsuna said with a nod, "But why did they go after Fujiwara-san and Usagi-chan? Some form of magical ability before the memory-altering magic was used?"

"Yeah," Caitlyn said with a nod, "Lyn had me and one of the other fighters underground for healing when the spell went off, but Usagi was one of the casters still up, even if she was obviously pretty inexperienced."

"Usagi cast the spell," Jaeger said, his tone unusually harsh, "She is the reincarnation of the heir to the Moon Kingdom, and there is more power bound to her soul than any other mortal on Earth has ever likely possessed. She was trying to fix things, and wished for 'everything to be normal again.' Apparently, her idea of normal doesn't include magic, and the spell tried to enforce that."

"Considering I don't remember any of the things you're referring to," Saeko said, still somewhat stiff though her aggression had faded, "I'd say it was fairly effective."

"Mind-numbingly so in some ways," Lynette contributed, "Before the spell was cast, Beryl had no legal identity, and had spent the last however-long being possessed by a malignant metaphysical entity. Now she's apparently an established research professional at Tokyo University, and related to the Imperial Family by blood."

"As best I can tell, she'd been in that pocket dimension for thousands of years," Jaeger added, "The only way she's related to the Imperial Family, is if they're descended from her."

"Ancient history and genealogies aside," Natsuna cut in, "Based on what you know, what kind of danger are we in right here, right now?"

"Right now?" Caitlyn said, "Follow-up attack from whoever tried the first hit is the most likely danger. We need to get Beryl and all of those kids under anti-scrying Wards. If you want to make things reasonably safe, they're going to have to basically go into witness protection with magical enhancement. That assault team was pretty competent, which means they'll be smart enough to find paper trails in public records with photo ID's now that they've caught sight of who they're after."

"That's pretty extreme," Saeko said somewhat nervously, "Doesn't witness protection involve completely cutting off contact with family and friends?"

"The attack was fairly extreme," Natsuna said firmly, but not harshly, "Under Japanese law, nobody can be forced into witness protection, but these kinds of circumstances are exactly what it's for. We can talk about that on the trip back though, for now, what is, right now, the probability of another attack?"

"Don't know," Jaeger said, shaking his head, "Too little intel, we'll have to question the Teleporter first."

"What did you do with him, anyways?" Natsuna asked Lynette.

"Bag of holding and a Bottle of Air," Lynette said with a small smirk, patting her fanny-pack as she did so, "Sucker's still shackled to an immovable rod in there, and I dropped a Sleep spell on him just to make sure he didn't start trying to break either of them."

"Well, pull 'im out," Jaeger said with a small sigh, standing and stretching as he turned to face Lynette, "The sooner we get this done with, the better."

((()))

When Leo Kazinski regained awareness of the world around him, one thought immediately came to the forefront of his mind.

I am so screwed.

Staring down at him, grim judgement in his eyes, was the man he'd helped Striker One shoot the chest out of earlier, sans hole in his chest. Kazinski knew, academically, that wound like that could be healed, but he'd never seen it before, and he was fairly sure that the survival time without major magic was measured in seconds, rather than the minute it had been before they'd left the room with what he'd thought was a corpse on the floor.

"Now," The man growled, "We're the heroes here, and you're the villain, which fortunately for you, means that we have things called 'ethics' that will keep us from just torturing whatever we want out of you."

Leo wasn't green enough to think that was wholly good news in and of itself.

"Unfortunately for you," The man continued, "I'm a Telepath, so I don't have to torture that out of you. You're a Psychic yourself, so you know what that means, don't you?"

Leo nodded slowly.

"Good," The man said, a grin spreading across his features, "So then we'll start with questions you might not have any trouble answering, and maybe we can get through all this without me having to punch holes in your mind. Let's start with 'Were you attacking because of the memory spell?'"

Leo nodded slowly.

"Why did it bring you to Kota Kinabalu then?" The man demanded, "Especially so quickly?"

Leo was slower to respond to the second question, studying the man's expression carefully before replying.

"You haven't realized how far-spread the effects are, have you?" Leo asked quietly, speaking for the first time since he'd been roused.

"No," The man said, his eyes narrowing, "I take it that it has gone far then?"

"You could say that," Leo said, his own tone grim, "It's affected the whole damn world. It's hard to tell, because of the effects itself, but at least half the mages and psychics in the world have forgotten they're magical at all."

((()))