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Ōmure-jima, Welcome House, Saturday morning at breakfast (Onishuto time: Two hours after lunch)...

"Such a calm breeze..."

The blonde Aryan beauty now standing at the old sea wall that formed the outer border of Welcome House's grounds blinked as she gazed towards the open Pacific Ocean beyond the limits of the Sagami Sea, glad it was a clear day so she could take in her surroundings and better adapt to what she had become hours before. While she had been pleased to get the chance to nap after she had been brought here by the Undertaker the previous evening after her resurrection over the North Atlantic, Luisa von Bismarck had effectively slept for seventy-one years after she — as Germany's penultimate battleship — had been hunted down and pounded into scrap by the vengeful crews of the Royal Navy. And while the people who lived here like young Saeru Hinako — now off to the planet Uru to look in on her elder half-sister Tariko Katabarbe — had vowed never to violate war graves again, the sheer number of true "dead" from the sinking of Bismarck actually was about HALF of what the records stated.

"Will I ever meet you..." Luisa whispered. "Dame Drachentöter..."

"Sadly, her identity must remain secret for a time, Luisa."

Luisa tensed, then she turned to see a purple-haired arch-mage standing behind her, dressed in her normal Gothic-like noblewoman's clothing, a light smile on her face. "Frau Hirosaki," the battleship-turned-twenty-someting woman breathed out even if she was more than grateful that the Dark Heart of Pure Chaos had spoken to her in German. "It may not be wise to approach me in such a manner."

"The newness of your transformation is making you hesitate at this time," Hirosaki Chikage warned as she moved to stand beside the taller woman. "But it's more than understandable. While you were effectively 'alive' as a battleship, you never once were expected to become physically human. While you did inherit the memories of your crew — both saved and lost — to understand the basic mechanics of being human, they were men." Her royal blue eyes sparkled in amusement. "Unless...?"

Sensing that unspoken question, Luisa snorted. "Nein. There was no woman who disguised herself to serve, even if such would have been more than understandable in those times. The rage many in the Fatherland felt at being treated like that after the Great War was immense."

"And taken gross advantage of by Herr Hitler and his clique."

That made Luisa nod. "Ja. I sensed some of my crew come by when Herr Professor Ballard discovered my wreck twenty-three years ago. They knew of the horrible things that stupid corporal and his friends unleashed. My admiral never cared for that nonsense in the first place even if he wished the Fatherland to be strong again." She shook her head. "No wonder Catarina's so ashamed..."

"If she ever moves to the United States, she'll be treated well," Chikage assured her. "President Bartlet is a good friend of Ane-kun's and has always supported her quest to see us protected from the aliens. If a new version of the Liberty Legion is formed, Catarina will no doubt be a part of it."

"The American team of metahumans meant to fight the Rittmeister's last round of students, ja?"

"Ja."

"Guten Morgen, Eure Durchlaucht."

Luisa gargled, then she looked over. "Frau Tenhiro!"

As the battleship-turned-twenty-something beauty flustered in embarrassment at being called "Your Serene Highness" by a bowing Tenhiro Haruka, Chikage smiled...


Inside the main commons of Welcome House...

Tendō Akane moaned as she slowly rose from her bed.

"Damn...morning already...?"

Grunting, the raven-haired tomboy slipped out from under her covers, stretching herself for a moment before opening the blinds over the window of her guest room to gaze out at the back lawn of the youth hostel she had stayed in overnight. Noting Luisa von Bismarck now acting like a flustered child as she tried to admonish Tenhiro Haruka while Hirosaki Chikage stared at this in amusement, the Hammer of Passion could only smile. "You're a really lucky lady, Tariko-chan."

A knock echoed from the door. "Akane-san?"

Perking on recognizing the voice of one of the cute "shipgirls" that had been there at Fūrinkan High School the previous afternoon when Akane finally recovered from what her idiot father had done to her years ago in the wake of her Gifting, the nude woman walked over to slip on the housecoat she had been given since she had come here only in her battlesuit as Cremisi. "Come in, Fujiko-chan."

The door opened to reveal the first of her class of destroyers and the first shipgirl to rise thanks to Saeru Hinako. "Gomen nasai, Akane-san," Fukushima Fujiko said as she stepped inside, a small bag in hand. "Sakuya-san arranged to get some clothes for you so you don't have to wear the battlesuit all the time. Fortunately, both Tariko-san and Shirei-kan knew your sizes through Kanami-san, so we made sure you would get some properly-fitting clothes."

Akane blushed at such thoughtfulness by the matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan and her siblings. "Appreciated, Fujiko-chan," she said as she took the bag in hand, then slipped off her housecoat to get dressed; since there were only women in this place thanks to Moroboshi Ataru living in the rotunda at the old seaward side of Welcome House, there was no need to worry about peepers.

She was quick to sense the former destroyer blush madly as her well-toned body was revealed, then she posed herself slightly. "Like?" she cooed.

Fujiko's cheeks reddened more. "Akane-san is so beautiful...!"

That made the youngest child of the Tendō of Ōizumi blush in return at that honest appraisal, then she moved to slip on a pair of sports panties and a matching bra, both fitting her perfectly. Noting there were pairs of track shorts and sweat shirts along with a couple pairs of jeans and button blouses, Akane then gazed briefly at Fujiko to note she was prepared to do some exercise. Quickly donning a red shirt and matching shorts, she then pulled out some socks and the pair of running shoes provided by the Moroboshi Clan before she reached over for her war hammer, which had been leaning against the wall by the window. With that, she reached over to allow Fujiko to take her hand, then they headed out.

"Poi! Fujiko-chan!"

Fujiko and Akane stopped, turning around to see Hamamoto Kodachi, Kisaragi Mutsuko and her younger sister Kisaragi Kyōko come over. Like the first of her class of destroyer shipgirl, the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class and the first and second of the Mutsuki-class were also in track gear. "Oh, Kodachi-chan! Mutsuko-chan! Kyōko-chan! Ohayō!" Fujiko called out to her old fleet mates.

"Everyone else is out on the front lawn ready for calisthenics!" Mutsuko called out. "We can't seem to find Ryūnosuke-san anywhere."

That made the "flagship" of the shipgirls on Ōmure-jima blink. "Is Steve-sensei here? He was going to help her adjust to being Gifted."

"I haven't seen her..."

"HELP!"

All the shipgirls gasped. "SHIREI-KAN!" Fujiko screamed out.

All four of them then raced for the end of the hallway, where an open window was conveniently located. They leapt through it, flying down to starboard to land at the main entrance to the rotunda before running inside, falling in alongside their sisters who also heard Moroboshi Ataru scream out and were streaming into the building. Watching this as she walked over to see what was going on, Akane nodded.

"Good reflexes..."


Inside the rotunda, ground floor...

"Oi! Teitoku! What's wrong?!"

"Goshujin-sama! Are you alright?!"

As Ashikaga Akemi knocked hard on Ataru's bedroom door, footfalls heralded the approach of a certain metahuman detective from London. "Oi! What the hell's wrong with you guys?!" Yotsuba Dunn demanded from the second floor landing. "Some of us are still trying to sleep!"

"Teitoku called out for help, Yotsuba-san!" Ashikaga Ami said as her sister moved to force the door.

"Catarina-san! Please...we just met...!"

All the shipgirls awked on hearing that pleading voice from inside Ataru's bedroom, then Yotsuba grinned in delight. "Ani-chama date checky!" she bellowed out as she leapt down from the second-floor landing, then raced over to shove Akemi and Ami out of the way before quickly twisting the doorknob in a unique way to unlock it. She then shoved open the door, her camera out and ready.

"YOTSUBA!"

The camera clicked away several times as the destroyers at the doorway peeked in. "Oi, you shitty Kraut cruiser! What the hell are you doing?!" Akemi shrilled.

Fukushima Fujiko came over to look before she blushed on seeing a nude Catarina von Savoyen trying desperately to crawl all over a struggling Moroboshi Ataru, who was at least in his pyjama bottoms. "Catarina-sama! Stop being so forward to Shirei-kan! You just met!" the first of her class called out.

"WAS ZUR HÖLLE IST DAS?!"

Everyone yelped as a blonde battleship stormed into the rotunda, pushing past the younger shipgirls to gaze into the bedroom before her eyes went wide at what her companion from Operation: Rheinübung was doing with their effective new admiral. "OLYMPIA CATARINA VON SAVOYEN-CARIGNAN!" Luisa von Bismarck shrilled, making Catarina bolt up to attention. "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING WITH THE ADMIRAL?! GET OUT HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT, YOU SILLY GIRL!"

"J-J-JAWOHL!" the cruiser stammered out as her cheeks turned as red as cherries.

Luisa lunged inside, snaring her friend by an arm and dragged her out, ignoring the fact that Catarina was trying to cover herself with just one of Ataru's bed sheets. As the destroyers got out of the larger shipgirls' way, Yotsuba blinked before she gazed in amusement at Ataru, who was now lying on his bed, panting. "Oi, Ani-chama! Was it good?" the metahuman detective coyly teased.

A moan escaped him. "Not this early in the morning, Yotsuba, PLEASE...!"

"My, what a passionate young lady! Never expected that from an Austrian!"

Yotsuba perked, then she leaned through the doorway to gaze towards Tanenobu Karen's room. "Oi! Giles-sensei! What are you doing here?!"

The greying middle-aged Englishman in the grey tweed business suit he always wore when he worked as librarian at Sunnydale High School in a seashore town near Los Angeles smiled as he slipped off his glasses, his blue-green eyes twinkling in profound amusement. "I see you gained a much larger fleet than you had just last week, Miss Dunn. It appears whatever force is sending the first generation battle dolls down here from the Forge is being more thorough than we'd wish."

That made Yotsuba sweat. "ANOTHER one...?!"

"Yes," Rupert Giles said. "Two of them, in fact."

As the metahuman detective moaned, Ataru croaked, "Please, Sensei, keep these ones away from me. I've got enough shipgirl issues..."

"Oh, don't worry about that, old boy." Giles then blushed. "It seems..."

"Admiral?"

Everyone perked, then they turned...

"Would you like some mixed cherry tea, Admiral?" the grinning girl looking to be about Yotsuba's age standing by the entrance to the dining room declared, holding up a tray with a piping hot cup of reddish tea. "Admiral Susumu made it for you."

As the destroyers all blinked, Yotsuba looked over with her spy glass, then she grinned. "Oh! Yotsuba DEFINITELY has to check this!" she leered.

An embarrassed moan escaped the Watcher. "Miss Dunn, please...!"

The other shipgirls blinked, then they burst out laughing...


The dining room, thirty minutes later...

"So these two just showed up in Sunny-hell two days ago, then started beating up vampires when they came into town, Xander-kun?" Hatoyama Rinrin asked.

"Yep," Xander Harris replied as he tried not to blush as one of the two new shipgirls — a very busty woman even if she looked to be the same age as he, possessing blonde hair in bushy twintails that went to her shoulders, blue eyes peeking out of a somewhat chubby face despite her well-muscled body — reached over to squeeze his hand. All the members of the Scooby Gang were seated on the couches that lined the outer wall of the dining area, with the sisters at the tables and Rupert Giles himself at the guest of honour spot beside Susumu Marie, with the cute young tomboy with the electric blue hair tied in twin odangos at the backs of her temples standing close to the elderly Watcher. Much to the two new shipgirls' amusement, Marie's bushy-haired "golden retriever" Michael — he was actually a Yizibajohei ruolosuo, a wild wolf-like being native to the northern polar continent — was busy sniffing up both girls' legs, making the older-looking of the pair blush madly as she shied away from the friendly dog while the younger-looking of the pair giggled in delight. "Made a whole ton of them bleed rivers of ichor from the nose on seeing two nude girls walk up Main Street like that, but we were able to subdue them and get them turned back with some donated blood."

"They're not fully Gifted yet, Shirei-kan," Fukushima Fujiko reported as she gazed at Ataru, who was now busy scanning his large PAA as it linked to various sites in the Internet to help him devise human names for these newcomers.

"Why are you two holding off?" Sukeyama Sakuya asked them.

The one holding Xander's hand blushed deeply. "W-w-well, we didn't know that we could d-d-do that, Admiral Sukeyama!" she said in a timid voice, then she smiled as Xander gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Some of my crew came from Sunnydale. After I fully merged with the battle doll sent from the Great Crystal of Power to turn me into this, the memory blocks that were placed on their minds when they lived there fell away and I realized something really awful was going on in town. As soon as I got close enough to scan what was going on — I wish I had my planes with me so they could have done a reconnaissance in force before I got there — I realized there was some sort of interdimensional gate, like the one that leads into the Dark Gaol the Healer's ally used to imprison the snake leeches when they tried to seize parts of the Great Crystal. That's when I met up with Sammy here..."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"No WAY!" Fukushima Shirayuki exclaimed, her eyes wide. "It CAN'T be...!"

"To even STAND in her presence!" Ashikaga Ami squealed. "What an HONOUR!"

"Of course she became an elephant lady...!"

"ELEGANT!"

Everyone looked over to where the Akamatsu sisters were now standing, with the elder of them now flustering in embarrassment. "Keep trying, Tsukiko-san," Tenhiro Haruka bade to Akamatsu Tsukiko, the reborn destroyer Akatsuki.

As the childish raven-haired girl with the matching dark blue eyes blushed madly at the encouragement the Quarterstaff Mistress just gave her while her younger sisters Himeko, Ikue and Inoue all shook their heads in amusement, many of Fujiko's and Ami's sisters raced over to stare closely at the reborn "destroyer escort who fought like a battleship" at the Battle off Samar...

...then they dropped to their knees and began bowing to her, waving their hands over their heads as Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar did to Alice Cooper in Wayne's World. "WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY...!"

Laughter filled the dining hall from the normal humans seeing this. "Aw! Cut it out, you crazy Nips!" the living kami of USS Samuel B. Roberts cried out. "I was just doing my damned job! Don't make it look like I was part of the Liberty Legion, huh!" the adopted native of Houston in Texas (her place of construction) and San Francisco (her namesake's place of birth) then cried out.

The destroyers still chanted away as they bowed, making her fluster madly as her new friends from Sunnydale laughed at such a show of respect. "Oi! A-man! You make up a good name for the Little Scrapper here, yet?!" a voice called out.

Eyes locked on Faith Lehane, who was seated beside Buffy Summers off to one side close to where Sakuya sat with Moroboshi Ataru, Hirosaki Chikage standing beside the two current living Slayers. "Just got it, Faith-san. For her and her friend here from Taffy Three," he then declared. As the Japanese shipgirls then stared as one at Xander's current companion, they all gasping in awe on hearing that she too was part of the famous Task Unit 77.4.3 at the Battle off Samar back in the fall of 1944 during Leyte Gulf, he stood up, clearing his throat. As the two newcomers tensed, he waved to the reborn destroyer escort. "Lieutenant Commander Samantha Brooke Roberts," he solemnly declared before he indicated the older-looking shipgirl. "Captain Honore Chloe Zitzewitz," he added with a wave of his hand.

That made the twintailed blonde blink, her cheeks turning deep red as she looked away from the nice man who had just named her in partial honour of the woman who had christened her in 1943 at Vancouver in Washington. "Admiral Moroboshi...!"

"Hey, that's pretty classy, Gamby!" the just-named destroyer escort noted, which made the Japanese shipgirls gasp on realizing they had just met the first aircraft carrier to assume human form. She then looked hopefully at the elder man standing in the room. "Hey, Admiral, which name...?"

Giles sighed. "Which would you be more comfortable with, Miss Roberts?"

That made her think before she flustered. "Well, B-b-Brooke sounds nice..."

"Okay, Little Scrapper! You're Brooke!" Faith then declared.

As people snickered at the Bostonian's automatic declaration, the spirit of USS Gambier Bay then gazed on Xander. "Um...what do you think, Admiral Harris?"

The son of one of Sunnydale's more notorious unemployed drunks and the "normal" one of the Scooby Gang despite his being also the Wild Hunter of the Plains then hummed as he considered that point before he nodded. "'Honore' sounds pretty square. 'Chloe' sounds very nice."

That made her blink before she rapidly nodded. "Y-y-yessir..."

"My! Chloe-san is skittish, isn't she?" Haruka then noted.

"Understandable," Chikage mused. "She was sunk in an action where she wasn't designed to operate. While one admires her crew, it wasn't the right sort of battle to operate an aircraft carrier in."

"Hey, White Plains did good!" Brooke protested.

The Dark Heart of the True Chaos nodded. "True, Brooke, Elaine's crew performed splendidly," she affirmed, referring to Chloe's sister USS White Plains by her planned human name, Elaine Mitscher. "But what if a shell struck one of her ammunition magazines or her aviation fuel storage tanks?"

That made all the shipgirls present wince. "Yeah, that's true..." Chloe breathed out.

Let me out of here...!

People blinked on hearing that roaring voice echo from nowhere in particular, then Chloe gazed at the beautiful Latino girl seated on Xander's other side. "Um, Your Highness, I think Admiral Summers needs to know of your prisoner, ma'am," she then whispered.

Hearing that, the Inca princess born Coya Yupanqui in the early Sixteenth Century smiled as she rose from the couch, turning to bow deeply to the elder living Slayer. "Forgive me for my impertinence, my Mistress, but given the horrid wound delivered to your heart at the start of this most dark year, I acted without your orders in capturing your errant beloved with the Sea Angel Chloe's help."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"YOU CAUGHT ANGEL?!" Buffy screeched in wide-eyed delight.

The living avatar of an ancient Yizibajohei volcano goddess from the southern polar continent later transformed into one of the Handmaidens of the Master of the Dark Gaol bowed again as the others in the room save the newly arrived destroyer shipgirls from Japan and their two new German friends gasped in delight. "Indeed I did, my Mistress! Forgive me for not telling you this, but I wished to use the chance to properly torture the corrupted part of Master Liam as my own great master taught me how to do in my first life when the lar'beke came upon our beautiful world and as my own spiritual patron has commanded me," the current incarnation of Raeru Uoto ("Pacha Kamaq") declared, a mirthless smile crossing her face, brown eyes glittering in anticipation of producing quite a show. "If this is done correctly, Master Liam will never again feel guilt at what his horrible sickness forced him to do as 'Angelus'. And with that, the fool wanderers from Europe who botched the revenge scene over a series ago with the poor man will be denied their worthless final vengeance and you will have your lover back."

Hearing that, the native of Los Angeles who was one of the best urban warfare fighters on Yiziba atop being a vampire Slayer hummed as she crossed her arms before she gazed on her "successor". "What do you think, Faith?" Buffy then asked.

"Hey, any face loves to be a heel if they can get away with it, B," Faith noted with a shrug. "Let Coya go to town. I want to hear the bastard squeal."

"Kaho doesn't want to listen to this, Onii-chama," a young voice then declared from nearby. "It hurts Kaho's ears when creepy heels are made to scream like that."

People turned as Eigo Kaho got up from the table, a frown on her face. "Here, Kaho-chan, I'll come with you," Ashikaga Ayako then vowed.

Kaho nodded as the living personification of the first of the Ayanami-class destroyers came over to escort her out of the dining room. "I'm sure you all have strong stomachs," Rupert Giles calmly stated.

"You KNEW?!" Buffy demanded as she glared at her Watcher.

"Miss Gutierrez hinted she was going to do that to Angel, Buffy," the Oxford alumnus answered. "Much that I'm surprised she was able to succeed in doing so, I was wary, so I kept it to myself, especially when she described what she was going to do after pulling him out from the Dark Gaol." As others in the room gasped, he smirked. "Then again, luck seems to be with you all in cases like this."

That made Buffy stare anew at Coya. "A surprise?"

"Only the best for you, my Mistress."

The current incarnation of the Mighty Maiden of the Mountains, R'besuoto ("Virago"), then nodded her permission. "Okay! Go ahead!" She then raised her finger in warning, winking at her new friend. "Remember, Coya! I want my lover back in ONE PIECE! Got it?!"

"Of course, my Mistress."

"Oi, people in Welcome House! Am I in time?!"

People looked over to the doorway to see a grinning woman somewhat younger than Marie standing there, dressed in the urban camouflage battlesuit with pouch-lined brown belt and boots of the Voice of the Great Show of Life, Bo'odurba ("Windtalker"), her handy portable camera in hand and sitting on her right shoulder. "Hey, Paparazzi Girl!" Faith whooped as others cheered the arrival of Asakura Kazumi. "You ready to make those stupid gypsies howl like babies?!"

The chestnut-eyed would-be reporter with the shaggy red-brown hair in a high ponytail laughed. "Hey, if these so-called 'experts' can botch up a revenge scene like you told me they did with Buffy-chan's pillow scene partner, I'm all for making them look like total morons!" She then looked around the room. "So where IS the Angelmeister, anyway? I hear he's definitely pleasing to the eyes...!"

"Mine, Asakura!" Buffy snapped.

She got a tongue stuck out in return from one of the students of the son of the Thousand Master while others in the room laughed. "Okay, let's get the revenge scene under way!" Yotsuba then declared with a flourish as Kazumi went over to position herself in a perfect place to capture the best shot.

"Skylight sunscreen on!" Rinrin then called out.

The overhead skylight darkened to prevent the reflected rays of the morning sun from coming close to Coya's prisoner. The former princess smiled as she gestured with her hand. A space warp then appeared, causing a dark-haired man appearing to be in his twenties to appear, his body quaking as if he had been subjected to WEEKS of exposure to Redet Lum's bio-electricity. As a moaning cry escaped the man born Liam O'Connor in 1727, the handmaiden to the Undertaker chuckled as she walked over to loom over the well-restrained demon-infected master vampire. "Well, Master Liam..." she cooed as she leaned down to breathe into his ear. "How did you like your visit to OUR version of Hell?"

Angelus roared as he spun around to glare at the impudent mummy princess that came back to life somehow before the previous Hallowe'en. "LET ME GO, YOU FREAK ZOMBIE BITCH!" the transformed linen merchant's son roared as his "game face" came on. "I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU FOR DUMPING ME INTO THAT DAMNED PLACE! LET ME GO! I'LL MAKE IT QUICK...!"

KK-KRACK!

Angelus' head was snapped over by Xander's rabbit punch, making the three century-old vampire gape in shock as the sheer power behind that blow registered deep within his mind...which no normal MAN should ever possess! As he slowly turned around, Xander smirked as he unfolded his fingers.

PSSSHHEEW!

Angelus screamed in disbelief as foot-long ki claws grew out of the fingertips of Xander's right hand, then he stared wide-eyed at the "normal" member of the Scooby Gang...before he gaped as Xander's clothes then morphed into the brown jumpsuit with the darker brown animal striping on the sides, black belt and boots and black hyena's head insignia of the Wild Scavenger of the Plains. "No...!" the linen merchant's son then exclaimed. "You can't be...there's no way possible...!"

He yelped as Xander — who had then sheathed his ki claws — slapped down on his forehead, making the vampire's face go back to normal. "Deadboy, it's mesonium! It's ALWAYS possible!"

"And once we inject such into your body, you'll feel HUMAN again!" Coya then cooed as she stared without mirth at the shaking master vampire.

Angelus recoiled as he had just been jabbed by a blessed cross or had holy water dumped on him. "NO! DON'T YOU DARE, YOU MONSTER!" he screamed out.

"Isn't that like the kettle calling the pot 'black', Sensei?"

His head snapped around...

...then his "game face" came on as he growled at the black-haired girl seated next to Buffy's watcher. "You got guts saying that having your tea, little girl...!"

Susumu Marie's hand gestured as a stream of paper instantly flowed out of her pockets into her hand, forging a very thin stake, which then lanced out.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH...!"

"DO try keep a civil tongue, Mister O'Connor," the Paper Mistress calmly said as the deadly shank she made with her powers punched through Angelus' shirt to probe close to his heart, making the master vampire squeal like the proverbial stuck pig while she drank the rest of her tea. "One would think with your so-called 'refinement', you'd know how to behave in the presence of your betters."

"You remember when our friend Miss Black came by to town in March when she and her sister were visiting our friends in Sweet Valley, Deadboy?" Xander then asked. "I sure remember how much you and Bill and Drusilla and the rest of the crew CRIED when they watched Margo MELT your 'friend' the Judge with just a TOUCH!" A faux-sob escaped the "normal" member of the Scooby Gang. "Aw! I saw the great Angelus actually CRY! I even think I SMELT you SHIT yourself when you found out that there were far WORSE things on Earth these days than your precious 'old ones'!"

Derisive laughter filled the dining room as Angelus sputtered in disbelief, completely knocked askew by the fact that these supposed "normal" humans now looked upon him as he actually would look on anyone whose blood he wanted to drain. That was NOT something the master vampire was used to; not even the most vicious Slayer was intentionally cruel like this. "Wh-what the hell happened to you, Xander?!" he demanded as his face reverted back to normal, a fist of icy fear gripping his heart as the fact sank into him that these people were honest-to-goodness METAHUMANS — all blessed with MESONIUM in their blood, exposure to which was like hydrochloric acid to any vampire! — like the damned Liberty Legion and the others who had gone crazy during the Second World War...not to mention a near-immortal former president that Angelus and his sire Darla barely escaped from in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. "You can't act like this! You're the GOOD GUYS! You don't do this...!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"'Nothing is true', Liam, old son," Xander said with a smile that didn't flash in his eyes. "'Everything is permitted.'" He shrugged. "Granted, that's the motto in Assassin's Creed, but it fits us as well."

"Holy shit, B!" Faith called out as she and Buffy came over to stand between Angelus and Giles. "I can't believe it! A dude with his amount of experience and he only just figured it out NOW?! Didn't Angel notice all the vampires we were turning back to normal since you first hit Sunnydale two years ago?!"

"WHAT?!"

That was a wide-eyed Angelus, who was gaping at the Bostonian in total disbelief. "It's quite true, Liam," Giles stated before he nodded his thanks as Ashikaga Namiko came over with a new cup of tea for him and Marie. "Oh, thank you, my dear," the Watcher said before he gazed at the master vampire. "Granted, I myself was quite skeptical about the whole concept, but after Xander here lost his friend Jesse when Buffy teamed with Willow, Tara and Xander to deal with the Master and the Order of Aurelius, they implemented it and it's been quite the resounding success ever since. As soon..." He then blinked as Angelus howled with derisive laughter. "Oh, dear! It appears he's not convinced of it!"

The sounds of druids chanting then echoed through the dining hall, that followed by a soulful gong that chilled Angelus to the core of his being...!

"Then he will watch as the Whirlwind dies, Rupert."

A space warp then appeared by the main doors...

...then Angelus gaped in horror on hearing the combined screeches of his spiritual "daughter" and "grandson" — along with a girl from Sunnydale he recently turned — as they were literally pitched out of the tunnel connecting Earth to the Dark Gaol to land beside their sire. Like Angelus, the people born William Pratt in 1852 and the woman born Drusilla Keeble ten years earlier were tied with dark crystal chains glowing with a terrible power that seemed to sap all their abilities. Much to his horror, the younger surviving members of the Whirlwind — not to mention Buffy's and Xander's old classmate Therese Klusmeyer, who had been one of the few in Sunnydale High School to never look down on the members of the Scooby Gang before she "disappeared" a month ago; she was also well-secured — were as pale as real ghosts, showing the very ugly signs of having been deliberately STARVED!

"Amazing what a little time travel can do, isn't it, Liam?" a new voice then said as footfalls heralded the arrival of a certain redhead Angelus knew well. "Just send them back in time a month and put them in the Dark Gaol to let them hear the many demons trapped there by the Undertaker and his servants like Coya scream as their very life essences are slowly drained out of them to feed into the Forge of the First Race." As Angelus gulped on hearing the ice-cold tone in Willow Rosenberg's voice, the current incarnation of the Arch-Mage of True Passion, R'bemdo R'bem ("Crimson Heart"), came up to stand close to Marie, her hooded rune-line red cape drawn around her body as if she was hiding something. "Hey, Kazumi! You sure the idiots in Clan Kalderash are seeing this right now?" she asked.

Kazumi chuckled as she tapped a control on her camcorder...

...which projected the image of a middle-aged man everyone from Sunnydale recognized as Janna Kalderash's uncle Enyos, now seated somewhere in a rather plain home, most likely in Europe; as the others were quick to conclude, he had probably been watching the news in his house when Kazumi's technopathic powers cut into the feed to show what was happening with Angelus. "Hey, Mister Kalderash!" Buffy called out as the older man gaped in shock on seeing people glare resentfully at him. "How's it feel, huh?! Sticking US with the problem of Angelus because you idiots botched the revenge scene back in 1898, huh! Just because you're nothing more than a homr'bu umale in your dumbass 'traditions', it might have helped us if you allowed your niece to TELL US what was happening with the guy! We could've settled the issue back then instead of allowing the rabid dog to run wild like he did!"

He sputtered on hearing that accusation, then barked out, "We serve Vengeance, you stupid child! You have no right to judge us...!"

SNAP!

Everyone perked on hearing Chikage's fingers click...

...then they gaped as a flash of light caused Enyos to appear in the air over the floor near to where Therese was, then he comically dropped head-first into the deck behind Rinrin! As a pained moan escaped the older man, Angelus blinked before he then laughed. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" the master vampire then leered. "You know, Enyos, Buffy's right! If Faith hadn't shown up back in February to stop me from turning your niece into a beautiful work of poetic art to give to Giles here, you would have joined her in death!" A wild laugh then escaped him as some of the people in the room shook their heads in silent amusement at his forced show of bravado.

Enyos moaned as he tried to get up...then he blinked as heavy footfalls heralded the arrival of something that was setting his mage-senses overloading with the sheer volume of POWER contained within the body of whoever had just stepped up to loom over him. Turning to look, he then gasped on seeing the tall blonde woman with the ice blue eyes staring down at him as if he was no better than slime. At that moment, Luisa von Bismarck's clothing melted into a beautiful black uniform complete with white shirt and black tie, black rider's trousers and zip-up jackboots spit-shone to a bright gleam. As she knelt down to gaze intently at him, his eyes went wide with horror on seeing the four "pip" stars of a sturmbannführer on her left jacket collar, the dual Armanen "sig" runes of the Protection Squadrons that served as Germany's secret police in the dark years of the Third Reich on her right collar, the badge of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei on her left breast pocket, the Totenkopf skull-and-crossbones hat badge of that same service on her wedge cap...and worst of all, the black tilted Hakenkreuz on a white circle embossed on a red armband wrapped above her left elbow. As Enyos howled in disbelief and horror on seeing this woman draped in the uniform of the monsters whose magical affiliates nearly hunted his clan to extinction seven decades ago, Luisa smirked as her eyes seemed to bore right into his soul to find what was there very wanting.

"Ein wahrer Untermensch...!" the battleship-turned-twenty-something woman sneered.

As Enyos shrieked at that insult and Angelus cackled with delight, Coya raised a hand, allowing mystic fire to dance over her fingers before she flung it at the screaming gypsy elder's face. A wild yelp of pain escaped him as a strange brand was burned right into his skin over his left eye, it appearing to be a three-layered cockade over a burning sun. Seeing that, Angelus blinked...before his eyes widened in disbelief as his mind locked in on that symbol before he shrieked in mortal terror, shaking his head as he began to struggle to break free of his chains and get as far away from these monsters as he could.

The Inca princess pointed in condemnation at him, making many in the room stiffen.

"NESU BAMGAM MU R'BETO BATAE ERBA!"

"Bamgam giro..." the shipgirls in the room then chanted as one.

Angelus' screams turned into a near ear-splitting shriek of mortal agony, that accompanied by Spike's and Drusilla's wide-eyed wails...though the younger vampires were just too weakened by having drank no blood for a month. As the others in the room nodded at Coya's declaration, Ashikaga Akemi marched over to snare Enyos by the neck and boost him up. "Okay, you fucking screw-up of a gypsy!" the profane eighth of the Ayanami-class destroyers made human snarled, her eyes glowing. "You have my creator's mark on you! When you join your fuck buddies, that mark spreads to all of them, even your NIECE!" As Enyos shrieked in terror at what was now being implied, Akemi smirked. "And when ALL of the Children of the Healer of Destruction sees that, they'll know you are ENEMIES OF ALL LIFE, only deserving DEATH!" She smirked as she leaned right into his face. "Better hope that Doctor Death doesn't find you first, shithead!" she then snarled. "She'll gladly show you what she did to Usāmah bin Lādin!"

"Begone from our sight, selfish fool!" Coya declared as she summoned energy to teleport the dazed Enyos away. "Liam O'Connor is the beloved of my mistress! MY master has granted Master Liam his pardon and welcomed him to become one of the Children of the Healer of Destruction, as his adopted children shall also become." As the gypsy elder howled on hearing that, the Inca princess smirked. "Harm any of them and you will be hunted down and slaughtered to the last! BEGONE!"

In a flash of energy, the elderly man was teleported off Ōmure-jima and sent back to Europe. As Kazumi temporarily cut the feed to the television sets of the various members of the Kalderash Clan, she gazed in amusement at the others in the room. "Doing ti'ibie is so much FUN, isn't it?" she asked.

People gaped at her, then they laughed.

"You FAKED that...?!"

That was a stunned Angelus, who had caught the words the Mahora Academy middle school senior just said after nearly screaming his heart out on hearing the two words that he had been taught by the Master to fear above all others since even the OLD ONES themselves were said to dread the utterance of those very words! "Oh, no, Liam," Coya said as she stared at him. "It was QUITE real! Of course, the Sea Angel Luisa doesn't care a bit to don the uniforms of the maniacs that ruled her country when she was created by the hands of good shipwrights decades ago..." — at this, Luisa von Bismarck's authentic SS dress uniform disappeared to revert to her normal clothes just as the now-quite nauseous transformed battleship rapidly moved to head out of the room for the nearest bathroom, she followed by a concerned Catarina von Savoyen — "...but that performance was actually for YOUR benefit in the end!" She then smiled before sharing a knowing look with Willow. "If you may, my friend...?"

"Of course, Coya!" Willow said before she gazed on the dazed Spike and Drusilla, an admiring sigh escaping her. "Oh, my! You and Bill do make a lovely couple, you know that," she said as she focused on the seer, which made the dazed woman blink before she gazed drunkenly upon the red-haired hacker/arch-mage now kneeling before her, blinking in confusion on seeing the friendly look on her face when there had been many times Drusilla tried to kill her. "You look thirsty," she said as she reached under her cape to pull out a quart-sized take-out mug of coffee, opening the lid. "Here, have some..."

Drusilla's nose instantly flared on sensing the beautiful tincture of rich human blood in that mug, then she nodded as Willow handed it over. Seeing that, Angelus blinked before his nose picked up a VERY familiar acidic mineral scent from that blood. "NO! DRU! STOP! YOU DRINK THAT, IT'LL...!"

He then howled in mortal agony as something akin to a shank being driven into his soul overwhelmed him after the first drops of that rich liquid passed Drusilla's parched lips to flood down her gullet and plunge into her semi-active stomach, the particles of the Atom of True Life then seeping through the membranes into the seer's dormant circulatory system. Instantly, the ichor that kept her in an "undead" state began to be transformed as the mesonium in the blood purged the dark interdimensional energy that had been passed down through generations of demon-infected vampires from the days of the Great Banishment twenty-five millennia ago. As the tiny segment of energy inherited through the generations and the years from the blood of the Old One known as Maloker — who had been banished to a pocket dimension known to later generations as the "Deeper Well" by the man later known as the "Undying Lord" during the last years of the ancient war to purge Earth of interdimensional taint — which kept Drusilla Keeble "alive" in an odd way was morphed and transformed, sending a flood of energy to fully awaken her body's cells and restore them to something akin to normal function...

...with an extra prize as well, Ataru mused as he watched this...!

As Drusilla's skin began to flush with new life after she gladly gulped down the blood given to her by Willow, the crimson-haired arch-mage moved over to Spike, holding out another coffee mug for the former poet to take. He grabbed it without hesitation; even if there was a part of him that tried to make him reject what was being offered, the gnawing feelings of hunger that overwhelmed him since Willow and her lover Tara Maclay caught him and Drusilla, then sent them and others — with the help of the bloody Undertaker of all people; Since when the hell did a wrestler become a bloody metahuman of all things?! Spike often asked himself after that event when he could muster the energy to actually think about that encounter — into that awful place where demons seemed to be chained down and drained of life was just too much for him. Gulping down that life-giving fluid made him gasp in relief as he felt new energy flood his body...before he blinked as a thumping sound started to echo from his chest. "Bloody hell..." he said as a wry smile then crossed his face while Drusilla seemed to moan, not resisting as a couple of the shipgirls moved to shift the seer onto a couch. "Nice move, Wills...!"

"Rest now, William," Chikage said as she came up to join them, using her own mage-sight to examine their transformation. "Soon as the rest of the ichor is morphed back to proper bodily fluids, I'll get you somewhere where I can do a thorough examination of you two. I'm sure Willow and Tara have already made this process an exact science, but one can never be too sure about something like this."

With that, she gestured with her hand to levitate Spike over to lay down on the couch beside his long-time girlfriend. By then, Willow was busy helping Therese drink down the coffee cup set aside for her. Thanks to her being a lot younger than the two master vampires who had been sired in the Nineteenth Century — and being a native of Sunnydale atop that — she proved to be a lot more willing to drink what was being offered to her despite her sire's plea to Drusilla to not partake. "Oh..." she moaned out as her skin began to flush to a more healthy shade. "My, that's very tasty..." she moaned as she moved to wipe her lips down, then she blinked as she began hearing her heart beat again. "Oh, wow..."

"Feeling a little better now, Therese?" Willow gently asked.

The raven-haired girl with the brown eyes blinked before she looked around, seeing all the pretty girls gazing her way. "Hey...I don't swing your way, Willow...!"

That made others blink before delighted laughter filled the room as the arch-mage used her own power to levitate the other woman over to the couch close to where Spike now lay. At the same time, she floated the last coffee cup of blood over to Buffy, who was moving to kneel down beside her dazed boyfriend. "Okay, Liam...you look a little thirsty there," she said as she popped open the lid.

Angelus croaked as the rich scent of that fluid overwhelmed him...before his eyes went wide on sensing the scent of his other-self's lover in that blood. Before what little "rational" side of the monster who had earned the ugly moniker "Scourge of Europe" in decades past could stop his body from reacting, he snared the mug from Buffy's hand, then let it pour down his throat as quickly as it could. As his own body began to shift in skin tone while the mesonium in the blood began its work, his eyes went wide as they glowed the reddish-gold they normally assumed when he put his "game face" on before they reverted back to their normal dark brown. His hands jerked, making him drop the mug as a faint scream echoed through the room; those with mage-sight were quick to see the last vestiges of his darker self being yanked out of his body and banished through an invisible warp to the Dark Gaol.

"You...should have...destroyed me...Buffy..." Angel whispered as his eyes teared.

Instantly, he was in her arms. "I'm not letting you go, you big lug!"

He blinked before a relieved sob escaped him, then he held her tight as the people seeing this broke out in wild cheers at this reunion almost a year in the making. "And THAT'S a revenge scene, folks!" Kazumi then declared to her "audience". "Lovers reunited as it should always be!"

People gaped at the Voice of the Show before laughter filled the room...


Tomobiki High School, an hour after breakfast...

"Oh...morning..."

Grunting as she slipped off her goggles to rub her eyes clear of the sleep that had accumulated while her systems were busy fully establishing her special workshop in the clock tower, Tsuruya Rumiko took a deep breath to pump new oxygen into her body, then she stretched herself to get the kinks out of her limbs. Gazing at her own work PAA, she then nodded in delight on noting that all the external defences she had promised the school staff were now fully in place, which would keep out all of the local riffraff, from the morons of Butsumetsu High School at the south end of the city to all the incompetents who served the Mendō Clan all the time. As she imagined how the scion of Japan's richest family would react once he got the news that he couldn't bring his lackeys onto the school property anymore, the Careful Planner of the Circle of Thought smiled before she stood up, stretching again.

"Rumiko-san! Breakfast!"

She looked over, then grinned as the hatch into the belfry opened to reveal a smiling Shiowatari Nagisa, who was carrying a tray full of good food. "I see Ayumu-chan got to you finally," she noted as Fujinami Ryūnosuke's fiancé came up and moved to place the tray on the table. "Hard to adjust?"

A laughter escaped the tea shop maiden who had been promised to the "heir" of Hamachaya before the children of Fujinami Fujimi and Shiowatari Shin had been born. And indeed, Nagisa was a true maiden now; the gold strapless sundress she had on now barely masked the sloping mounds of very feminine breasts, much less the more slender waist flaring into child-bearing hips. "These battle doll bodies Ayumu-san's first self made are just amazing!" Nagisa said as she moved to pour some sencha for the other woman to enjoy. "It's as if I was born a girl all along. I remember growing up as a boy, even going through puberty and all the things boys experience as they move into adolescence...yet now it's been shifted in my mind to make me re-experience it as if I had been born a girl. Menarche, how one handles menstruation — I hope I don't get PMS, of course — and all the other things..."

"Well, I doubt Ayumu-chan's first self never thought it out all the way through," Rumiko noted as the other woman sat down opposite from her. "Itadakimasu!" she then called out before digging in.

Watching the only declared lesbian attending Tomobiki High work away at her meal, Nagisa then frowned as she considered how lonely it must have been for Rumiko over the last year and more. Coming to a school which seemed full of normal people at the start...which then became polarized the previous fall when Redet Lum came into everyone's lives, followed by Mendō Shūtarō. With the boys almost all moving to chase Lum and find a way to break her from Moroboshi Ataru — Shūtarō among them — and the girls getting mass crushes on the scion of Japan's richest family when no boy save "Ataru" showing any sort of interest in them, it was clearly a dry well to someone who was looking for some sapphic action. It was no wonder that Rumiko had gravitated to Ryūnosuke when the latter had come to school in February. Since the "heir" of Hamachaya wasn't the least bit interested in Shūtarō and was hell-bent on doing ANYTHING to throw off her father's insane teachings when it came to how "he" was to live his life, Rumiko must have seemed a very safe port in a crazy storm that swirled around Ryūnosuke even after Nagisa had been effectively reborn and had become part of her life.

Of course, Nagisa wasn't the least bit jealous when it came to Rumiko being her fiancée's first true lover. One of the smartest high school students in Japan certainly HAD to know that someone like Fujinami Ryūnosuke would definitely be high-maintenance, especially since the "heir" of Hamachaya probably really didn't understand the whole concept of things behind sex. And while understanding the physical mechanics was an easy task, tying it to emotional attraction was much harder. Nagisa had discovered that early on after she had moved in with the Fujinami family after her rebirth on the tiny islet near Ōmure-jima her family had acquired for a very cheap price in hopes of attracting passing fishermen going and coming from Tōkyō Bay. Try as she had might — even if Rumiko had obligingly backed off on hearing of the engagement — she hadn't got far with Ryūnosuke.

"She'll have to discover what she is before thinking of anything concerning marrying anyone," the Careful Planner then warned as she fixed the boy-turned-girl seated across from her with a knowing look. As Nagisa gaped in surprise at that seemingly all-knowing comment, Rumiko chuckled. "Sorry about that. Since I allowed my Gift to take me, I've been overthinking about people's relationships as a way of exercising my deductive skills. Given how things are between you and Ryūnosuke, it's too easy to conclude. You may be ready to get a husband or wife. She's not."

Hearing that, Nagisa blinked before she sighed. "Agreed. If her father had only been a little bit more understanding..." she hissed out as she leaned her chin on one of her hands, shaking her head. "I was glad when Yomi-san used her telepathy to make Oji-san go away for a while. Ryūnosuke-sama really needs the chance to discover what she is without him leaning down on her like that. Much that I'm prepared to marry her even after getting my wish come true, you're right about her not being close to be married. And with her now being Gifted? I hope the Post-Gifting Shock isn't too bad."

"Oh, Steve took her over to his ranch in Texas to give her the chance to work out a lot of her frustrations and maybe go stomp on a few idiots. Maybe she'll help him out with that television show of his, too. Earn some real money for a change, way beyond her father's reach." As Nagisa giggled on hearing that, Rumiko then smirked. "And when he finds out that his 'manly man' is learning how to do that 'fancy pro wrestling' all the way over in America..." Here, she said that in a good approximation of Steve Austin's rough Texan accent, which made Nagisa laugh. "He'll be so beside himself figuring out how to get there that he probably won't pay a single bit of attention to you or how your bust grew so big!"

Both women then laughed...

...then they perked on hearing a frightened yell from outside.

"That's Mizunokōji Asuka!" Rumiko exclaimed. "What the HELL...?!"

Both women stepped out of the belfry onto the veranda that overlooked the front doors of the school, quickly spotting the quivering middle school senior now kneeling on the road just beyond the main gate, curling in on herself. Seeing she was dressed in the white-trimmed black seifuku of Keppeki Girl's Junior High School in Niiza north of Tomobiki itself, the Careful Planner blinked. "What the hell is she doing all the way down here?! Her house is at the north end of town!"

"ASUKA-CHAN! LEAVE THAT TRANSVESTITE MONSTER! COME TO MY ARMS!"

Both women blinked. "Soban!" Nagisa snarled. "I'll get her!"

With that, she leapt off the veranda, dropping down to the ground as she charged towards the gate and the crying heiress of Japan's second largest family fortune. As she moved, her whole body began to glow as energy from the main source of mesonium in the universe started to flood her, a Gift seed that sensed Nagisa's strong beliefs in duty and honour moving to link with the boy-turned-girl's soul. Watching this, Rumiko shook her head. "Eager beaver, aren't you...?"

By the time Nagisa reached the gate, Asuka had been joined by a shuddering figure in a pink halter top and jean cut-offs, possessing shaggy strawberry blond hair and very warm and welcoming emerald eyes. Said person — a very effeminate boy her age, Nagisa was quick to see despite the girl's clothing — also had physical damage to her exposed arms and legs, revealing artificial musculature, ripped conduits and circuits and flashing diodes indicative he was actually a very advanced android. Noting he was trying to protect the androphobic Asuka from her would-be attackers, Nagisa barked out "GET HER INTO THE SCHOOL GROUNDS!" as she moved to shield them.

Tene lomher'buo, Shiowatari Nagisa...

"H-hai!" the damaged android said as he summoned what strength he had left to snare the crying Asuka and leap with her past the gate into safety.

As Rumiko keyed a control to activate a nasty force field around the school grounds to keep all non-Yizibajohei off the property, Nagisa screamed out as her clothes combusted, her whole body glowing like a sun in the eyes of the oncoming toughs from Tomobiki's "bad luck" school, including the dwarfish fellow with the VERY large lips that led the pack. "TAEIM LETAM...!" she screamed out.

Seeing that oncoming comet, Soban shuddered. Oh, SHIT...!

A massive ki explosion then rocked Tomobiki to its foundations!

Nesu...BURBUO!

Fists now covered in white padded gauntlets then lashed out at machine gun speed, sending Soban flying to the south towards his home school as other members of his gang seemed to dance on air from the mountain-crushing hammer blows of the Stoic Guardian of the South, Burbuo (the "Sentinel"), one of Yiziba's most powerful FISS-types. People seeing this screamed out as the very unexpected sounds of metal being sheared apart like tinfoil, energy cells exploding, the sparks of torn circuits and other strange things that soon revealed that all of Soban's gang were themselves androids. As the onlookers morbidly watched, the just-Gifted Nagisa went through them like a cyclone, wrecking all of them in under a minute before somersaulting back, assuming a guard position with her hands.

"They're ROBOTS?!" one housewife then exclaimed.

"Are they aliens?!" another demanded.

"I thought Moroboshi Ataru got rid of them all yesterday!" a third barked out.

"Honestly! What's this town come to?!" a fourth demanded.

"OKAY, PEOPLE! CUT IT OUT WITH THE USELESS COMMENTARY!"

Onlookers perked, then they all gazed over to the main gate of the school, where the famous Tsuruya Rumiko — now in the same type of costume as those nice girls who had visited yesterday when the aliens were finally sent home and that bomb was removed from the Ginza — now stood, a megaphone in hand. "WE DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY CAME FROM! IT'LL BE INVESTIGATED! WAIT FOR FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS! LEAVE THE SCENE ALONE FOR THE AUTHORITIES!"

"SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE!" one shopkeeper then barked out.

As people pulled out cell phones, Nagisa walked over to join her friend, the spare energy of her Gifting slowly seeping into nothingness away from her. "What on Earth's going on here, Rumiko-chan?!" the Steady Guardian then demanded as she thumbed the wrecked androids behind her. "Did you...?"

"Help him...please...!"

Both women's heads snapped over towards the main doors...

...where a shivering and sobbing Asuka was holding her now-unconscious rescuer in her arms. "Please...don't let him die...please...!"

Seeing that, Rumiko sighed. "Handle the police," she then ordered.

"Hai!" Nagisa called out as the Careful Planner went over to comfort the sobbing heiress and move to examine her android companion.

"ROBOTS?! WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?! IS MY STUPID SON INVOLVED?!" a very unwelcome voice barked out from a house some distance away. "I WISH I NEVER HAD HIM!"

Growling, Nagisa reached over for an obelisk-shaped road marker by the gate, yanking it out of the ground with one hand before pitching it directly towards the Moroboshi house. A second later, the thunderous impact of the hard stone ripping through Moroboshi Ataru's would-be residence echoed through the air, that accompanied by the pained scream of his mother Kinshō after she was buried by that block of rock. "YOU BE QUIET, YŪJO!" the tea shop maiden snapped. "YOU GOT WHAT YOU WISHED FOR! YOU'RE GONNA GROW OLD AND DIE ALONE LIKE YOU DESERVE!"

As the onlookers stared in shock at such a vicious act by the transformed tea shop maiden, Nagisa looked at them. "WHAT?! DON'T TELL ME YOU ALL DON'T KNOW WHAT A SCHOOL DOORKNOB SHE WAS WHEN SHE WENT TO SCHOOL HERE BEFORE SHE WAS FORCED TO MARRY THAT LAZY BUM!" With a humph, the just-resurrected ghost turned and marched onto the school ground to make some tea for herself and the soon-to-arrive police being called to the scene.

People watched her go, then they started to madly chatter away...


The Moroboshi home...

"Who's going...to take...care of me when...I'm old and...grey...?"

Now partially buried into the kitchen floor by the road marker that had been pitched directly onto her head thanks to Fujinami Ryūnosuke's would-be fiancée, Moroboshi Kinshō could only quake as a knock echoed from the doorway. The door opened, allowing someone to walk inside. Not bothering to take off his shoes in the genkan, said person — a handsome twenty-something businessman with blue eyes behind reading glasses, well-styled black hair and a perfect Savile Row business suit — looked into the kitchen before he walked over to place a pile of envelopes and files on the living room table. "Well, well, well!" he trilled, making Kinshō gasp on recognizing the voice of the chief operations officer of her brother-in-law's keiretsu. "How the mighty are brought down low at last! I knew Tariko-san was going to make the revenge scene pull itself out as long as that issue with the bomb in the Ginza remained unresolved, but wow! To see a bitch like you brought down like this, Kinshō! It's POETIC!"

She shuddered as she tried to summon what strength she had to burst up at this VERY unwelcome intruder into her domain and chase him off. "You...!"

"Don't bother," Yumoa Reigi said as he adjusted his glasses. "The memory wipes on us were reversed back in April while you were stuck in intensive care on Uru. Your attempts at trying to embezzle Tariko-san's inheritance were all stopped and a court injunction was put into place as your behaviour concerning your DAUGHTER was properly investigated. Once the legislation declaring Terran-born Yizibajohei was brought into play, any claims you or that worthless sack of flesh you married had towards ANY money Nagaiwakai-sama left behind for Tariko-san was wiped out. All the money you stole from her trust fund was purged from your savings account!" As Kinshō awked on hearing that, Reigi smirked. "Don't depend on your brother to try to fix things, Kinshō. The whole Tomobiki police box is under investigation for collusion to embezzlement when it came to Tariko-san's inheritance! They won't help you anymore if they don't want to see jail time themselves!"

"No...MY money...!"

He shook his head. "Pity you never knew that your husband was HYPNOTIZED and made to go to Ōmure-jima to father TWELVE daughters to serve as new matriarch candidates for the Clan," Reigi then added, which made Kinshō gargle. "And the elder of them — now the new Matriarch — declared you and your husband EXPELLED from the Clan once and for all! Whatever deal you made with the Redet family on the Kashin back in April is on YOUR heads, not Tariko-san's! She's free to continue meeting many pretty girls around the world to be Gifted, the Clan is safe from your interference and you get the peaceful and quiet life you've always wanted! You just won't be STEALING money from anyone anymore...save for what Oji-chan gives his brother as an allowance! Then again, he might die soon..." With that, he turned to walk out. "And you'll be in POVERTY as you DESERVE!"

Kinshō wailed as Reigi moved to walk out. "Oh, by the way," the chief of staff for the Inshin Group and Toranoseishin Finances warned as he paused by the genkan. "Someone's on the way to have a little chat with you about your involvement in trapping Tariko-san in this town back last September before the aliens came to be stupid. She won't take 'no' for an answer, so if I was you, I'd answer everything she asks when she comes to see you. If you don't, you won't see the next dawn...and there's no power on Earth OR Yiziba that can stop that from happening. Have a nice AFTERLIFE, slut!"

With that, he walked out. A gasp escaped Ataru's mother as her mind instantly rolled through what had just been slammed down on her by her brother-in-law's eldest ward...before her eyes then went wide as new footfalls echoed from the hallway leading to the back door. Before she could try to escape what Nagisa had done to her, those footfalls — indicating two people had just stepped in — echoed on the kitchen tiles before a hand snared her by the neck, sending an ice pick of seemingly absolute zero cold ripping through the older woman's body. Before she could try to scream for help, said hand pulled her out of the hole she made in the floor before she was flung back-first into the refrigerator!

"Good morning, Miss Yamaguchi," a voice called out in Japanese with a very deep Southern American accent. "My sister and I want to talk to you."

Before Kinshō could slide down to the floor, that freezing hand snared her by the front of her neck, boosting her back up to make her stare into a pair of stormy grey eyes that burned with a dark alien fire that made the housewife gargle in horror as she wondered what sort of kami possessed this woman.

"Hiya, slut!" the Archangel of Mortality said, her voice echoing with the power she commanded as she glared into the eyes of her first friend's mother. "You've got a LOT to answer for! And believe me..."

She leaned up to stare directly into the older woman's eyes, making Kinshō gargle as those grey orbs turned into twin bright mini-suns. "YOU WILL ANSWER THEM!" Margo Black roared.

As Ataru's mother nearly soiled herself as she sensed the true eternal power of the Herald of the Final Darkness, her obvious twin sister — dressed in a white jumpsuit with a bursting sun insignia on her chest, red belt and boots completing the ensemble, the belt having the Confederate States of America battle flag as its buckle — moved to make some tea. Shuddering as the impudent raven-haired girl with the grey eyes — an obvious twin sister to the dark demon now holding her against the refrigerator — began the preparation process, Kinshō tried to bark out...then gargled on sensing something freeze her throat. "Oh, do stop that, please," the other woman said as she gazed in amusement at the trapped housewife. "You don't have the authorities on your side anymore. When they moved to trap poor Tariko in this place that NEVER was her home, they defied not only your Heavenly Sovereign's own proclamation concerning those of Earth who became Gifted, but the National Diet's own laws concerning that. Now, we know of some who were behind all this...but they were mind-wiped of any vital information to help us locate the ones who made that decision...but since you're just an INSIGNIFICANT BUG in the great wheel of Life, you clearly know something."

"She does, Nora," Margo said as she licked her lips in anticipation. "Since she's friends with Miyake Kimiki, she should know about the Catholic concept of confession. If she doesn't want to become nothing more than goo on the ground, she'll start confessing things." She then chuckled, an evil sound that made Kinshō turn as white as a sheet. "Just like I did to Usāmah bin Lādin!"

The older woman's eyes nearly shot out of her head as she realized what this woman had ALSO been. "Yes, Miss Yamaguchi, my poor dear sister is the origin of those 'angels of darkness' rumours from the Middle East. And yes, I call you by your maiden name because the late Lady Nagaiwakai NEVER recognized you as her son's legitimate wife per the bylaws of his clan!" As Kinshō silently shrieked out, Nora Chapelle shook her head. "Oh, do stop that. I do know the neighbours in this town despise your useless and selfish wailing FAR more than they ever did your 'son's' actions since he was forced to reside here. When my sister removes the ebony mesonium used to anchor all the necessary energy fields to keep what happened here from being spread worldwide, the people will remember the truth about how you and Muchi lived here ALONE for over a DECADE! And they'll realize then how much you chased your DAUGHTER away from home once they realize that the lady who effectively DESTROYED that filthy Oni girl yesterday morning is your child! After all, legally, Moroboshi Ataru DOESN'T EXIST!"

As Kinshō rapidly shook her head in denial, a beeping sound then echoed from the belt of the Living Dynamo of Energy, Riekbu ("Accretor"). Blinking, Nora reached down to pull out her PAA, tapping the crystal there. "Hello?" she then called out into it.

"Greetings, Nora," a VERY familiar man's voice then called out as a hologram then appeared, revealing something that made Kinshō gape. "Tariko just informed me that you and your sister are interrogating our genetic progenitor concerning the illegal actions taken against her over a season ago."

"That's correct, Kaeru. We were just about to tell her that you ultimately SURVIVED that terrible fall you took when you were a child, after being saved by your REAL parents and rescued from such an ABUSIVE environment," Nora said as she gazed with pity at her twin sister. "Not as harshly as those filthy Yankees abused and corrupted my poor sister before your sister rescued her seven years ago and got her Gifted, then helped her control her powers with Ayumu's help, but it was quite the abusive environment indeed." Here, the Vermonter-turned-Georgian trader's daughter gave Kinshō a very scornful look as the older woman rapidly shook her head at such a public denunciation.

"It was indeed most fortunate that I was rescued by my parents and thus spared what Tariko was forced to endure until her true mother rescued her after his trip to Sagussa." As Margo snarled on hearing THAT planet's name while Kinshō began to silently sob at the idea that her beloved son HATED her in the long term, the man born Moroboshi Kaeru sighed. "Margo, your reaction towards the Daishi'cha is most illogical. I realize you disapprove of the methodology that Head Scientist Yura used to bring new life to that planet in lieu of using the Avalonian bioroid factory, but Ayumu went and corrected that, as did Ride Master von Taserich. What is the issue?"

That made the Archangel of Mortality blink before she sighed. "They abandoned her to this piece of filth right here," she said as she glared at Kinshō.

"The Daishi'cha operated without proper knowledge, Margo. Still, the issue was effectively resolved when Tariko's true mother shifted her to her cabin in Butodutogasuto," Kaeru replied before a slight smirk crossed his face. "I suspect that your sister sincerely seeks Tariko out as her future life-mate."

As Margo turned a deep cherry on hearing that, Nora giggled. "Well, I certainly won't object. I'm sure dear Sakuya and her delightful sisters won't either!"

"NORA! KAERU!" Margo screamed out. "C'MON!"

Nora laughed as Kaeru shook his head before he perked. "Forgive me, Nora. Naromo wishes to engage in what you address as a 'pillow scene' with me."

That made the adopted Southern belle hum. "Well, far be it from me to interrupt such a scene, my friend. You have a pleasant day."

"Until we speak again."

The link was cut as Nora moved to pull out cups from the cupboard before she began to prepare the sencha. "Yes, that was your lost son, Miss Yamaguchi. Whose TRUE parents saw you be abusive to your DAUGHTER after Kaeru was healed and they moved to return him to your custody. They had no choice but to conclude you were NOT FIT to be a parent to so many children. A pity they never took Tariko away from you. You have wished for it well nearly THREE THOUSAND times since Tariko fled this world eleven years ago to be with her REAL mother. She kept count, by the way." As Kinshō paled again, the Living Dynamo gazed over her shoulder. "Now, if you DID accept what happened to Tariko and DID accept her as your DAUGHTER, let me introduce you to your potential DAUGHTER-IN-LAW!"

A silent gulp escaped the housewife as Nora's eyes began to glow. "As she just claimed before Kaeru called in, she is the slayer of that heretical mass murderer who betrayed the spirit of his faith and brought misery to millions worldwide. May I present my dear twin sister, Margo Elaine Chapelle...

"...or as you would call her, Doctor Death!"

As Kinshō silently wailed on hearing THAT name, Margo smirked. "Okay, time to talk...or time to DIE! Your choice, bitch!" she then growled hopefully.

As Nora calmly sipped her tea, Margo's cackle filled the house...

To Be Continued...


WRITER'S NOTES

Translation list: Drachentöter — Dragon Slayer; Was zur Hölle ist das? — What the hell is this?; Rheinübung — Rhine Exercise; Ruolosuo — Bush wolf; Sturmbannführer — Assault Unit Leader, the Schutzstaffel (literally "Protection Squadrons", short-formed SS) officer rank equivalent of an Army major; Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei — National Socialist German Worker's Party, the official name of the Nazi Party that ruled Germany from 1933-45; Totenkopf — Literally "death's head", this is the term for the skull-and-crossbones insignia used by the SS; Hakenkreuz — Literally "hooked cross", this was the right-turning swastika symbol used by the Nazis; Ein wahrer Untermensch — A true subhuman; Nesu Bamgam mu R'beto Batae Erba — Behold, the Judgment of the Children of the Healer of Destruction; Bamgam giro — Literally "to be judged" but meaning "It is judged" in this case; Genkan — The entranceway of a house where people remove their outdoor shoes; Daishi'cha — Great birth mother; Butodutogasuto — The northern polar continent on Yiziba.

The shipgirls introduced here:

Captain Chloe Zitzewitz USN (United States Ship Gambier Bay [CVE-73])
CAPT Elaine Mitscher USN (United States Ship White Plains [CVE-66])
Lieutenant Commander Brooke Roberts USN (United States Ship Samuel B. Roberts [DDE-413])

And yes, both USS Gambier Bay (Chloe Zitzewitz) and USS Samuel B. Roberts (Brooke Roberts) resemble their Kantai Collection interpretations.

Yes, Coya Gutierrez (née Coya Yupanqui) is the Inca mummy girl from the episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer of the same name (season two, episode #4). Her birth name and current name are my invention. Her Terran battle name, Pacha Kamaq, is taken from an ancient Inca creator god similar to the Judaeo-Christian god, said to have made the first man and woman that were the ancestors of the latter Inca civilization. Pacha Kamaq was worshipped in his namesake city in Peru from its first settlement before the time of Christ to the time of the Spanish invasions in the Sixteenth Century.

The family names of Angel (Liam O'Connor) and Drusilla (Drusilla Keeble) are my creation.

Theresa Klusmeyer first appeared in the fifteenth episode of the second season of BTVS, "Phases". The part of that storyline involving Theresa would have gone much differently given what is about to be revealed in this story.

The fight between Angelus, his sire Darla and Abraham Lincoln is first mentioned in Magic and Canada and better described in The Lighthouse Beacon of Freedom.

Enyos Kalderash first appeared in the thirteenth episode of the second season of BTVS, "Surprise". The events surrounding the destruction of the Judge as noted above (which happens in the following episode of the series, "Innocence") went down about a month before the events of the Yatsura movie Only You in the timeline of this story (early March of 2012).

Mizunokōji Asuka first appeared in the Yatsura manga storyline "That Mizunokōji Girl" (manga chapters #224-227); in the timeline of this story, the encounter between Asuka and the people of Tomobiki happened in late March of 2012, just before the start of second year for Tariko Katabarbe et al. Asuka began attending the Keppeki Girl's Junior High School in the manga storyline "Fortress of Fastidiousness" (manga chapters #338-340). In the universe of this story, Asuka would begin attending Keppeki in May of 2012 even if the "physical" that was depicted in "Fortress of Fastidiousness" occurred at the end of October as Redet Ten noted in his diary entry in Part 2.

Soban first appeared in the storyline "Get Something On Your Chest" (manga chapters #184-185).

Yumoa Reigi first appeared in The Senior Year story "Sakura's Class Reunion". Moroboshi Kaeru and his girlfriend Naromo first appeared in "My Darlings United".