A/N

Nothing much. We are listening to reviews, just so you all know and making adjustments deemed appropriate. Of course, if we can't PM you, then we can't get back to you directly. Neither of us will address reviews directly in author notes, however.
Two chapters this week!


x


Nigh on two months have passed since Ryouga freed Terra from her stone prison, restoring the Titans to their full number after long last. The reunion has been anything but quiet, though, with deception and disaster tearing the team apart just as quickly as it came back together. With Robin and the original Titans drawn to Tamaran for Starfire's 'wedding', it fell to Ryouga, Terra - as well as some unexpected help from unexpected friends - to avert disaster in the underwater city of Atlantis. Everyone is back together again, now, and taking a well deserved breather from their adventures. But as unseen forces manipulate from the shadows, and disaster looms from both without and within, their tenuous peace is doomed to be shattered… and sooner than they expect.

It has been five months since the inclusion of the Nerima Crew into UNETCO as the war between X-Com and the alien visitors enters its seventh year. Despite the destruction of Earth's last alien refuge and the annihilation of the conspiratorial Sirius Group, the organization has been hit hard by Cydonian reprisals, and stretched thin by increasing commitments in the Far East to counter abductions of martial artists and the psionically gifted. Even as the buildup culminates for the last great push against Mars itself, distractions and complications continue to arise within the ever present specter of alien terror.


Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

First Contact

Chapter IV


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I must see more."

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


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

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

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

She stared blankly for a long second -

...

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

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

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

...

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

...

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

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

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

"Looks can be deceiving."

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kiima closed her eyes and took another small drink.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yeah! The uplink works!"

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

Just needed to do a passive scan and...

Four blips appeared on the map!

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

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

Alright, so, he had them located, at least generally. It looked like they were all in the Eastern hemisphere. Rae and Ryo looked like they were in proximity to each other all the way over in Japan.

Starfire looked to be in China somewhere, but it was impossible to narrow her signal down further. Damn, he sure hoped they all had enough cash for plane tickets, because there was no way he was taking a world tour just to pick their butts up.

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

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

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

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

"... Oops."

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

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

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


Victoria Christianson was a bit of a scifi geek.

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

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

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

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

It didn't add up.

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

No credit cards.

No big purchases.

Nothing.

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

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

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

Motive.

What was this guy's motive?

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

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

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

"Aw, damnit!"

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

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

She had been looking for some coffee, anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

No way.

Was that possible?

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

And yet…

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

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

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

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

A short drive later, and she saw it firsthand.

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

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

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

The immediate question was, where would he strike next?

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


Lieutenant Uehara Daizo was a career beat cop.

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

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

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

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

"Central BCC to Unit 562."

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

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

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

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

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

No one wanted a repeat of Flight 61.

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

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

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

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

Parking quickly, Daizo immediately found a familiar face.

"Suzahara!"

"Uehara!"

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

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

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

"Not likely."

"Yeah."

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

Suzahara nodded slowly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These two were just kids.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What on Earth were these two kids?


New Chitose Airport

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

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

But those years were behind him, now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"This is really... really weird."

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

Then... he realized something.

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

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

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

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

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

Ryouga shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

Ryouga stood there for a few seconds, shocked silent.

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

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

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

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

He knew that all too well.

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

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

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

That had to be it.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, not that one," Ryouga fumed.

"How about the bread feud?"

"No, not that either."

"The curse-proof soap debacle?"

"No."

"The Cave of Lost Love?"

"No!"

"The Koi Rod incident?"

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

"Oh, how about-"

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

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

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

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


"Duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdah!"

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

"Duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdun duhdah!"

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

"Doodeloo doodeloo 'duhdun'!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damn, but he was good!

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You sure?"

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

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

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


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

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

Was the girl a dupe?

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

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

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

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

Mousse leaned casually against a pillar, watching, listening.

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

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

"Let me see..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was starting.

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

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

With an audible whine, the lights dimmed.

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

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

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

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

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

And held out his hands.


Raven turned to Ryouga. "An emergency evacuation?"

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

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

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

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

Below, something almost invisible jammed into the ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

His arms lowered to his sides.

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

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

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

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

It took only a second for the first to hit.

...

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

"Raven, be careful!" Ryouga barked.

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

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

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

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

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

"FREEZE!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ryouga nearly slapped himself upside the head.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He rushed at her.

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Bored now."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was then that her eyes began to burn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From his other sleeve, a spray of chemicals mixed, just a foot from the fabric itself, instantly erupting into a geyser of flame. A thermobaric reaction set off an immediate blast wave, knocking away loose rubble and blasting Mousse's hair back. Rooted in place as he was, due to lowering his jin to the point where it merged into the ground, he stood and focused the cone of fire, chemically hotter than the surface of the sun, towards the human-form Ethereal ahead of him; the shockwave, itself powerful enough to kill a normal man, would stun it long enough for the purging flames to finish the job.

The surging flames never even reached the girl, just impotently parting around another of the impenetrable black barriers. Even as the smoke cleared, he could see the alien creature standing behind it, a single hand raised, palm pressed up against the back of the ebon wall. A moment later, the barrier dissolved away and the girl lowered her arm to her side. She was staring at him impassively, her eyes narrowed and beginning to glow with an eerie white light, her breath coming in slow gasps.

Mousse ejected a spent pair of tubes from the end of his sleeve.

'Damnit. I got sloppy. I should've coordinated that with a disruptive psi attack. Now she has glowing eyes. This ...probably isn't good.'

A moment later, a black aura sprang up around the darkly dressed girl, slowly crackly away like an unholy bonfire. She then lifted her arms to her side and began to float an inch above the ground.

"Alright, Mousse. I was willing to play along for a moment there, but you've gone too far. Let's see how you like dealing with your own favorite tactic."

The ethereal in human form then thrust her hand forward. Black lances of energy launched forth from her aura, a dozen of the foot long slivers firing out from her palm in a matter of seconds. Mousse's eyes widened as the black missiles began to tear into the ground as she gauged the distance between them, sending debris flying up in a storm of shrapnel.

"Nabiki! I need those reinforcements!" Mousse wasn't too proud to call in for more firepower, not against a damned TK-centric Ethereal. Still, they hadn't been given permission to bypass the Section Seven restrictions on firearms. Luckily, they'd planned for this. Once it got rescinded...

But that was later.

Right now consisted of jumping through the debris and dodging as many of the telekinetic lances as possible. He didn't dare attempt to tank any of them, even the ones which missed narrowly slashed through his fortified robes exposing the mesh of alien allow beneath; she might as well have been unleashing a rapid fire barrage of geistlances! Desperately, he internalized his battle aura. He knew his weaknesses better than anyone else. A telekinetic of this magnitude was not a good opponent, and India Squad had encountered its share of Class-A Ethereals. Necessity and survival meant that he had to come up with a counter, should his weapons either fail or not be available. Kuro Hakuchouranbu (Flight of the Black Swan) was too risky at the moment.

It would have to be the Kichi Housu (Lucky Phoenix Nest) then.

And he would need to land it before Red Team got involved and ended up killed. Steeling himself, Mousse ducked under a displaced teller machine, spitting tickets as it spun through the air. Twirling gracefully, he took aim.

"Karasu Sansai Ha!"
(Raven Storm Wave)

A metal storm of bladed flechettes shot out from his sleeve as he ran perpendicular to the telekinetic monster. Predictably, she managed to stop the storm of blades aimed directly at her with another black shield. That particular defense was getting ... annoying. Over a hundred other blades went wide, hitting the ceiling and walls and floor. Mousse took that moment to depress the concealed trigger for a set of planted explosives.

Blasts shook the terminal.

The girl, despite appearances, was still mostly human. She also seemed to be ready for most of his tricks. These were not demolition charges, however. They were concussive explosives, like the MK3A2. Waves of overpressure rippled through the air at mach speed, not totally hindered by what black shields the girl managed to erect. They appeared to be permeable to normal sonic vibration - like human speech - and what they did manage to muffle simply went around, transmitted via the air around them. At the same time, Mousse fully expected the sound from the explosions to rupture the demonic creature's human ear drums, Jyusenkoyu cursed human form or not. Even he felt it, despite the flesh-toned ear protection he wore.

...

Raven was rocked back and forth by the unexpected string of explosions. Only the fact that Mousse had been forced to set up the explosives in advance and had not been able to get close enough to Ryouga and herself to place them within their optimum range, saved her from being completely deafened.

The shock waves disoriented her, and she could already see the male Amazon beginning to alter his direction in her mind's eye, preparing to take advantage of the distraction he'd created. Rather than risk whatever new torment he had devised, Raven simply sunk into the floor, leaving the stunned martial artist to attack the innocent ground. A second later, white tile exploded upwards, a solid claw of living darkness tearing upwards and catching Mousse in its clutches.

She didn't like it, but she would need to do something drastic. Who knew how Ryouga was faring? They didn't have time to deal with these people. It was obvious now that something had been done to her one time friend. They needed to get on a plane, legally or not, and find their friends so they could figure this terrible situation out.

"Hidden Weapons Forbidden Skill."

The expanding cloud of smoke seemed to freeze in midair, trembling...

"Kichi Housu."
(Lucky Phoenix Nest)

Before reversing and flying back, towards the center of the tumult. Debris kicked up by Raven's attack tumbled, bounced off the floor, and then shot back into the air. A shockwave formed, heading not out, but in. Caught in a black claw of telekinetic force, Mousse's form shimmered. Tears grew across the length of his robe, revealing the faint blue glow of his battle aura underneath. Finally, even the coils of ebon energy distorted, sucked up the sleeve of the robe.

The aura immediately took on a dark tint.

...

In the center of it all, as streams of dust and debris looped and spun, sucked into his Inverted Hidden Weapons technique, Mousse felt like throwing up. That black ki… it wasn't natural. He'd barely managed to contain even a fraction of it and he could already feel it affecting him. It seemed impossible. The housu was designed and tested to be his ultimate counter to the shishi hokoudan and moko takabisha, not to mention the geistlance and other telekinetic attacks of the alien enemy. Inside the Inverted Field, any mentally controlled technique was rendered down and nullified by Fa Nu's artifact.

He saw his enemy appear, staring up at him in surprise.

Mousse landed on both feet, breathing heavily.

"So..." he managed to say, housu still active, still sucking up everything around him. "You were the greater danger after all... should've known... the little one is always the real monster..."

...

Raven stared at the martial artist, fascinated by the odd ability he'd demonstrated. This strange absorption technique was definitely something he couldn't do before; it didn't seem like something he should be able to do at all, really. Still, it didn't seem to be going too well for him. He looked to be taking on a more pallid pallor, somewhat similar to her own skin tone, and even his hair seemed to be lightening from black to a familiar purple. Perhaps he wasn't prepared to deal with her rather ... unique pedigree?

Well, she had said drastic, after all.

"Alright, Mousse. You think you can handle my power?" she asked, her aura surged up around her. "You're welcome to try."

Moving quickly, she lifted her arms then, and focused her considerable spiritual power through them. A moment passed, as dark energy gathered in a sphere before her hands, only to explode out in a massive beam of crackling black power over four feet in diameter.

"And I said..." He just surged right into the attack. "It doesn't pay to count me out!"

Just like with the claw, it twisted before making contact, sucked not just into his sleeves, but into other tears in his robe. Pressing on, pushing right through the stream of energy like a bear forcing its way upstream, he winced only when acrid black smoke began to rise from tears all across his robe. As the main body of the energy beam finally receded, he pulled back one arm to - for the first time - reach directly into the hem of his robe, by the heart.

When his hand re-emerged, having had to manually retrieve something on his person, it brought with it what looked like some sort of handgun. It didn't look... normal. The design and shape were slightly off. But the fact that he had to retrieve it the way he did, implied he couldn't use both his inverted hidden weapons and regular hidden weapons at the same time. As he brought the weapon to bear, he intensified the output - or maybe it was input - of his technique, ripping the black tendrils of energy off her body as fast as she willed them up.

"About time!" he yelled, discretion and caution thrown to the wind. "Nabiki! Order them in NOW! Everyone you got!"

Raven had been content to let Mousse play his game, not wanting to hurt him, but when she heard the shout, she knew she'd wasted too much time. She couldn't afford to take any more chances. Mousse was out and out attempting to kill her, and whatever allies would come to his aid would doubtless be just as bloodthirsty. They would not just kill her, either, but would kill Ryouga as well. Possibly even track down her friends, given enough time.

This thought roused a familiar spark of rage deep in her heart. Somewhere, deep inside her, something was roused, boiled and churned as it rose to the surface. It was this technique, too. It was ripping energy out of her as fast as she was bothering to produce it. Yet, from his pained expression, her power was also clearly taking its toll on him. His artifact, whatever it was, was impressive, but, in the end it was a creation of humans.

Her power had a much greater and darker origin.

Suddenly, her aura surged, swelling unnaturally. In an instant, Mousse was blown back, his absorption technique unable to cope with the sudden influx of power at the same time he tried to take aim at her. Another set of glaring red eyes opened up on Raven's face as a destructive dome of power spread out from her in every direction, scooping up Mousse and carrying him upwards to smash into the ceiling. The wall separating her from Ryouga's fight was also smashed to pieces, and, though she hadn't intended it, a number of uniformed people that had begun to scurry out of the woodwork at Mousse's desperate call were all blasted from their feet as the wave smashed over them as well.

Except two.

A quick shape jumped forward and around, unfazed by the eruption of malevolent energy. Three quick hops and it crossed the open ruins of the terminal, jumped, and caught Mousse before he could hit the ground. Raven's eyes followed the movement, narrowing slightly at what appeared to be a sword held in this new soldier's hand. No: it was more than that. This was...?

"Shishi hokoudan."

A screaming ball of black and green ki drilled into her side, the name of the attack registering a moment before impact. Keyed as she was to the emotions of her surroundings, she felt the riptide of anger and fear enter her like a knife. Then the ball dug in, nestled within her own dark energy, and exploded.

Already filled with anger and fear, the energy echoed within her, rather than assault her psyche. If anything, it actually reinforced and amplified her own rage. The kinetic force of the blast was still enough to blast her off her feet and send her skidding several yards. Everything grew silent for a moment as the martial artists stared at the fallen form of the darkly clad girl. Most of the sundress she had been wearing had been torn away, revealing a black leotard underneath.

And then a deep, rumbling growl began to fill the air.

A malevolent weight suddenly settled over the entire terminal, setting even the nerves of the seasoned warriors on edge. In a dark surge of motion, the down girl suddenly rose up ... and up! In a matter of seconds, the creature was towering over them, twenty, then thirty feet in height and an unnatural cloak of darkest pitch concealing her from view.

Concealing all but the four, burning points of light that seethed with a hatred that no human mind could understand. An instant later, the furious growl growing in intensity by the second, chairs, teller machines, pieces of rubble and forgotten pieces of luggage were enveloped in black energy and rose into the air, whipping through the air at dangerous speeds.


Batting aside a flying metal desk, Ryouga surveyed the scene.

Mousse had called in a Class-A telekinetic. The Chinese martial artist was not known for his understatement. This pseudo-girl wasn't Class-A. This was 'The Shining' level shit hitting the fan. Even worse than the Higurashi shrine infestation. A few seconds and Kuno was back, Mousse's unconscious form slung over his shoulder. He made a quick hand motion with three fingers.

Alive. Ki reserves low.

He stared back at the towering mass of mental energy. Behind, the Red Team agents, all PSIA operatives and special forces debriefed beforehand, hesitated at the growing scene. To them, it must've seemed like something out of a horror movie. Ryouga watched it with a level expression. It was monstrous, yes, inhuman even. Cologne would have been right at home in there.

"Open Fire!" he ordered, secure now that Mousse was clear.

The staccato beat of nine millimeter SMG rounds filled the air as the stunned, but not panicked, agents moved to try and take cover while gunning down the monstrosity before them. Ryouga had little illusions as to their effectiveness against so stubborn a telekinetic barrier. Unfortunately, Section Seven was still in effect. When this probing failed, he'd order the officers to switch to laser arms.

"Kuno! Cover!"

He ripped a dozen bandannas from his forehead, and charged them as his battle aura swept out without restraint. A blanket of boiling green and black saturated the air, just barely managing to push back the tendrils of black it came in contact with. Mentally, he was already using the psi-amp strapped to his right arm to recycle his growing anger, frustration, fear and depression, into a subconscious mental spiral. As it crested the peak of his aura's projection, he could almost feel the circular circulation of ki around his navel.

Letting the bandannas fly, he imprinted more of his aura in the form of a shishi hokoudan onto the hardened cloth. The blazing disks intercepted flying chunks of steel and reinforced concrete, blasting them into clouds of dust with shearing rather than cutting force. With Mousse tucked away behind the line, already being taken out of danger by one of Red team, Kuno sprung forward and into the fray, sword slashing. Multiple kokuzan arcs (Sky Arc Decapitation) neatly diced obstacles between the fire team and the enemy.

Reaching down, satisfied Red Team had the cover it needed, he retrieved his laser rifle.

It was time to end this.


Raven watched all, perceived all of her enemies at the most primal level. She could feel their emotions, especially the spiraling well of hatred that shone so brightly in their midst. It was intense, and oddly familiar, but it was like a flickering candle standing in the face of her own demonic rage.

Humans did not truly understand what fury was, what it meant to truly hate for hatred's sake.

Numerous other humans were scattered around her, shooting at her with pathetic weapons. Rapidly swirling swathes of black energy whipped around her faster than thought and the small bullets bounced off with no effect at all. With a thought, all of the guns in the hands of the uniformed humans suddenly shone black, before being torn from their hands. Rather than turn the weapons on their wielders, Raven simply willed them to compact into useless balls of metal which then dropped to the floor.

As she was doing this, she was also focusing on the sword wielding human, also vaguely familiar in this state. As he focused on slashing refuse from the air, tendrils of darkness slid along the ground. In a flash, the tentacles suddenly shot up, wrapping around the warrior's limbs and dragging him to the ground. The swordsman gave a panicked shout as she began to drag him, inexorably towards herself.

"Unhand me, vile creature!" The swordsman slashed at the tendril, a blazing arc managing to sever the energy construct. "None may seize the virtuous leg of Tatewaki Kuno without justly earned injury! Guard thyself!"

A second later, something went off in midair, and Raven's vision blurred.

Black energy reached out to try and intercept whatever had just attacked it. The pinpricks of tiny projectiles were gone, but... there. One of the humans still had a weapon. A moment of focus, for some reason harder than before, summoned up to try and crushed the weapon it had overlooked before. The interference from this human's aura was strong, but with no other distractions, Raven knew she could punch through.

Another pellet went off in the air, despite one of her black coils catching it and crushing it. Her vision turned rough, like looking through a stained glass window. Sense and thought became muddied. Another pellet shot through the air, and again it was intercepted. Again, it shattered, releasing both some strange gas - encased in black energy, she didn't fear that - but another wave of numbness. Even cocooned as she was, she began to lose feeling in her extremities. Black energy contorted, as if in pain, before breaking apart.

"Pour it on!" a familiar voice yelled. "Shut this bitch down!"

More of the tiny pinpricks. Bullets. Something else, too. Beams of light. Less of them, but...

Even as the numbness began to overwhelm her, it also cleared her mind. The power seemed distant, like something just out of reach, interactive only with the barest glancing touch of one's fingertips. With it, though, it took the cauldron of rage and hate and survival-fear. It was almost like being forced into a meditative state.

A deep growl reverberated in Raven's throat.

Whatever was happening, whatever strange weapons they were using, she didn't like it. They were annoying, distracting. She didn't want to calm down! She didn't want to stop! She didn't want to sleep!


An instant later, the bombardment stopped. Ryouga bit off a harsh curse when, in a flash, the towering creature suddenly slid back into the ground, vanishing from sight. That trick. It was like Pi Lu's ability to sink into the ground. It would have to be dealt with. He tried to find her by tracking her aura ... but it was too massive, to encompassing. It was like he was standing on top of hell itself.

Uneasily, Ryouga turned in place. Unlike last time, the girl didn't spring back up to attack right away. Cautious as well, Kuno also rose to his feet, readying his laser carbine as he looked around uncertainly. All around them, officers and uniformed police began to shift about nervously. They likely couldn't sense the malevolence of her aura like Ryouga and Kuno could, but the more primitive aspects of their minds were still likely picking up on it on a primal level.

This ... this thing was unlike anything they had ever faced. No Ethereal, no living Trenchard, possessed this sort of power. Saffron came immediately to mind, but his blazing aura of mountain destroying doom wasn't this ominous. It was just powerful. Was this what those other teams had faced when they brought in Subject-A? Or when the Americans cleared out Dunwich?

His train of thought was disrupted when a raspy, sinister chuckle began to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It wasn't as bad as Kodachi's, but still, the disembodied laughter sent a tingle down Ryouga's spine. Beneath him, the dark aura began to twist and churn as well, he could almost feel the alien creature's intent, could sense that something was about to happen.

A sudden shriek split the air, and Ryouga spun, just in time ...

Just in time to see a massive tentacle of midnight black, as thick as a man's chest, surge out of the ground, scattering a group of operatives like dominoes, and wrap around one of the main support pillars of the terminal. Across the room, another one did likewise grasping another of the support structures. Throughout the room, like a dark Kraken rising from the depths, vile tendrils lashed out to encircle key structural supports in the terminal. The laughter only increased as, an instant later, the entire terminal began to groan ominously as the telekinetic constructs began to pull on the supports with impossible strength.

"She's bringing down the building! Take out the tentacles!" Ryouga barked frantically. There would be no way to evacuate all of the officers in time if this mad creature actually shattered those pillars! He didn't even bother with the stun grenades, going straight to the laser rifle itself. Invisible pulses of light skittered over the various tentacles, burning into them slightly, but not doing nearly enough damage, fast enough, and there were just too many to deal with! Officers who had hesitated before reached for laser sidearms, but...

If conventional firepower was lacking, the only option was to augment it with a psionic assault. If this Ethereal thought it could strike with impunity from its demesne, it was severely underestimating them. He'd personally tear it, kicking and screaming, from its supposed sanctuary, and then give it the butt of his rifle for good measure. Tapping into the power of his psi-amp, the lieutenant launched the first few mental feelers -

"Raven, stop!"

A painfully familiar voice suddenly cut through the din of the creaking concrete. It was filled with desperation and fear, though, rather than hatred and spite. Ryouga spun to see ... himself, running to the center of the terminal. It looked like his doppelganger was attempting to stop its minion - or was it is master? - from destroying the airport terminal.

The question was: why?

Ryouga was fairly certain that he could survive the collapse of the building, and if he could, his alien doppelganger surely could, so why would it be so worried about it? Had it felt him preparing a counter-attack? No. That didn't seem possible.

Then, beyond all reason, the quaking actually stopped. With surprising speed, the telekinetic constructs all sank back into the ground, as if they never were. And then, defying logic even further, the alien girl reappeared from her unassailable position, resurfacing near the alien Hibiki. She appeared ... shaken, and collapsed into the alien doppelganger's arms. He appeared to be whispering something to her, but Ryouga couldn't make it out from the distance.

Just what in the world was going on?

He'd known from the beginning that this copy wasn't like the one from before. It seemed capable of functioning without destroying everything around it – for the most part, anyway, the explosion from yesterday was a grim reminder of just how dangerous this thing actually was - and from snippets of captured dialogue, he and this girl were effectively posing as normal people.

If it was a terror agent, it was certainly less than ideal one. It seemed completely random in its unleashing of mass destruction. Rather than just go on a mindless rampage, it blasted a public area, then hid away. Then it popped up right in the middle of a high traffic area like this, perfect for a terrorist attack… and it actually stops the airport from being destroyed?

Or had it read his own attack, and intervened to protect the girl?

If the 'girl' was even what it appeared to be. It was... it was almost comical. Despite himself, he could almost imagine the ludicrous scenario: an Ethereal or Sectoid uses Jyusenkyou water, but ends up becoming truly human, falling for and freeing some copy of himself. They try and flee the country, not quite able to suppress their destructive natures, to live together like Romeo and fucking alien-Juliet. No. No. This girl, a double-A class threat, by the looks of it, and another him. Another DAMN him. If this pair was anything other than a mobile, two man Terror Site, he would eat his bandanna with a side of Akane's famous curry.

Still… watching them, he couldn't help but feel this was even worse. At least if this clone had been like the last abomination, then they'd be on familiar territory. Watching those two, together... like that... for a moment his heart wavered and he almost saw, in them, himself and another girl he'd once tried to protect. It was that thought that snapped him right out of it. There was no room for that sort of thought.

Duty.

He had a duty. A duty to either incapacitate or destroy the monsters that threatened mankind. There was no room in that to entertain notions of sympathy. Not with these things. Focusing on the girl, he tried to fathom just how she had transformed into that demonic form from before. No matter what, she couldn't be allowed to do so again. Given what he's sensed in her ki, however, entering her mind would not be the most savory of tasks. Luckily, stunned and weakened as she was, he wouldn't have to do much more than skirt the edges of her ego.

Focusing his aura into his psi-amp, he attacked.


In her Ryouga's arms, Raven jerked, as if struck.

At the same time, and without warning, another strange pellet-like grenade went off. The numbness returned to her, strong enough to muffle even the words of her companion just inches away, along with a sharper pain that made it difficult to bring her power to bear. Transforming like she had, and now reverting, didn't normally leave her this mentally fatigued. She heard a distance voice and felt herself move through the air.


Kuno and Ryouga advanced on the pair, switching ordinance as the clone started making evasive maneuvers, leaping back and away from the stun bombs. With the enemy stunned and slowed, the two soldiers unleashed more pulses of light from the barrels of their weapons, herding him. Technically, it would only take one solid hit and the beams propagated at lightspeed. Then the mission would be over and they could go home.

"Kuno! Circle around!" Ryouga ordered. "Bakusai Tenketsu!"

At the end of the blasted terminal, a tunneling breaking point turned a swatch of tile on the floor into dry sand. Hitting it, too late to stop his momentum, the doppelganger and his female compatriot slipped and fell. Kuno, moving around from the side, fired off a trio of rounds on semi-auto. A nascent black shield, just barely starting to form in midair, intercepted two of the laser beams. The impact and resulting explosion of superheated air and atmospheric plasma shattered them like glass. The third round went slightly wide, slashing open a section of wall.

...

Raven gasped, pushing harder to protect herself and her Ryouga, hearing him gape at the near miss. She could feel the conflict in his aura between flight and fight. Doing what she could, she started to raise a section of floor to cover them - only to have it shatter and turn into dust. Forgoing a more difficult full body or hemispherical shield, she erected a plain wall of black energy, forcing it out despite another spike of mental pain. Red tinted tracer rounds splashed against the barrier, invisible beams ripping jagged holes in it.

"You're strong." She heard the voice, familiar but not his, and tried to push it out of the edge of her mind. "Too strong. Break."

A trickle of blood ran down her upper lip from her nose, enough to taste the coppery tang.

...

"Raven!" Ryouga yelled, seeing the blood, still supporting her body.

That was it, he had had enough.

He hadn't wanted to hurt these people ... not - not really. But they were trying to kill them! And - and why the Hell was that person over there wearing his face? It was bizarre enough fighting Mousse and Kuno. Kuno was supposed to be in Steel city, and Mousse was supposed to be in freakin' space! There was no reason for them to be here, let alone with another Ryouga!

He couldn't fight him here, though, not with Raven weakened like this. He had no idea what had set her off like that, nearly to the point of destroying the whole damn building, but it seemed almost guaranteed that it had something to do with these ... these doppelgangers. Scrambling to his feet, he took a firm stance, shifting Raven so that he was holding her against his body with a single arm.

"Raven, I got this... don't strain yourself anymore."

Then, with a flashing swing of his arm, he reached behind his back and pulled back forward. The sports bag that had been containing it shredded to pieces from the force of his swing, revealing the T-Brella in all its stark white and blue glory. Glaring at the evil twins, he waited for Kuno and 'Ryouga' to lift their guns again.

The murderous bastards were more than happy to comply, and began to open fire again. Without flinching, Ryouga held the T-Brella out straight before him. With a single touch of a button, the umbrella

snapped open and a shimmering yellow field of force sprang up to encompass the canopy, humming quietly. A trio of the odd energy bursts splashed over the shield - personally designed and installed by Gizmo himself - harmlessly. The Lost Boy smirked at the shocked expressions on the two 'things' faces, obviously they had not been expecting him to deflect their advanced weaponry with something as mundane as an umbrella. All the more evidence that the other him couldn't really be him.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Ryouga turned tail and sprinted away from the pair. He smashed through the exit a moment later, a few errant plasma blasts vaporizing chunks of the wall to his side as he slid through. He found himself on the tarmac then, and cursed loudly. The last thing he needed was a massive, wide open space with nowhere to hide!

Wait! At the far end of the landing strip, a plane was just starting to roll, preparing for take off! It looked to be a smaller, private plane, apparently not interested in the emergency situation that had encompassed the airport, but if he could get them to it, Raven could get them on board easily.

Holding his T-Brella behind him, he began to sprint down the runway at full speed, asphalt smashing messily with each heavy step as he tore across the tarmac. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that they were still being pursued; not really a surprise at all. The Kuno clone was falling behind, but, if anything, the other Ryouga actually seemed to be catching up.

"Raven, what in the world is going on?" He barked between breaths.

"I - I'm not certain. That Ryouga, it feels real ... but - but it feels poisoned, filled with more poison and hatred then you were even when under the control of the Headmaster," the young woman tried

to explain.

Ryouga nodded to himself. "So, evil clone, you think? These guys are acting psychotic and they have copies of people that couldn't possibly be here..."

Raven nodded weakly. "The Headmaster did have access to both your genetics and your psyches for a long time. It's quite possible that he had time to clone you. It would explain why they're so intent on finishing us off. Getting revenge on two of the people that sent him to prison and wipe out the master copies at the same time."

"Argh!" Ryouga groaned. "Evil clones? This kind of thing is only supposed to happen to Ranma! ... Actually, I hope there is a copy of that bastard in the woodwork. I wouldn't mind a chance to really cut loose on him!"

"Now isn't the time for - for jokes, Ryouga! We need to escape!"

He nodded sharply; skillfully defending against another snap shot from behind, intercepting the shot was only possible by reading the trajectory of the barrel and using the full size of his umbrella in the split second between feeling intent and actual firing. He started, pointing to the small plane picking up speed a hundred yards down the runway.

"I know! We just need to reach that plane!"

"That plane?" Raven asked, straining to see.

In a flash, a lance of light flew past them, flying wide and nearly invisible in its passing. He skipped a few steps to the side, a little panicked at the close call ... only to watch, despondently, as a beam lingered along an ionized midair path down the runway, having hit at c and melted through the front landing gear of the small plane. It was a shot that was far too perfect to have been anything but intentional. A second later, the nose of the plane crashed to the ground, its propeller smashing to scrap as the vehicle ground to a shuddering stop.

"... The plane that's clearly disabled?" Raven deadpanned.

Ryouga let out a curse so vile that a blush sprang up on Raven's cheeks ... and she didn't even speak French. The martial artist skidded to a stop a moment later, breathing evenly. He stared at the downed plane, their only means of escape... It appeared that they had officially run out of options. Turning back to look over his shoulder, he saw the evil clones quickly closing the distance.

He sighed, a tired, weary sigh. "Do you think you're strong enough to handle Kuno?"

Pushing off from his chest, Raven regained her feet, only slightly shakily. She rotated her arm several times, attempting to work out a kink, then nodded. "I've got a good idea of how Kuno fights from Beast Boy. This clone seems a bit different, but I still think it shouldn't be a problem. The question is, can you control yourself?"

Ryouga glared at her. "I thought you said this wasn't the time for jokes?"

Across the open space of the runway, the droning sound of helicopter blades and the sudden blast of wind signaled the arrival of yet more trouble for the displaced duo. Blue and white choppers, police colors, zeroed in on the two with lights as they moved into position, covering potential avenues of escape. Rolling back doors on the sides, armed men took aim at the pair below. Higher up, another aircraft, this one some form of hoverjet, angled slightly to point its bow down at them. Distant sirens screamed along one of the highways flanking the airport.


Cyborg laughed to himself as he rode down the elevator of the non-police-controlled building. It sure as heck beat taking the stairs. Honestly, this whole situation had been a bit of an eye opener. He'd taken for granted how good at their jobs the actual career criminals were back home. He'd thought he'd been doing a good job, but he was far more used to the 'stopping crime' aspect of the business as opposed to the other half – that being, committing it.

Sure, all the tech details had been cake, but he'd forgotten that hacking systems was only a single part of successfully pulling of a heist. Obviously the helicopter which he'd mistaken for a traffic copter had spotted him early in his climb. Rewiring cameras was one thing - not to mention awesome - but there wasn't much he could do to stop some random guy from just looking at him.

Still, it made him glad that there weren't any super villain types here. Sure, the cops had found him easy enough, but they didn't actually have any way of dealing with him. If only he'd managed to contact the others!

If Jinx was about, avoiding the cops would be a breeze... unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Moments later, the elevator door slid open and Cyborg charged out. He crossed the main lobby in several loud, heavy footsteps and crashed through the large glass doors without even slowing down. ... In retrospect, he supposed he was being a pretty bad guest in this dimension, doing stuff that he would never do back home, but – but they'd started it by starting to hunt him down before he'd even done anything wrong yet!

Well, aside from that thing with the public phone. … A sudden thought struck him. 'Was that why they're after me? …Naw, can't be. There's no way they'd have this kind of force after me just for a little harmless vandalism.'

By the same time he surged out into the street, a small mob of police and SWAT officers were pouring out of the Citgroup building as well. They were some way away, but they were quickly charging towards their vehicles. That and that darned helicopter was already shining its spotlight down on him!

He began to sprint away down the street; his cybernetic legs carrying him faster than any human had any right to run. But not even the technological marvels that were his feet could allow him to outrun the helicopter overhead. He'd barely made it a half a kilometer when he heard the roaring of engines en masse.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw a number of the squad cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, tearing out onto the road behind him and speeding in his direction. Even at his best pace, he couldn't hope to outrun pursuit vehicles on foot. And though running through a few buildings might let him lose the helicopter, it would leave one hell of a trail for them to follow regardless...

The decision was taken out of his hands within a minute, as the cars caught up to him. Half of them actually pulled ahead of him, only to skid and swerve to a stop, hoping to block off his retreat. The rest of the cars did the same, blocking off the side and rear directions as well. He briefly considered just tromping right over the cars, but he was starting to see the writing on the wall. He wasn't going to get out of here just by running.

Skidding to a stop himself, he spun around a few times as police began to pour out of their cars and level weapons at him again. Cyborg frowned, not really paying attention to the shouted orders to get on his knees and place his hands behind his head. This wasn't his world; he didn't belong here. It was only fair that he did everything he could to get home. Hell, even if he'd gone right up to these guys in the first place and tried to explain his situation, they just would have called him insane and locked him up ...and even if they didn't, they didn't have anywhere near the tech to help him anyway.

Somewhere in the distance, someone shouted something about a 'last warning' of some sort, but he paid it no mind. Finding his friends was his only priority here, not playing nice with the locals. If they'd had decent enough tech in the first place, he wouldn't have even needed to go after that damn big transmitter-

A shot rang out, and Cyborg felt a light 'ping' bounce off his shoulder.

Somewhere, deep inside, the final straw drifted down to land on the poor, overburdened back of the camel. Growling to himself now, Cyborg dropped into a low combat crouch and activated the auxiliary armor he'd installed after his first battle with Ryouga. Beneath his clothing and mask, the silvery metallic plates slid down to cover his more vulnerable areas - not that he was worried any of them had the Bakusai Tenketsu, but he was just done playing around.

"Alright!" He shouted loudly. "You guys wanna fight? Then let's go!"

He was a bit surprised at how quickly they complied as he was suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree by incoming fire. Lifting up a hand to offer a bit more protection to his already covered human eye, he glared at the cops. Nothing they had could even scratch his armor... too bad the same couldn't be said for them.

Lifting his right hand, his sleeve exploded apart as his arm converted loudly into its sonic cannon mode and began to glow ominously with pale azure light. Not even sure what was going on, the cops that noticed - i.e. the ones standing right in front of him - just stared like deer in headlights at the sudden appearance of the obvious weapon.

Cyborg locked targeting reticules onto the heavily armed SWAT officers, the lightly armored police officers... the apparently unarmed helicopter...

A young woman, apparently out for a late night jog or something, stood far behind the gathered police, wide eyed shock on her face as she watched the firefight. She wasn't the only one, either. Innocent bystanders littered the streets in this city that never seemed to sleep.

If he started blasting away...

And these weren't crooks, weren't super powered villains out terrorizing the city.

That was actually him at the moment.

Cyborg winced harshly at that realization. These guys were just doing their jobs. He was the one destroying the city and disrupting satellite networks. They were just trying to figure out what was going on. They sure as heck didn't deserve to be blasted into the dirt for that.

Slowly, his aim wavered, the light glowing in the cannon died, and finally, his weapon shifted back to a simple hand once more. A moment later, he lifted both hands above his head and - doing his best to be heard over the intermittent gunfire - yelled out two words he'd never imagined having to say before.

"I... surrender."


The disturbances were felt by one of the Navigators.

Any thinking sentient being could pilot a ship, but Navigators were created for it. They did not so much pilot the ship as they became it: their thoughts translated motion and field and weapon, sense and sensation becoming gravitational wave and quantum flux. They were a mind within a machine.

This was an alien Navigator.

An empty husk sitting before a dully lit display, mind lost within psionic circuitry, it was not unusual for a Navigator's body to begin to atrophy as it stayed at its station, forgetting and forgoing petty organic necessities like breathing or moving. Yet all were within The Mind, and the Mind always ultimately unplugged those who began to forget themselves and their duty.

One particular Navigator had been within his machine for sixty three Earth-hours. Sectoids had little sensation of taste or even touch, yet through the machine, it could taste the stellar winds and caress the flow of gravitons. The experience of existing through the ship's sensors was more vivid and vibrant than any organic being could imagine. It had not moved, nor had the ship, but there was no need. Everything within a hundred kilometers was at its fingertips and on the tip of its tongue.

Thus, the Navigator felt the anomaly.

It tasted strange, new, familiar to one thing and yet different. It felt at first like a pinprick in space and time, quick and sharp, puncturing and then withdrawing. It - the Navigator was instantly inundated with information from the Mind. This phenomena was similar to the massive anomaly which had occurred in the planet's southern hemisphere. That event had been too brief, too distant from any of their installations to properly identify. It was why the Ethereal in command of this small research fleet was currently absent, having been dispatched by the Mind to investigate.

Senses reached out across miles, seeking, hungry, desirous. Psionics activated, brushing gently across the general area of the disturbance. The long distance probe tasted many things at once: hundreds of animals, trillions of nearly mindless insect species, the dull flavor of plant life.

One thing stood out. It tasted different, unique, sentient. It was thinking and reasoning and human. More than just meat. The probe could not go deeper. It was designed to detect from great distances, like the beastly sense of smell. This pinprick-human, however, did not seem normal, mundane. The Navigator and The Mind had sampled untold numbers of humans over hundreds of thousands of years. It knew the taste of Man before he even called himself such.

There was no mistaking that this was similar to the earlier anomaly, only smaller . . . like an echo. And now a human presence could be sensed at the epicenter, a human presence which defied categorization. The Navigator did not possess the faculties to consider what this could possibly mean. It did not need to.

This pinprick.

This taste.

FIND IT

Within The Mind, there was a quick consensus.

They would all taste it soon.


The sparse stand of trees stood serenely in the still of the night. It had been decades since anything on less than four legs had disturbed this little patch of forest, and nothing at all moved now, aside from the gentle breeze rustling the leaves playfully. Only the gentle light of the moon filtering through the branches offered any form of illumination to the otherwise peaceful scene...

A crack of thunder sundered the air, and a sourceless gust of wind blasted the leaves from the trees mere seconds before a black, swirling vortex appeared in the air. The vertical whirlwind hung in space, twisting malevolently for several seconds, before suddenly ejecting a pink and purple blur. Mere moments later, the portal shrank in itself and vanished, leaving the near severed remains of the closest trees to collapse to the forest floor in a cacophony of crashing and splintering wood. The unfortunate form bounced, and spun through the trees, bright flashes of pink sparking off whenever they clipped a branch or skipped along the ground before, finally, skidding to a stop many yards away.

With a pained groan, Jinx finally dragged herself to her feet. The pink haired sorceress massaged her aching back and gave herself a small push to straighten it up fully. She then took a moment to check herself over, only to give a grunt of disgust as she noted the sharp tear in the shoulder of her dress.

"Damnit, I just bought this, too, and Ryouga didn't even notice it..."

Grumbling darkly to herself, Jinx looked around.

". . ."

Quickly fighting down the overpowering urge to swear like a sailor, the vigilante took a deep breath and calmly smoothed out her dress. She then proceeded to kick the nearest sapling, snapping the narrow tree in half.

"'Hecate damnit, Robin!'"

That - that greasy haired little punk had let her go! She knew he wasn't a fan of her, but seriously, letting her fall into a swirling vortex of doom? She was sooo gonna have words with that - that snot blasting Titan!

. . . Snot blasting?

"Damn it, I'm actually missing Gizmo of all people. I seriously need to get ditch this solo act." Honestly, if Ryouga wasn't stringing her along with his hemming and hawing about actually starting their own team, she'd just take off and team up with Happosai again.

Oh god, and now she was actually missing Happosai . . .

With a resigned sigh, the pink eyed sorceress leaned against a convenient tree, only to collapse flat on her face when the seemingly strong branch snapped like a twig under her elbow. Flipping over onto her back, she glared darkly at the jagged edges of the snapped branch.

"Ohhh, you. There's no way that I've put on that much weight."

Predictably, the tree did not reply.

"Okay, first things first. I need to stop talking to myself." With a quick roll, she flipped up to her feet. "Second thing, I need to figure out where the heck I am."

She'd need to work on step one a little more. Taking a second to pull an errant branch out of her elaborately styled hair, Jinx then pulled out her hexagonal communicator and flipped it open.

"Hey, Ryouga, are you there? This is Jinx, looking for a pick up."

Silence. Hmmm, that was odd. The thing didn't seem to be broken, the screen was lighting up and everything, but no response.

"Robin? Cyborg? ugh . . . Raven?" Her distaste was quite audible with that last one, but it made no difference in the results. No one replied to her call, and she was fairly sure it wasn't just because she wasn't exactly Miss Popular.

"Okay. Now I'm starting to get worried..." Her head tilted to the side as she looked around. "Still need to work on that 'talking to myself' thing, too."

A sharp snap from somewhere in the darkness suddenly put the ex-villainess on alert, but a second later she forced herself to relax. Honestly, this meta human lifestyle of hers was making her waaay too paranoid. She just got dropped god knows where, completely at random, somewhere on the globe. The odds of there being anyone even close to her, let alone anyone that would actually give a crap about her, would require 'astronomically' bad luck.

"Meh, probably just a squirrel, or a komodo dragon, or something. Now! If I was civilization... in which direction would I be?"

Picking a random orientation, Jinx started through the woods - only wincing in pain once or twice along the way.


x


Abstract -

Tatewaki Kuno
Rank: Squaddie, 1st class

Born Tokyo, Japan, mother: Y. Kuno, father: K. Kuno (see: unofficial criminal record), sister: K(odachi). Kuno. Presently, mother (deceased); father (considered low risk, monitored, administration official at Furinkan, Nerima, Tokyo); sister (maintained at Sanctuary Community ID304). No other living immediate relatives. Kuno family independently wealthy - extensive property ownership throughout Japan. Finances investigated for potential Sirius connections. So far, records clean.

T. Kuno was enrolled at the University of Kyoto on a kendo scholarship at the time of the Nerima Incident (see: Nerima Abduction Event). Poor grades dot academic record. Interest in pursuing liberal arts degree. Practices advanced forms of kendo and "kenjutsu." Comparatively limited battlefield utility when compared to squadmates' areas of expertise, see: R. Hibiki (profile), R. Kumon (profile), M. Tzu (profile). Optimal melee engagement distance noted as 1.3 to 4.5 meters. Some techniques very well suited for use in breeching and rapid assault scenarios.

Service record as follows: Squad: India (Hibiki, Kumon, Tzu, Kuno) out of Seiran, under Cptn Ben-Solomon. Assigned rank acting Squaddie (Oct, 2006); Squaddie 1st class (Dec, 2006). Participated in AB17 Alpine Echo Seven (December, 2006). Fiftieth Kill recorded (January, 2007). Temp assignment to Luna (2007). (see: Service Record, attached) (see: Psionic Profile, attached). See: weapons procurement regarding replacement sword (attached) and gauntlets (on request).

Underwent two month mentor program (Srg. J. Hanley), standard psionic imprinting (see: psi-gym usage). Note: subject has very high psionic strength but has progressed very slowly in development of higher techniques. Nonetheless, not every solider with an integral armor amp needs to use the thing like a virtuoso. PsiDev have focused on optimizing psionic defenses.

T. Kuno was not initially expected to be entered into the experimental 'martial arts squads' program, but has fit into India Squad well over the last few months. Despite some early difficulties adapting, he has become a rather popular and well liked figure on base. Not expected to advance to NCO or CO programs. Solid Squaddie material. Has learned to follow orders and support team. Demonstrates high degree of commitment and lethality as necessary. Morale and loyalty are considered VERY GOOD. Because of high innate psionic strength, and existing attachment to Seiran: India, the Squaddie is recommended for inclusion in CLEANSLATE. We will need as many 85+ psi-str grunts as possible when we finally put our boots on Mars.

[signature redacted]


OUTGOING DATA RECORD
INTERCEPT: 18E-781-77902
DATE: 12.21.2006 01:12:04

T. Kuno (Seiran Mtn)
K. Kuno (SC:304)

K: Brother dear.

T: Sister.

K: I have been told that you were wounded in battle.

T: Tis [sic] only a minor inconvenience. I shall resume my duties upon a swift convalescence.

K: You are as hard to kill as always. Were I there, I would make you a cup of my special herbal tea.

T: Were you here, and had you made me a cup of tea, I would test it first on the dog.

K: (laughter)

T: I can not believe it, but I think I actually missed hearing that laugh of yours.

K: Oh (?). You must truly be in a detestable shape, Brother dear. Are your injuries that grievous (?).

T: No. No, they are not. I was. I was lucky. But this loss reminds me of how our family sword was destroyed. Even now I have never forgive myself for that.

K: (laughter) I always said that hunk of metal was less than a letter opener. You are better without it (!).

T: Do not say that, Sister. I had wished to bear our family blade to glory on the battlefield. Instead, in but my first real mission, it was reduced to nothing. The hilt and little beside remains. My wounds, then and now, are as nothing compared to the blow to my honor that was losing that sword.

K: (...) You are truly a fool, Brother dear. How difficult is it to replace a blade? Do you think one mourns for destroyed (...) what are they? Those fighting planes? Or some sunken ship? A sheathed sword is nothing until someone uses it.

T: (...) I know.

T: (...) But. I. I was. Not (...)

K: Brother dear. All you have to do is use a stronger sword. A more reliable blade. Is that truly so hard? Do you not already have one? You fight alongside my beloved Ranma-sama. How is he to triumph in my name without worthwhile subordinates? (laughter)

T: (laughter) I will do that. I can not be showed up by underclassmen after all (!).

K: Oh yes. Now that I think of it, you fight with those rough vagabonds I met before. I suspect you must fit in well with such an uncouth band.

T: Our enemies are terrible indeed. Especially (...) well, uncouth or not, we will strike at them.

K: (...) Yes. I expected as much from you, Brother dear. You were always thick headed. I still do not fully understand this enemy you have made but do finish them off quickly. Things are most dull here in this strange town without any of the usual peasants to play with (...) and I know my poor Ranma-sama pines for me as I do him. (laughter) Do extend to my beloved my deepest and dearest wishes, will you, Brother dear?

T: I shall endeavor to do so when next I see him. But what of (...) that other fool you had your eye on?

K: (laughter) Oh yes, my dear Taro. A beautiful man with the most fascinating and potentially delightful abilities. But I have not forgotten my first love. Or given up on my dear, noble Ranma-sama. There is room in the heart of a Kuno for two loves, is there not? (laughter)

T: (...) Yes. Quite.


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BROTHER EYE PROTOCOLS
TOP CLEARANCE REQUIRED

SUBJECT: 6138

CODENAME: Raven
REAL NAME: *Unknown*

SPECIES: Human/Unknown Hybrid
HEIGHT: 5'5"
WEIGHT: 105lbs

HAIR COLOR: Violet
EYE COLOR: Violet

KNOWN ABILITIES: Subject displays powers that correspond to those of a high calibre telekinetic, or 'hard light construct' manipulators in the vein of Subject: 005: Codename: Green Lantern. True nature of powers is yet to be determined as several secondary abilities do not correspond to powers demonstrated by other telekinetic psions or energy manipulators. Subject has demonstrated empathic and telepathic abilities, the latter usually only manifesting with an obvious display referred to by the Subject as her 'Soul Self'. The Subject has also manifested the ability to phase through solid matter and teleport (extent of distance Subject is able to traverse is unknown). Finally, the subject, purportedly, possesses the ability to heal others, though the limitations of this power are unknown at this time.

EXPLOITABLE WEAKNESSES: Subject is susceptible to fits of extreme emotion if pressed. This shortcoming can and has been used against her to great affect by Subject: 8839: Codename: Terra. Highest Probability of incapacitating Subject is to engage in psychological warfare and capitalize on the ensuing loss of control.

*Special note: Subject is to be considered highly dangerous, and caution should be used in handling her. The Subject's 'loss of control' is closely linked to a startling increase in destructive ability. Only suitably trained or empowered operatives should attempt capture of the Subject.

KNOWN HISTORY: The Subject comes from a pocket dimension Designation: Azarath. Little direct knowledge of the Subject's life during her adolescence in Azarath is known. Shortly after entering this dimension, the Subject approached the Justice League, looking for assistance. The Subject explained that an interdimensional incursion from an, if the Subject's story is to be believed, Omega level threat. At that time Subject: 543: Codename: Zatanna informed the Justice League that the Subject possessed an 'evil' aura, and should not be trusted. Heeding her advice, the Subject was denied assistance by the League, and was turned away. Shortly thereafter, the Subject became a founding member of Team Designation: Teen Titans. Since that time, the Subject has demonstrated several instances of emotional instability, but has not yet been categorized as a threat to herself or those around her. No further evidence has been provided in concern to the espoused threat concerning the being referred to as Trigon. Further research is required.

CURRENT THREAT LEVEL: B

PERSONAL NOTE: I know it's not like me to question Zatanna... but in this case I believe she may have been wrong. Dick's reports of the girl have painted her as relentlessly determined to help her friends, as well as the people of Jump City. More than most, I think I can understand what it means to have darkness in your heart, but still strive to do what is right. And if her story was actually true, a possibility that seems more probable with every report from Dick, then it might be urgent to contact her and begin making contingency plans based on her knowledge of this Trigon. Though her current threat level is B, based solely on her array of powers, if her presence in our dimension is somehow linked to a being as powerful as she described, then it is possible she should be raised to S rank and watched far more closely.

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