Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

by Chryssalid-Lathis

A botched mission sends the cast of Lathis' "Teen Titans and the Lost Boy" across a dimensional boundary and into a parallel world; on that world, the XCOM Earth, the cast of "The Road to Cydonia" suddenly have more than just the Alien War on their hands.

35. Trespasser 5

A/N

Hey all! Been a while since we had one of the longer chapters, hasn't it? Well, here's an extra-early extra-long chapter for you guys.

Thanks again for all the reviews and comments!

Also:
Reflections Lost is now over a million words long. Ding.

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Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

Trespasser

Chapter 34

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

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Acting Major Ryouga Hibiki wished, at that moment, that he could wipe a hand across his brow. Unfortunately, the hard vacuum which currently comprised the atmosphere (or lack thereof) around him made that a suicidal prospect, at best. Having been exposed to the affectionate embrace of the airless void before, he was in no way interested in a repeat. Sighing, he wondered briefly just how long he had been outside the ship, cutting away at alien scrap metal. He had a feeling the actual number would depress him, and not in the productive way that would increase the output of his emotive ki.

"Major, you need to focus. You're lagging behind, and you and Jinx need to be in tandem here."

Actually, he took that back.

Considering that he'd been getting minute by minute 'updates' on his progress from Cyborg since he took his first step out of the ship, he knew exactly how long he'd been out here. It just felt like it had been an eternity. To say it had already traversed into the realm of utterly frustrating long ago would have been an understatement. Yet, at the same time, though it was his prerogative, he couldn't actually countermand Cyborg's steady stream of advice, the cybernetic teen being the foremost authority on all things technical on this mission.

That fact did nothing to alleviate the simmering resentment he was feeling. Really? He was falling behind Jinx? That stung.

With an annoyed blast of air from his nose, he turned his attention back to the job at hand. They were working on a nasty section at the moment: a skeletal framework hanging from the top of the tunnel, but had since collapsed and become entangled with an upwards thrusting hull torn up by the shearing passage of Pathfinder's initial transit window. It was easily the most troublesome of the obstructions in the tunnel, mixed as it was with erratic, still somehow active, power lines and other miscellaneous inconveniences, all of which combined to make it almost entirely responsible for the fact that they were still one hundred meters from the surface despite the length of time they'd been working.

CT-Yankee's Ryouga and Starfire had already started work on this section, and had made good progress, but then, neither of them had the entire weight of the mission crushing down on them. Neither his younger self, nor the increasingly belligerent alien girl were constantly getting contacted by various members of the crew, receiving constant updates on anything that was deemed relevant or important. Naturally Cyborg was making no allowance for that, demanding he keep the same schedule as the girl prancing around in the rafters above his head.

He could just barely make her out, pink sparks giving away her position, though the dark metal of her armor blended into the dull mash of alien structures. In the distance, he could see Cyborg as well, studying every single movement they made from outside of the mess of twisted metal. Even across the distance, he could see their foreman tap a hand to his arm.

"Jinx… you must be more careful," Cyborg was speaking slowly and methodically, "Control your output."

"I know – I know! I'm trying!"

Ryouga started at that exchange. Looking up, he noted a bright flare of light in the superstructure above him.

"Hey, hey," he grumbled, feeling the vibrations in the hulk through his feet. "What's going on up there?"

"I've got – it – wait-" came Jinx's frantic reply.

"No, Jinx! Stop what you're doing!" Cyborg barked back, even more frantically. It was immediately followed by, "Hibiki! Move! Get outta there!"

It was all the warning he had before a sudden jolt nearly shook him from his feet. Again, he cursed the hazards of operating in vacuum. Doubtless, if he'd been on earth, the entire structure would have been groaning in agony as the stressed metal shifted sharply. As it was, even as hundreds of tons of metal collapsed towards him, it did so in an eerie, perfect silence. Worse, it made it hard to determine, based on his earthbound experience, exactly where the collapsing debris was falling towards.

Another heavy jolt, as a section of the falling framework smashed to the ground ten meters to the side, snapped him back to reality. Letting out a curse, both at the situation and at his loss of concentration, he sprang into action, sprinting in Cyborg's direction. One foot slammed heavily to the floor plates, followed quickly by the other, but the reduced gravity was making it hard to maneuver as he normally would. Two tumbling rafters came in from the sides like broken pincers and he slammed his palms into them, forcefully knocking them aside and using the twin blows to cancel out the inertia they, in turn, had imparted into him.

If this has just been Earthside, at least he could ground himself to misdirect the momentum. Here, any given blow threatened to overwhelm the magnetic treads on his boots and send him careening in the opposite direction. Flipping over a gash torn into the floor, he hit the floor on the far side in a crouch, skidding under a twisted pipe, finally shifting back into a full run again-

The wind was blasted from his lungs as something impossibly heavy slammed into his back. This time, he did hear the sound of metal groaning in protest to insane forces, but this time the noise was coming from inside his armor! Whatever it was that had caught him slammed him face first to into floor plating, crushing him right into the floor as the deck plates buckled and folded around him. He tried to twist around, but his limbs were getting tangled up in the shearing metal and endless cables. His body instinctively reacted to destroy the oppressive weights, to lash out with a full body breaking point, but while he could technically use the breaking point with any part of his body, it was not possible to project it through any and every part of his armor.

A second later, his chest slammed into something solid and unyielding, and he felt his ribcage nearly explode as the pressure on his chest suddenly spiked exponentially. He couldn't feel or see what it was, and despite working and operating in personal armor for months, thinking of it almost as a second skin, he suddenly felt blind and bound. It was hard to concentrate. To reorient. To fight back in some way – any way! His lungs burned, unable to draw in any life giving air.

'Not – not like this…!'

He'd been so close, and now he was going to be crushed like a beer can in a construction accident? After all he'd been through? It had to be some kind of sick joke.

Then, just as quickly as it happened, the pressure on his chest suddenly… abated. Raggedly, he drew in a breath, but even that was scarcely a relief, as his breastplate felt like it had been warped, preventing his diaphragm from expanding fully. Still, it was enough to stop the burning sensation in his chest as sweet recycled oxygen filled his lungs. A moment later, he felt himself lifted off of the ground and thrown over someone's shoulder. A painful jolt later, he was outside of the hole he'd just been punched through.

The sight that greeted him was… a disaster. Dust and debris hung in the air, obscuring vision beyond a few meters. Twisted and snapped steel surrounded them in every direction, hanging over their heads like an angry maw.

Only a few meters to his side, Cyborg stood, his body vibrating madly as he held the massive section of the ship's skeleton, the very same section that had been resting on the officer's back mere seconds ago. For just a moment, it looked as if the Titan was holding up the entire world on his shoulders.

Ryouga actually balked a little at the sight. It was rare indeed to encounter an incident where his own physical strength was lacking. But this...? He had been told about Cyborg's "super strength," but he had never really understood just why his double had sounded so awed when he had tried to explain it. Until now. Ryouga couldn't even see through all the debris that had fallen around them.

This was... bad.

Even as Cyborg dropped the massive section of dead ship, letting it drop right back into the hole, Ryouga was dropped to the floor as well, landing on one knee. His mind was already trying desperately to determine just how much of a cave-in they were dealing with. He'd spent more than a year tunneling through Japan with the breaking point. He knew all about collapses, about the many ways to die underground, but that was Earth, and this... was far from home.

"Major, are you alright?" Jinx stared at him intently through her visor, kneeling down beside him.

'Are you alright?' he thought, bitterly. 'That has to be sarcasm, there.'

"Major?" the second query came from Raven, over the comm, ironically identical to that voiced by Jinx a moment before. "Are you alright?"

"What - what happened?" he asked, swallowing his pain and his other concerns, directing the question at the former villainess. 'First things first. First things first. Don't panic. Don't ever panic.'

"I - I don't know," Jinx replied frantically. "I was trying to cut the thing that Cyborg told me to, then... everything - everything just started falling down!"

'An accident.'

An accident that had nearly killed him.

'Just an accident.'

"Major," Raven spoke up again from the communications line. "Your…!"

He sucked in a breath, and then his entire HUD flashed with an emergency warning. It was the words any and every man in space feared: SUIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. The armor screamed, bringing up an inventory of the affected areas. XCOM personal armor was already compartmentalized, so a single breech to an extremity would not decompress the entire suit, but along with the warning claxon, the officer also heard an unmistakable hiss.

"Ah. Ah? Ah!" Eyes darted, first from the display of damaged sections, then across the visor, searching frantically for the crack or tear in the helmet. No: no it couldn't be in the helmet itself. It was solid alien alloy. It had to be somewhere in the body glove. His mind raced, and he momentarily ignored the air venting out of his left glove and lower back. The familiar touch of vacuum, like a caress from the grave, sent chills down his spine. Six months. It had been six months since he had volunteered to die in that airlock. A half a year. Now, at last, the specter of vacuum-exposure had come to finish the job.

'Where? Where is it? Where is it?'

"I'm venting air. I've lost containment on my helmet!" he yelled, adrenalin forcing him back onto his feet, the pain from moments before momentarily forgotten. "Leak! Does anyone see a leak?"

Immediately, Cyborg was at his side, running some form of scanner over him.

"Yeah! Hold on!" The teen sounded, ironically, much more like himself than he had all day. "I got it, there's a shard of metal in the neck - holy crap! It bit into your throat, Ryo! An inch or two to the side…"

Leaning in, the bulky teen clamped onto his shoulder, holding him in place. "Hold still, man, I got it."

Ryouga felt a small tug, followed by a louder hiss of escaping air. Thankfully, it only lasted for several more tense seconds, before the self-sealing layer of the suit finally closed the gash. Letting out a sigh of relief, he prepared to push himself up to his feet.

"...Crap."

Cyborg's sudden, and stark statement stopped the CO dead. Instantly, he turned to stare at the Titan. "What?"

"Your life support system was smashed, Ryo. It's still contained... but it ain't recycling your air anymore! We need to get you back to the ship, and fast!"

The life threatening leak found, Ryouga reached into a pocket strapped to his thigh and retrieved a small cylindrical canister. Cracking the top, he held it up to the spot under his neck, and a thick foam blasted out to cover the area, quickly dehydrating on exposure to vacuum and becoming a hard sealant. With the debris removed, he could feel it touch his skin as well. That bit of metal had not only cut through the body glove, but left a cut in the muscle of his neck as well. He hissed as the sealant filled that gap, as well, finishing the job the environmental layer started. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't life threatening.

He spared a few seconds to find the other, less critical leaks.

Finally, the armor's computer recognized 'integrity restored' and downgraded the alert status, removing the painful siren sound from the officer's ears. His eyes found the display that indicated the damaged recycler. It was a modular system, designed to be replaced. Once back on Pathfinder, he could swap out a replacement. In the meantime, recycled or not, he had by his own estimated a bit more than twenty minutes left.

His helmet began re-pressurizing and reheating the air, and he felt the pressure on his eyes give way. He could guess that they'd been left bloodshot, and searched for the tint function on his visor.

"I still have time," he said, tossing away the spent sealant can. "Ten minutes. No: fifteen."

At that, Jinx looked around, bringing Ryouga's attention back to their immediate surroundings. The steel jungle of twisted metal and choking dust was still there, the particulates hanging in the air unnaturally in the low gravity.

"Fifteen minutes?" Jinx muttered in an anxious tone.

The officer frowned. "Cyborg. Raven."

Rising to his feet, Cyborg began to scan the mountain of scrap around them. "This... could be a problem. If we can't cut out in time, at the very least, they might be able to get another pack to us." Then, and unexpectedly, Cyborg actually chuckled. "Still... on the bright side... not much point in being careful now."

"Subtlety isn't a specialty of mine anyway." Walking up to the caved-in remains of yet another alien ship, he took a second to locate the sections most vulnerable to his techniques. It was a complicated amalgam of parts, with far too many gaps between them: more like a bale of hay or a pile of sticks than a good, solid mass that could be taken apart with a chained breaking point assault.

'Assuming I operate at normal aerobic levels... Fifteen minutes. Twenty max. Then oxygen depravation, nausea, seizures ... then death.'

"I can't be certain what just happened," Raven also began her report-in. "But almost a fifth of the tunnel has collapsed over your position. I was going to… Nabiki has already left to get the reserve team ready. Also, in case you haven't noticed, your parts per million oxygen will reach dangerous levels in ten minutes. Not fifteen."

"I've trained in the mountains," he told her, wishing he was as calm as he forced his reply to sound. "I can deal with limited oxygen depravation and low ppO2. Make sure Nabiki returns to her post. Cyborg. Can Starfire and the other me get to us in twenty minutes?"

"With us cutting our way out ad them cutting in?" the Titan asked, and looked up at the solid mass of starship above them. "Maybe. I don't think we can move it without more falling back in. And there's about thirty meters of twisted scrap directly overhead." He followed the analysis up with an understatement of the week award candidate. "This is kind of a mess, man."

Ryouga turned slightly to watch Jinx, more than a few traces of suspicion lingering, despite all rational analysis. It had to be this place, and he knew it. He didn't really suspect Jinx had gotten sloppy, or that she'd let it fall. That was paranoid. He wasn't paranoid. He wasn't paranoid. He wasn't going to become paranoid.

'I'm not paranoid. I trust her…'

Of course.

'She hates me, though. Hates me for what I did to Akari. For what she did to Akari.'

That… was also true.

'She hates me. She wants to kill me. She wants to kill me.'

He closed his eyes, trying to clear his thoughts.

'She turned Akari into what she is now. She did that. She's responsible! Her! Her!'

A slow ragged breath escaped his lips, and Ryouga held out his left hand.

"Okay. Jinx. Cyborg," he said, tone steady and markedly neutral. "You're both familiar with the Lion Roar Shot and Breaking Point? The old style of the techniques, not the new versions?"

Both nodded quickly.

"I also got a pretty good grasp of Ryo's alternate breaking point as well, if that helps," Cyborg offered, hoping that any small bit might be of assistance.

The acting Major touched a gloved finger to a fallen metal baam.

"Jinx," he asked, glancing back at her. "Have you used your abilities together with anyone else before? Your Ryouga, maybe? Or someone at that school of yours?"

The young woman frowned, but eventually nodded. "Once, yes. Ryouga, Terra and I... we... combined our powers, sort of, to blast something. But we never tried it again..."

"Was there some problem? You don't sound like you're remembering it very fondly."

"It was... draining," was all the slim girl offered in response.

"Explain to me what happened." It wasn't one of the incidents he was aware of, and he didn't like having to press her on this, but the possibility of something going wrong had to be addressed if there was precedent. "How did you combine your abilities and what did it do?"

She shifted about uncomfortably for a moment, before replying.

"It was because of Terra, mostly. She's got more power than any of us, 'cept maybe Raven, but she's crap at manipulating raw energy. So Ryouga got the bright idea, since he was still dabbling in attuning his ki to hers, to just feed her aura into his and use it to power his... well, it sure wasn't a shishi hokoudan."

The slight girl huffed angrily. "It pissed me off that he was able to...I dunno, synch himself with her so easily. So I kind of inverted what little I learned from Happi about absorbing ki, and force-fed him mine, too. After that, he fired off the attack... damn thing nearly killed all three of us."

"I see. So it was like that." Ryouga turned around, right hand reaching up to touch the cut on his neck, now encased in flash sealant. "I'd like not to try this on the fly, so I'm going to explain what I'd like to do and why."

"As you've seen, I can chain my breaking point across material boundaries. If a rock is made up of quartz and several types of silicate, or if you sandwich several blocks of rock or ceramic together, the breaking points can penetrate from one to another. I've become quite good at this, but I can't use the breaking point where there is no mass, like in space, or across gaps. There's too much space in all this debris. And, in case you're curious, the Lion Roar Shot also won't work in vacuum."

"Neither will my sonic cannon," Cyborg added, sounding annoyed by the limitation.

"Yeah, yeah, you both suck equally," Jinx snapped. "Get to the point already!"

"I want to combine my… false Killing Point with your metahuman power, since it isn't dependant on a material medium," he explained, lowering his hand to his side by force of will. It really was starting to sting and become… an irritant. How many minutes were left, again? "In other words, I want to generate a vibration and carrier wave that will take your energy where I want it to go, so it can do what you want it to do, and keep it there until the job is done."

Cyborg frowned as he quickly determined what that sort of maneuver meant.

"But..." the cybernetic teen protested, "From what I heard, if it gets into her ki, what happens if it gets back into her body? Wouldn't that kill her in the most gruesome way imaginable? I'm all for tricks, but I don't wanna risk blowing Jinx up."

"That is why we're going to practice first."

'I'm running out of air. I can almost hear it. Every breath is a tick of the clock.'

Ryouga picked up a piece of debris – a flat metal panel – and held it out for Jinx to take in hand. "Take this. I'll put my hand on top of yours, and we'll work on getting a carrier wave that doesn't bounce your power back into our bodies. Cyborg. If you have some way to measure vibrations and heat, that'd be a real lifesaver."

At that, Cyborg nearly laughed out loud. "Do I have anything that can measure vibrations, he asks?" Moving to stand beside them, the cybernetic teen touched a finger to the piece of metal, a long disused display sliding out of the side of his forearm.

"This thing was a sonic scanner before it was a sonic cannon, dawg, and sound waves are just vibrations! I got a little laser reader here that'll do the trick even in vacuum! As long as you don't kill yourselves on your first attempt, then I should be able to tune into the vibration your using and use that to warn you of any 'backlash.'"

"Hold on just a minute!" Jinx insisted urgently. "With all due respect, sir, as I just said, the last time I tried something like this, it went incredibly badly. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Hmm." Ryouga flipped the metal plate between his fingers. "I understand if you're afraid to try. There's always a risk involved in developing new techniques..."

"I never said I was afraid!" she countered hotly. "If you order me to do it, I'll do it. I just want to make sure that you're aware of the full extent of the risks."

Immediately, Cyborg dropped a hand on her shoulder, only to have it shrugged off a second later. "Hey now, Jinx, don't be so worried. This is going to be as controlled a condition as we're capable of creating, here. Like I said, I'll be here, too, making sure nothing goes wrong. I was already working on this problem for our Ryo..."

The cybernetic teen's instantly shifted to the acting Major, then back again. "For... unrelated reasons..."

"Unrelated," he didn't buy it for a second. "Of course."

Ryouga gave Jinx one last look, shrugged, and turned back to the shell of rubble surrounding them, specifically the patch he had been accessing before. "I won't order you to try something untested; I won't ask you to do anything I myself wouldn't do. If that's what you want, then we'll just do our best the old fashioned way. Raven. Status on the backup team?"

"Wait," Jinx barked, cutting off whatever Raven might have said. Dropping her fists on to her narrow hips, the young woman stared at him seriously. "I never said I was unwilling, sir. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay with the fact that this might backfire."

Not waiting for his confirmation, she spun around and let out a resigned sigh, muttering mostly under her breath, 'Can't believe I'm doing this…'That out of the way, though, she quickly turned back to face him, standing up straight and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Alright. But just so you know, Major. If I die, I intend to file a serious grievance." She lanced Ryouga with a serious stare. "And if we both survive this little 'above and beyond the call of duty' thing, I'm expecting a few good words from you on my behalf, sir."

'We're in this situation because of you,' a vicious voice whispered in his back of his head, and as much as Ryouga disliked it, he recognized that it was his own. His own thoughts. It made them much harder to ignore.

Instead, he said: "If anything goes wrong, it'll backfire on me, too. Now, let's stop wasting time."

He wasn't sure if he just imagined it, but it almost seemed like the young woman was eying him warily, but it passed too quickly to be certain. She nodded quickly, then, and placed her hand on the piece of metal. As soon as she did, Cyborg placed his finger over the piece of debris as well, calibrating his scanner again.

Placing his left hand on top of Jinx's, he prompted her to draw out small amounts of her entropic metahuman power. He had felt it before, and not just when he'd been blasted by her back in Russia. Ranma was the kind of genius who could and did develop his best moves on the fly. Ryouga's own talent came less from improvisational martial arts and more from careful preparation beforehand. The fact that he was naturally less adaptive than his rival was a fact of life he had come to accept.

'You lack talent in certain fields,' his grandfather had once remarked, a stern and humorless shadow looming over a young boy, barely seven years old. 'Work harder. Foresee what you will need to overcome. When you meet someone, plan how to use them and how to fight them. If you are caught unprepared by an equally skilled opponent then you must accept the possibility of death.'

Jinx's energy burned.

She had said so herself. It damaged her body, and as he tried to channel it and force it to follow in the wake of his ki, it lashed out. He had expected this. His hands, already scarred from his killing point training, flinched. It felt like cracks were forming in his skin and in the pads of his fingers.

He couldn't help but marvel at it. 'Such a destructive, evil energy? I'm surprised she hasn't killed herself yet using it. But…'

Ignoring the growing sense of pain, he told Jinx to increase her output to useable levels. His hand over hers, he began sending out test waves. First through her armor, then into her hand to attune with and absorb the malicious pink energy, and then safely out her armor's body glove, and then into the target material. Last came the hardest part: keeping the vibrations from bouncing back, reverberating, and turning on their masters.

"Careful," Cyborg warned.

Jinx just sucked in a breath.

Ryouga didn't ignore them, but he was in his own world. Unlike with his own body, there was no way to be sure Jinx wasn't absorbing too much in the transition from him, to her, to metal plate. Even if he kept the combined energies from turning on them, she was still being used as a conduit for a killing move. Too much, too fast, too little carried through with pink energy, too much absorbed into soft tissues… and she would begin to boil.

"Let go of the plate," he ordered, fingers squeezing her hand, pressure points forcing her grip to loosen, releasing the piece of debris.

"Hey - !"

Any further complaint was cut off, as the metal shook apart while falling through the vacuum. Snowflakes peeled off, like chips of dried paint off a wall. A deathly white and pink glow momentarily engulfed the material in a wisp-like aura, and when it finally hit the ground, it shattered like it had been made of sand and not steel.

"Good," Ryouga released her hand and crouched to get a good look at the gritty, degraded material that had once been space-worthy aluminum and steel. "I think this should do it. Cyborg?"

The technical genius studied the display mounted in his arm intently for several long seconds. Finally, he nodded. "Yeah... yeah, I think that could do it. Just like you said, your power is acting like a carrier wave, leading Jinx's power where it needs to go to do the maximum amount of damage. You're still gonna have to be careful about doing too much, too fast, or you'll still bring things down on our heads."

"Targeted destruction." A family specialty.

One hand found the surface of the collapsed ship, alight with pink fire. Next to Jinx, Ryouga placed his hand on top of hers. The two stood there in that airless space, testing the vast hedgerow of metal ruin and rubble. Testing, searching, finding, isolating, preparing.

"Major," Raven's voice came in over his helmet's comm.. "Your oxygen concentration has fallen below the recommended levels. I've taken the liberty of turning off your suit's warning siren."

"Thank you, Raven."

It was true: he didn't need the distraction, and there was nothing to be done about the lack of breathable air. Slow, measured breaths sucked in the air that was still available, forcing his heart to slow down. It was said that there were Masters who could enter states of suspended animation through meditation and self-control. It was a skill that would have been handy, in retrospect.

"Jinx. You ready?"

"Yeah." The pink haired girl took a deep breath of her own. "Just try and keep up with me!"

She began without him, her power reaching the previous practice levels, and then beyond. For someone who had been ostensibly worried about the combination move blowing her up, she seemed to be getting pretty fired up. Literally. The amplifying energy sent fresh pulses of pain down into his hand and arm. It felt almost as if it wanted to come apart; tear at the seams; split into pieces.

'Good. Good.' In his mind's eyes, he could see the cascade of destruction.

The symphony of annihilation.

"Raven," he said between slow, steady breaths. "Make sure no one is near the other side of this wall. No where near it."

Cyborg wanted it done with some measure of caution. It would be. Everything else would be suffused with the vibratory wave, the seeds of Jinx's poisonous energy planted in every vulnerable surface, every destructible support, every plate and wire. Jinx poured out more and more, and he directed it all. Even as his body protested, he directed it all. So long as none of the entropic poison came back at them; so long as they maintained control.

'Good.'

And then, as he should have expected, an even greater pain stabbed his right arm and side.

'Ryouga-kun. Don't be mad. This pain is nothing…'

That voice: the voice of his nightmares, the voice of the woman – the thing – he secretly feared. Cologne. The demon waiting for him on Mars. The remnants of the parasitic vine, removed months ago, jabbed at him from beyond the grave. Like fingers, he felt hot hands moving seductively over his shoulders, fingernails cutting into his skin.

'This pain is nothing, compared to that suffered by one you claim to love.' Cologne's voice whispered, echoing his own repressed impulses. 'Compared to Akari, this is nothing. And who caused her this suffering? Who would she curse, if only she could scream?'

He knew the answer even before she said it.

'Jinx.'

It was all her fault. Akari should have died a human death. Jinx had condemned her to an existence of misery and experimentation and, finally, the death every alien suffered when removed from contact with the Cydonian Mind. Twice now, he had failed her. Twice, he had left her to suffer. That first time, he had been too weak. This second time, Jinx had ruined everything.

'Hate her as she hates you.' This time it was Akari who whispered in his ear. 'Teach her suffering. The suffering she inflicted on me. Avenge me, Ryouga-sama.'

"H-hey, Major," the voice of the creature brought him back, his control slipping further and further. "You're… crushing my hand…"

'Obey me, Ryouga-kun! Or will you let me suffer alone?'

"Ryo! Your core temp is - !"

"Be quiet." He ordered. "Just be quiet."

He released Jinx's hand, pulling her back from the surface of the wall. She stumbled a step, holding her hand. He frowned at her, the voices of spiteful women fading away.

'Just be quiet and die. All of you.'

"Jinx?" Cyborg came up to her side.

The ship above them pinched, contracting like the pupil of an eye. Microfractures spread like an inverted typhoon, at one point either invisible or not there, and then suddenly everywhere: on every surface and every beam. They crumpled like burning paper mache, the emptiness what was vacuum filling with a million glittering diamonds of shedding steel, falling like snow.

That falling ash scattered as blasts and ruptures opened rifts around them, carving out widening arcs and paths, concentrating in one direction, one hemisphere. There was a long pause, and countless tons of ship turned instantly into granules of sand and strings of angel hair. Broken wires, a thousand times severed, sparked in the darkness. Freckles of fire, pink and green, crackled amid the falling ember storm; pyrotechnics within widening clouds of dust, burning with actinic lightning.

A pained grunt and he stepped forward, brushing away drifting detritus.

Searchlights pierced the hail, finding the trapped trio.

"Jinx…" He hated that it took some effort to say her name. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her and Cyborg looking through the falling flash and ember. "Are you okay?"

The girl stood next to Cyborg, but failed to respond.

"Um... Jinx?" asked her team mate. "You alri-"

His question was answered abruptly, when the sorceress suddenly collapsed as if her strings had been cut. Cyborg barely moved quick enough to grab her before she hit the ground.

"Shit, Jinx!"

"…Damnit," the mission commander cursed, glad Cyborg had been quick enough to catch her. He started slowly toward the searchlights of his comrades and teammates. He couldn't tell what, but something felt wrong with his arm and in his chest. Even aside from the throbbing, familiar agony in his right arm and the burning cracks that he imagined were spread across his left.

"Pathfinder Actual. Jinx and I are both injured," he said, on the open channel. "Please have a medic ready when we get back to the ship."

What he couldn't say was just how close they'd come to replacing the words medic in that sentence with body bag. Or body bags.

'If you won't make her suffer... then you will suffer in her place...' Cologne's cursed voice tingled his ear. 'Ryouga-kun...'

---

"Jinx? Jinx did this?"

The source of the question was one Nabiki Tendo, and she should have known better than most just what had happened outside the ship. Instead, she recoiled at a sight she should have been prepared for. Ukyou very nearly did the same, despite having no forewarning at all. She had seen a lot of injuries in her life: injuries to herself, to others, in books and in her training – all martial artists worth their salt understood the human body and how to fix it, break it, or push it to its limit.

Nothing like this.

The Ryouga they knew had a respirator held up to his face with his right hand, taking slow breaths with his eyes closed. The inside of his personal armor had been sticky and stained with blood, and when they'd torn off the sealant patches, fresh bubbles and droplets had broken the surface on his neck and side. Despite the exposure to vacuum and other abuse, they weren't terribly worrisome.

"Holy shit, man."

Ranma whistled as he took in his rival's left arm before glancing warily over to where the younger Hibiki and Raven were dealing with Jinx. The petite villainess was still unconscious and being cared for by her friends and immediate teammates. Ukyou was amazed. It was almost amusing, seeing how frantic the pair was acting, as if the insensate girl was actually in rough condition… compared to what she had done to Ryouga. The pigtailed one lingered on her, as if struggling to connect her to what he had seen etched on the elder Hibiki's flesh.

Momentarily removing the breathing mask, Ryouga coughed into the back of his hand, flecks of rusty red staining his knuckles.

"Ranma," he ordered. "Forget about that. Get everyone back to work."

"Yeah. Yeah, right," the pigtailed one sighed and nodded in agreement. "Konatsu!"

"Ranchan," Ukyou spoke up. "I can take care of this. Konatsu is… he's…"

"Again?" Ranma asked, growing angry. His temper had become more erratic lately; his fuse noticeably shorter to set and more easy to light.

"He isn't the only one with medical training," Ukyou insisted, not wanting her CO to storm after her tormented teammate. "Just give him a few minutes."

"Its… fine Ranma," Ryouga said, once again removing the breathing mask. "It isn't as bad as it looks. Get people moving again... Get us out of this hole."

The Saotome heir nodded, roughly, and carefully patted his rival on the shoulder as he left the hold for the command room. Nabiki remained behind, still taking in what Jinx's power had done to Ryouga's body. It wasn't pretty to look at, and Ukyou could guess some of what the older woman was thinking.

There were strange, burning cracks spread out along his left arm and hand, like the contrast of broken glass and black background. Speckled blood dried across parts of his chest and across his arm, and the blood that leaked out from the larger of the cracks, making his skin seem almost like weathered animal hide, was a dark, greenish black. The sanguine smell of blood was one any person could detect in sufficient quantities, and Ryouga's nearly blanketed the hall.

It looked like a third of his upper body had been lashed by a medieval torturer…

"Nabiki," Ukyou began to ask, "Do you want to help with…?"

The girl's hands immediately came up, warding the question away.

"I'm sorry… but…" she took a deep breath and lowered her hands. "Ryouga-baby, I'm not great with blood. Not like this. I just - "

He nodded to her, still breathing with the mask.

"Did..." he said slowly weaning himself off the oxygen mask, "Did you find anything in the ship's logs?"

Nabiki shook her head in the negative. "No. Nothing useful. Just…" She looked away, ashamed. "More of the same."

"Keep looking," he ordered, taking some breaths without the mask. "You told me once: the more you know, the stronger you are. We… we need to know what's happening to us." He nodded shallowly to himself. "Also… I'd like you to check Jinx's recordings on that last mission. I want to know what happened with her."

"Do you think she…?"

"No. No. No, of course not." The fact that he repeated it like he did didn't do much to dissuade what looked, to the two girls, clearly like suspicion. "I just want to know what happened… Nabiki. I trust you to come to me… with anything you find."

"You know I will," she answered, and when Ukyou started wiping away the blood from his neck, the mercenary girl quickly made herself scarce. Watching her go, up and until she disappeared behind a door, Ryouga closed his eyes and blindly reached over to turn off the oxygen feed to his respirator. Long, long breaths followed as he shifted back into normal breathing and metabolic patterns. It was an ability Ukyou herself had to a lesser extent, having trained to endure hours immersed in freezing winter as a child… those had been long, hard nights of training, but the mountains of Nara, close to her home of Osaka, had been beautiful beyond words.

Those simple breathing exercises had likely saved Ryouga's life.

"You don't look too good, sugar," she said, scrubbing the gritty sponge over his left arm, cleaning the surface but opening barely-closed fractures. "I can't believe Jinx did this to you."

"Not her," he said, in a noticeably weaker voice than he had used with Ranma and Nabiki. He was letting some of his weakness finally show. "I did this to myself."

Ukyou tilted her head curiously at that. "What do ya mean? Why would you…?"

He grunted; his lip curling in pain as she finished cleaning the worst of the rips on his forearm.

"I'll heal from this more quickly than she will. A fraction of a percent of our attack kept leaking through; no matter how careful I was, I couldn't prevent it, so I directed it into myself. I had no idea how… terrifying…" he seemed to pick the word carefully. "Her powers are." He turned to look over at the sleeping villainess and her friends. "Is she really human? I'd almost think she was Raven's sister or something."

His eyes narrowed a fraction.

Ukyou joined him, but followed by quickly shaking her head and drying him off with a clean antiseptic cloth. He hardly moved, and said not a word as she administered an antiseptic spray that burned like whiskey but smelt sweet as a honey. The solution soon disappeared into Ryouga's arm and chest, replaced with a faint emerald glow.

"Ryouga," Ukyou said his name rather than rank to make sure she had his attention. His eyes opened after having been closed for some time, and he looked at her, her legs tucked under her as she sat next to him. "I don't know what these… these cracks on your arm are. It looks like some of them will close up, but… your fingers and… the inflammation means…"

"I know," he assured her, and held out his hand.

She took his hand, and gently put it on her lap. Holding it down, her free hand retrieved a flat tool. One edge of it slipped under the nail of his index finger, already split in half. They were already low on topical anesthesia, and Ukyou was forced to accept that Ryouga was fine going without it. The flat tool entered under the broken nail, separating it from the skin and nail bed. It came out with a wet crack, and so did its other half. The chef winced at what she had done to him, and quickly bandaged the finger as he mentally controlled his bleeding.

"We're almost done clearing the tunnel," he said, as she removed the next nail, this one broken into three parts, one of which hung by only a thread. "We're almost done," he repeated, as if the words helped with the pain. "And we still have nowhere to go."

Ukyou glanced up at him, surprised by the sudden musing. "Ryouga?"

He shook his head once, sighing. "Nothing. Nevermind."

In the silence that followed, he remained completely impassive, like a robot or a lifeless doll, as she removed the third broken nail from his ring finger. Miraculously, his thumb and pinky had remained unharmed. The swelling probably made them painful, but they wouldn't have to be removed. While she wrapped the finger up, he used his right hand to pick at and inspect one of the larger cracks on his left arm.

"These big ones will probably scar," he said as Ukyou finished. "Nabiki won't like that."

Ukyou blushed a bit, imagining the nature and circumstance of the Tendo sister's critical and discerning attention. Everyone knew the two of them were… intimate. It was still kind of hard to imagine for the okonomiyaki chef, who had known them both for a year and a half back in Nerima. Ryouga had always been Akane-obsessed, not to mention vicariously alternating between helplessly shy and single mindedly violent, and Nabiki had always been a troublemaking opportunist, selling out her sister or potential brother-in-law for a handful of yen. Ukyou's opinion of them hadn't been very high.

True, she had taken advantage of Nabiki's yen-obsession and mercenary nature. Even more true, she had taken advantage of the Akane-obsessed Hibiki to try and fix the fiancé problem the youngest Tendo sister presented. Ryouga had been kind of a friend, and at least an ally, up until the Tunnel of Lost Love and the fight they'd had. Nabiki Tendo, she had never trusted, plain and simple. You didn't put money before customers. That was an iron clad rule of the Kuonji Clan, and one that Nabiki repeatedly violated in her dealings.

To this day, she didn't know when the two idiots had hooked up.

It was before Baghdad and the fall of Wyndham, but it had to be after Winter Triangle - that left a few weeks when they'd either kept it a secret, or been touch and go. Ukyou was pretty sure she knew what Nabiki saw in the lost jackass. She remembered her first kiss, slurred slightly by how much she had drunk that night after finally finding out the truth from him about Akane and Ranma and what the pair were up back at the base; an affair that was still under the radar. Ryouga was kind of an idiot, but he was strong and loyal and… and Ranma-like in a lot of ways, and now that he was a commissioned officer – a well known one in the Far East theater even – that was probably an "in" that appealed to the greedy Nabiki Tendo.

What he saw in her, Ukyou could only guess.

"My old man had a lot of scars," she said, wondering if it would cheer him up to hear it. "You can't be a martial artist and not have a few." She smiled as she realized something. "I bet Mrs Saotome thinks they're manly, so at least you can show up Ranma a little."

He chuckled at that, his chest reverberating the more he imagined it.

"Well, I do like showing up Ranma," he remarked, and left the wound alone for now. Holding up his bandaged left hand, he slowly moved the fingers and then planed both hands on his knees, his legs crossed underneath him. "I've stopped the bleeding, but there's some muscle and internal damage, too. At least concentrating on healing will give me something to do."

He set his jaw, and his brows lowered as he remembered something. "Konatsu is…?"

"Not doing that well," Ukyou answered, knowing the question before it was uttered. "He's still seeing things and he's using that technique again."

"I thought Ranma told him not to?" Ryouga asked, exhaling as she tended to the cracks in his skin and flesh with a liquid stitches and scaffold adhesive. It would make it easier for tissue to form in the gaps, since they couldn't be easily closed by forcing the nearby skin together.

"He did," she replied, shaking her head sadly. "Konatsu says he doesn't remember using the technique. He says it just happens."

"Techniques don't just happen."

"I know. But that's what he says. Maybe he does it and doesn't remember?" Ukyou leaned back a bit, and then held up his arm to get at the underside. "We've all been losing track of time… losing track of what we do."

"I know. But this is exactly why I've had everyone's weapons taken away. Even Mousse. Konatsu should know better." Ryouga's right hand came up to massage his temples. "I'll have to talk to him."

"Speaking of Mousse," Ukyou casually shifted the conversation a bit ostensibly paying full attention to her work on his arm. "We were talking to Raven about Starfire…"

"Not that again."

"Well, we were asking about that, but then we started talking more about aliens, and Green Lanterns came up, thanks to the guy we have in stasis," Ukyou rambled a bit, and coughed to better focus her upcoming arguments. "You know what Cyborg said about them. That ring we have could be just what we need to get out of here. I bet if… if someone had it, they could clear the rest of the debris, and we wouldn't risk anything like this happening. We could also send a third person out with the two MARS armors."

She could see he was frowning and about to object.

"We're already using alien technology all around us, sugar," she reminded him, and held up the medikit for emphasis. In fact, it wasn't alien technology. But it was high tech and close at hand. And made of alien alloy, so it kind of counted.

"I just don't like it," he said, before she could try anything else or bring up any other examples. "Ukyou, they had a whole ship full of people with those rings. And all it meant was that it was easier for them to kill one another."

"We don't know that," she argued, letting go of his arm. "Not exactly. We don't know what happened."

"We know they're dead. Some of the damage to the ship must have been done with those 'power rings' they use." He shook his head. "It's just too risky."

She persisted. "Whoever used it could take it off when they come back in the ship."

"We don't even know how to use it."

"It responds to thoughts, right? Just like a psi-amp. We can learn to use it!"

He looked at her seriously. "Ukyou… where would you learn to use it? In the ship, right?"

"No, I…" she quickly caught herself. "Alright, whoever used it would probably have to practice a little in the ship. But… come on, Ryouga-honey!" She quickly corrected herself, "...Major, I mean. Can things really get that much worse?"

"Yes," he insisted. "Yes they can!" He held out his hand. "Form of: a big ball! And four people get crushed against the walls. Or maybe someone thinks of a ki attack, and the ring starts blasting raw energy. In an enclosed space! You see why I do not want this weapon being used on my ship?"

"I … I do," she admitted, scooting back and away from him a little. Biting her lip, she restrained herself from pleading. It was true: ever since they'd put the ring back into storage, she… she felt like it was being wasted. The ship had called her a Green Lantern. The ring had drawn her to find it. She could use it to help. The more she thought about it, the more she heard from the Titans, she more she was sure it was… destiny. Her destiny.

"Please just think about it," she said, seconds passing in silence between them. "I don't care if it isn't me. Give it to Ranchan. Or you could use it!"

"Or Shampoo?" he wondered. "Or maybe Jinx?"

Ukyou was on the verge of snapping a hasty NO! But she caught herself and only crossed her arms.

"Maybe I care a little who uses it," she conceded. "But we have what could be the most powerful weapon in the universe sitting in storage. Maybe we'll do okay without even looking at it again." Ukyou leaned in closer, looking him in the eye. "Or maybe it's just what we need. You saw what things look like out there. How much of the tunnel just collapsed?"

He sighed again, and she was very nearly tempted to call him out on his timidity. This wasn't the Ryouga she knew. This wasn't the same man who led India Squad against the enemy, was it? No. Maybe this was the Ryouga she knew. The Ryouga from back in Nerima, who was too afraid to speak more than a few words to Akane, much less admit his love for her, all because of the possibility of rejection. Maybe, deep down, he was now and always would be a coward.

Ukyou blinked and lowered her eyes, regretting the thought.

'That's just this place. I don't really think that. That's not me.'

Still. Did the jackass have to be so damn indecisive sometimes? If only he were more confident… like Ranma. Or even Ryu. Hell, if he had been more of a man back at the Tunnel of Lost Love, then they wouldn't have gotten separated by the ghosts. They'd have walked out of there as… best friends. She was sure of it. But instead he had to be wishy-washy!

"It isn't like I haven't thought about it, Ukyou," he finally responded, also crossing his scarred arms. "I'll talk to Cyborg and Ranma about it again. Maybe it's worth… a try."

"I knew you'd come around, sugar!" Throwing her arms around him, she all but glomped the lost officer, Shampoo-style. "You won't regret this! I promise!"

"I haven't said who'll use the ring yet," he reminded her, going a bit limp in her bear hug.

"I know. I know!" she enthused, backing off and clasping her hands together. "I just… can't wait to see it in action! That's all!"

He seemed to accept that at face value and started to stand up. "Okay, then. After I check in on Jinx, I'll look into it. Ryu and Mousse should be back by then."

"Of course," she agreed, also getting up.

So, Ryouga wanted to check in on Jinx first? Even after the damage she had caused? Even after nearly killing him? That was a bit of a mood killer.

It was annoying enough that the other-Ryouga and Raven had been chattering away constantly in the background the entire time she'd been tending to the acting Major's wounds. Didn't they have anything better to do than watch that stupid girl sleep? The abrasive little witch wasn't one of Ukyou's favorite people even on a good day, and the last few days had not been 'good' by any stretch of the imagination. Close contact sure hadn't done much to bring the girls of the three squads closer. Mathematically, they were a little under an astronomical unit away from painting nails and having a sleepover.

It was lucky that Jinx stuck to pestering Shampoo.

'Soon. Soon I'll see it again.'

Ukyou Kuonji could hardly wait.

---

Raven allowed herself a small moment of out of context whimsy as she watched Ryouga across the hold, doing his utmost to shoo Starfire back out of the ship to help Cyborg determine how bad the damage of the collapse actually was. Her Tamaranian teammate was understandably reluctant to leave their sides, having so frantically sped back here carrying Jinx's insensate form, but the young woman seemed to be fine.

More troubling by far were the suspicious or wary glares being cast at the young sorceress by a disturbing number of the crew, as if Jinx herself had returned a whole different person. As much as Raven would have appreciated Starfire's company at the moment, her friend was already a touch volatile when it came to the members of India and Juliet, and having people pretty much accuse Jinx with their eyes would undoubtedly set her off. Not that it seemed to take much recently. Cyborg would no doubt need assistance outside of the ship, anyway.

With a soft hum under her breath, she started removing Jinx's glove. It was an annoying procedure, consisting of breaking environmental seals, undoing latches and other such things that Raven had little personal experience with, never having worn the personal armor herself except for a single orientation and training seminar. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to do anything to help the girl until she was in her skivvies, as it were, so the armor was going to have to go.

The sound of someone letting out a tired sigh, moments before dropping down to sit at her side, drew Raven's attention to the lost boy next to her. He looked so… drawn… so stretched to his limits, and not just physically. Emotionally. She knew that it wasn't the hassle of shuffling Starfire out of the ship that was the cause, either.

Letting out a small sigh of her own, Raven finally finished pulling off the armored gauntlet and gently set it on the floor beside her. Beneath it, the Jinx's normally flawless, pale skin on the back of her left hand was bruised and swollen. No wonder it had been so hard to work the glove off. The sight caused something to twist up inside her that had nothing to do with Ryouga for a change.

Why did Jinx always have to be so reckless? Didn't she realize she was mortal like the rest of them? Compared to every other fighter on the ship, Jinx might as well be made of glass, and yet she never backed down; never hesitated to jump right into the thick of things.

It… reminded her of Robin, in an oddly twisted kind of way.

Robin, if he could unleash complete destruction with the wave of a hand, anyway. She couldn't help but glance out of the corner of her eye to look over where the acting Major was stripping out of his armor. Ranma, Ukyou and Nabiki were all hovering around him, exchanging words at the sight of his injuries.

Raven almost wanted to gasp herself, now that she had seen it, at the amount of trauma that had been inflicted on his arm and chest. Was this what they had mentioned before? The officer had gaping, bloody cracks in his skin, fissures that glowed unnaturally. It was selfish of her, but Raven almost hoped that he forgot about her healing abilities for the time being. She had no desire to experience the kind of pain he must be feeling at that moment. She turned away when Ukyou began removing his fingernails to relieve the swelling.

"Can you believe that the Major's attack backfired so badly?" she asked her companion as she began to work away at Jinx's other glove. "As if things weren't bad enough around here."

Closing his eyes, the younger Hibiki gave a abrupt grunt in tandem with a sharp nod. Crossing his arms over his chest, he dipped his head down low.

"I'm not surprised at all," he muttered in a low voice. "There's a world of difference between combining two attacks and actually melding your ki with another person's. It's not really the Major's fault that he wouldn't know that, though, I had to learn it the hard way myself."

That piqued her curiosity, as it reminded her of something that she had heard not all that long ago at all. Hadn't Jinx mentioned something about…

"What do you mean?" she asked, slipping off the second gauntlet more easily than the first.

He shrugged, his eyes still closed. "I did something similar myself, with Terra and Jinx, once. It turned out pretty damned bad…"

That! That was it!

"Wait," she said, remembering. "Jinx said something about that when she was talking to the Major. She mentioned that it was 'draining'?"

Ryouga started at that, his eyes snapping open.

"Huh?" He sounded genuinely surprised. "She told him that?" He frowned at the implication. "That just makes it all the more confusing. I just can't believe that she agreed to do something like that again!"

Gazing at Jinx's pale face, he brushed a few stray strands of pink hair from her forehead. "We nearly died, all three of us. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that we had our friends right there to help us… we definitely would have. There's… there's no way of really keeping track of what another person's ki reserves are during something like that…"

A low rumble rattled in his throat as something a frustrating thought obviously occurred to her companion. "Worse, I can't believe that no one thought to consult me before they did it, either. Jinx is smart, and Hibiki is talented, but neither of them know the dangers of mixing ki like that."

Raven shook her head, still looking at the bloody officer. "Well, I think at least he's learning something of them."

The sergeant shook his head at that. "The damage he suffered is pretty extreme, worse than I suffered, anyway, but that's not nearly the worst that could have happened. Sure, part of it was probably Jinx's power, part of it was doubtlessly the intent they both possessed while doing the technique, but … damn, it's hard to explain."

Smiling encouragingly, she motioned down to Jinx. "How about you try to figure it out while you help me take Jinx's armor off?"

Instantly, Ryouga's eyes snapped close again, and he shifted to the side.

"I - I…" he stuttered, starting to blush with embarrassment. "You don't really need my help for that… do you?"

Giving an annoyed huff, she grabbed his hand and dropped it on Jinx's armored shoulder. "Would you please man up for a bit? We still need to give Jinx a proper check up, and I can't do that while she's wearing layers of exotic alien alloys and plastics."

Gingerly, the Lost Boy opened a single eye, then, tentatively, as if expecting retribution any second, he began to fiddle half heartedly with one of the fasteners.

Rolling her eyes, Raven couldn't help but smile. "You know, you're probably the only guy I know that isn't ecstatic at the thought of getting his girlfriend out of her clothes…"

Her mirth, and the tiny pang of jealousy that accompanied it were quickly quashed when Ryouga fired a scathing glare her way. Actually leaning back slightly, she was unprepared for his bitter response.

"You don't get to joke about that," he whispered, angrily.

Lost for words, Raven lifted a hand to her lips, trying to find what she could possibly say to apologize for her thoughtless comment… only for Ryouga to give his head a weary shake. Reaching out, he gently took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"I – I'm sorry, Raven. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just…just…"

Dropping her other hand over his, she shook her head.

"Don't worry about it," she assured him, not wanting him to go on. "It's my own fault for saying something so foolish. I know how you feel about Jinx, I – I don't even know why I said that…"

She was a bit saddened when he withdrew his hand from hers, but was quickly reassured when he began to unbuckled Jinx's armor without hesitation. Far more experienced with the armor than herself, even with Jinx's more unique and slightly damaged set, Ryouga started to remove sections of armor with practiced ease.

"Hmm… well, consider this. If I use too much elemental ki, or if Ranma does, it will start to backlash and eventually destroy us," Ryouga began, completely out of the blue. Raven paused in her work for a moment, working on one of the latches to the clamshell styled chest plate, to stare at him. "And we told you about my fight with Star, right? How violently our attacks reacted to each other? Well, imagine what would happen if I tried to inject ki right into her body if we were both in that state of mind?"

Raven shuddered at that thought. She wasn't sure where he was going, though, he seemed to be half rambling, jumping from one thing to the next without really explaining.

"Actually, better yet," Ryouga suddenly started again, changing the direction of discussion. "Think about a blood transfusion. I mean, blood is blood, right? You need it to live, and everyone has blood in them. But, if someone gives you the wrong kind of blood, blood that isn't like your own… well, you can die."

With a clatter, the shin guard of Jinx's armor was dropped to the ground, and Ryouga started removing the rest of her lower armor. Studiously avoiding looking at any of the exposed skin, he remained perfectly focused on the task at hand, not even blushing.

For her part, Raven nodded in understanding. No doubt the metaphor was over simplified for her benefit, but it made sense. That just led to the question, though, of just how unique a person's ki was? It did lend a somewhat different bent on just what Ryouga had done when he had saved Terra from her petrifaction so long ago. Had that been when he'd learned this information?

"It's part of the reason that I haven't made any real headway with any non combat related techniques," he admitted as he started gingerly removing the last piece of Jinx's armor. Noticing what he was not allowing himself to see, Raven subtly reached over and pinched the edge of Jinx's underwear to prevent them from being pulled off with the armor as well.

She allowed herself just a single moment of wistful melancholy. The memory of her 'battle' with Jinx, so recently relived during the mind dive, made it impossible for her not to notice that Jinx was not wearing the dark stealth suit as she said she would. The young witch had been severely disappointed when they had told her she couldn't wear it under her armor, though Raven couldn't remember the reasoning. The thought left a strangely bittersweet taste in her mouth, but she forced herself to focus on the now again.

"Hmm?" Raven muttered absently, readjusting Jinx's 'garments' a bit more modestly once the armor was fully removed.

"Well, I dabbled with the idea here a bit, after the Commander suggested it… but it always ended badly. I could help Terra because I spent weeks trying to make my ki as much like hers as possible. With anyone else, though, I'm just as incompatible as anyone else… well, except maybe with other-me, anyway." He gave a rueful chuckle. "I kind of gave up on it pretty quick. Any technique that requires spending weeks 'getting to know' the patient isn't going to be useful as far as battlefield medicine goes."

She nodded absently, even as she began to hover her hands over Jinx's unconscious body. Blue glow encompassing her hands, she began to probe into the young woman's body, psionically and telekinetically searching for any possible damage.

As a wartime measure, anything requiring that much time to prepare was going to be a non-starter, and considering how convenient her own powers were, she doubted he felt too pressed to really work out the issues. Whatever those issues were, anyway. She still didn't understand half of the things that any of these martial artists could do on a good day.

With a low grunt, it didn't take Raven long to find injuries. To her chagrin, most of what she found were older, slowly healing wounds, the ones which Raven had inflicted herself back in Azarath: some deep tissue bruising, other, less identifiable but still painful annoyances. Then there was her hand, a number of hairline fractures ran through the delicate bones of her fingers. What on earth had caused that? Had she hurt her hand during the collapse of the tunnel outside the ship?

Either way, it didn't really matter too much. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she smirked to herself as Ryouga studiously looked away from their unconscious teammate, his eyes closed tightly while she did her work. Pressing her hand fully to Jinx's taut stomach, Raven began to pull her rival's injuries into herself. She had already attempted to heal Jinx, and had dealt with a shameful array of more serious wounds, but she was not surprised that so much had been left undone.

Sympathetic healing had its limits… being painful at best… potentially lethal at worst.

Still, with most of the heavy lifting already taken care of earlier, this second round was going much more smoothly. She could already feel the pain in her own chest swell, then fade as her own enhanced healing began to deal with it-

'That – that's odd…'

Turning to her side, she nudged Ryouga with an elbow. "Ryouga… I'm healing her injuries… but Jinx's breathing is getting more shallow…?"

It was probably nothing, just exhaustion, or something like that.

After all, Raven couldn't feel anything physically wrong…

Even as Ryouga's eyes snapped open, and he leaned forward frantically, Raven let her own vision begin to swim as she stared at – through- Jinx. Sort of like crossing her eyes for too long, the visible spectrum began to blur and grow indistinct. A moment later, new sensations began to fill her senses, translating loosely into visual representations.

Then entire hold filled with swirling gatherings of light. Powerful auras, possessed by a pair of Hibikis, a Saotome, and herself, nearly blotted out everything else in the hold. Ukyou's neutral aura flickered between the oppressive weight of the four spiritual powerhouses, and Nabiki might as well have been invisible, drowned out completely by everyone else.

But Jinx… Jinx should have been as bright as a star. Though not a physical powerhouse like the rest, Jinx's energy generation, tied so intimately to her own aura, far exceeded anyone else present excepting herself. Raven actually had to concentrate, to focus as intently as she possible, looking past all distractions as she examined Jin-

"No! Why didn't I see this?" Ryouga's panicked gasp struck Raven's ears, but she didn't understand what he meant until several long seconds later, when her own focus finally solidified.

Jinx's aura, normally so exuberant, was barely even visible! Traces of livid pink still shot through her body, flowing from her abdomen out to her extremities and back again, but the flow was so weak… so slow…

And it was fading!

"Shit, not again," her companion barked hoarsely. "Not like this."

"What – what's happening?" Raven asked, though a grim suspicion was beginning to settle in her stomach. The thought that – that something like this had been happening to Jinx… and she had let herself be distracted, had – had been flirting with Ryouga even as Jinx started to fade away?

"Catastrophic ki depletion. Just like in Atlantis… and with Starfire after Saffron," he explained, his hands trembling above the pale sorceress' body, as if he was unsure of what to do with them.

Raven's eyes widened in true fear. She had no idea what had happened in Atlantis, but Starfire had required emergency medical intervention, the kind that was simply not available here. Hell, what kind of pod could they even put together to recharge a metahuman? Even back on their world, few understood how metahuman powers activated or functioned, much less how to medically diagnose problems with them!

A sudden bolt of pain stabbed deep into Raven's gut, causing her head to drop down onto Jinx's hip. She forced herself back up a second later, but forced herself to take deep breaths to help her focus. What – the hell had that been? Examining Jinx again, she noted that the girl's chest was scarcely rising and falling at all anymore. Looking 'through' Jinx again, trying to interpret the psionic impulses that were attempting to cannibalize the witch's injuries, Raven started to realize what was going on.

Oxygen deprivation was beginning to set in! Jinx's body was prioritizing, keeping what little oxygen it could still take in to the heart and brain… but other organs and systems were being forced to go without. Not sure what else to do, Raven did her best to transfer the damage to herself, breathing heavily to try and mitigate the same harm in herself.

How long could she possibly keep this up, though?

Reaching frantically to his side, Ryouga grabbed the medkit and tore it open. He began rifling through its contents frantically, looking for anything to use. He pulled out a large needle, pre-prepared adrenaline sorted by dosage, she recognized from their mutual training, and he stared between it and Jinx.

"…No, that won't help," he whispered harshly to himself. She understood what he meant instantly. Jinx's body was physically fine, her heart still beating, her lungs still respiring. A jolt of adrenaline might counter the symptoms for a minute or two, but it would do nothing to stop what Raven was suddenly realizing just might be the inevitable. Ryouga dropped the kit to his side and just stared at Jinx, a look beyond mortal terror beginning to creep onto his face. Turning to look her way, he held up his hands, desperate to find something to do.

"R-Raven? What can we do? We don't – we don't have anything…"

Worse than pain, a dull numbness began to spread through Raven's chest as Jinx's body howled for air.

"I – we…" Raven faltered, not having any idea of what to do. The medkit? It had nothing to help with something like this. Call for help? Call to who, and to what end? Who on this entire ship had even the slightest idea of how to start someone's life force flowing… again…?

Were her hands not already busy, she would have slapped herself upside the head. Again, Jinx's words from not terribly long ago rang through her ears:

'So Ryouga got the bright idea, since he was still dabbling in attuning his ki to hers, to just feed her aura into his and use it to power his...'

Things began to click in her mind, faster and faster. Small discrepancies which hadn't meant anything before, and had been forgotten as quickly as they had been revealed, suddenly began to take on an odd sort of sense in Raven's thoughts. Ryouga's use of elemental ki, was it possible that that was the reason? If that was true, though, then perhaps…

'It pissed me off that he was able to...I dunno, synch up with her so easily. So I kind of inverted what little I learned from Happi about absorbing ki, and force-fed him mine, too'

Was it possible? It seemed so far-fetched, and yet…

"Ryouga," she spat out, barely above a whisper. "You – you can do it!"

He looked back at her, obviously not understanding. "What are you talking about?"

She wanted to smack him, for missing the obvious. "Just like you did with Terra! You can use your own ki to supplement Jinx's, and start it flowing again! You can save her."

Ryouga looked at her like she was crazy. "What? Weren't you even listening? If I try that, I'll kill her before she has a chance to die anyway. I'd have to match my ki to hers almost perfectly, and I don't have weeks to do that right now!"

She shook her head fiercely. "Don't you see it? You've already had those weeks. You've spent more time with Jinx than anyone else since we've gotten here! And what about in Atlantis, when she fed her power right through you? That had to give your body an idea of what her power is like."

"I..." He paused in mid retort, finally pausing to think about what she was saying. Disbelief morphed into incredulity, then concentration, taking a detour into wonder, then finally into realization. "I – you're… could you be right? I don't know… but – but!"

Looking forward, the martial artist lifted his fist, staring at it as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. A dark green aura sprang up around it, oozing with streaks of black and red, a vile, corrupt aura that simply looked toxic to the touch…

But, slowly, it began to fade, dark, heavy emotions shedding away to reveal a serene azure tint.

"But I'm sure as hell not going to let reality start getting in my way now!" he bit off with a savage grin. Raven would have smiled, were it not for the pain lancing through her body. Before her, she could see Jinx's aura continue to slow, continue to fade.

"Ryouga," she reminded him. "We're running out of time."

Nodding sharply, Ryouga quickly dropped his hand to his knee and closed his eyes, taking several long, calming breaths. It was critical that he brought his emotions under control, she knew that much, if this was to have even a chance of succeeding. He needed to purge all of his own personal baggage if he could even have a hope of trying to emulate Jinx's entirely different set of baggage.

As such, she kept it to herself when she noticed Jinx's aura die away completely.

Hiding her own reaction, she desperately focused more of her power into preserving Jinx's newly minted corpse while Ryouga concentrated. Even without breathing, they still had several precious minutes before brain death set in, and Raven hoped that she could prevent any serious damage as long as Ryouga acted soon…

Another long, soothing breath.

…as long as Ryouga acted soon…

She glared out of the corner of her eye as the martial artist continued to gather himself.

…as long as Ryouga acted soon…

A long, drawn out exhalation of air.

'Oh, for the love of-'

"Ryouga," Raven stated in a painfully strained voice, "I don't want to put any undo pressure on you, but I think Jinx's heart just stopped."

"Raven-" Crap! She could hear frantic fear begin to bubble up in him again. Her attempt to focus him, having the opposite affect.

"No!" Reaching out, she actually slapped the panicking martial artist across the face. "Concentrate! I can't do this without you! You're the only one with the training and familiarity to do this! If you don't calm down and concentrate, she is going to die."

She made the last statement with such silent intensity that he reacted as if she'd slapped him again, but with a forklift. Growling darkly, the martial artist stared around the hold, obviously staring at all of the people that were stoically ignoring their desperately hushed conversation to tend to their commanding officer or to deal with Konatsu and Kuno. None of them seemed to know - or care - what was going on. Of course, Ranma wasn't piloting the ship; the ship's internal sensors were off.

Finally snapping out of his building fury, Ryouga nodded sharply to her. Taking a deep breath, he sat back into a lotus position and closed his eyes. Though it likely took all of his willpower - as well as what little she could offer him in return while she vainly tried to keep Jinx's systems from shutting down, one after the other – his breathing slowed and she could feel his emotions begin to settle properly now. She couldn't even begin to describe the exquisite agony that she was experiencing, feeling her body die from the inside out as her glowing hand rested on Jinx's abdomen, but not even for an instant would she consider switching places with the Lost Boy at her side at that moment.

His aura began to manifest itself fully now, invisible to the naked eye, but as obvious as a lighthouse to a ship lost at sea. Her hand grasping his, she could feel the swells and eddies in the flow of his ki, could feel them smooth out and shift as the rotation of his spiritual energy took on a familiar, elliptical form deep within his abdomen. What she had proposed would have been utterly ridiculous for anyone else to even consider… but it just had to work. All of the pieces to the puzzle were there; it was just a matter of whether or not he could put them together in time.

Or whether what she asked was even possible in the first place.

As she watched intently, focusing through pain with experience born through long practice, his aura began to grow, taking on the achingly familiar azure color which seemed to represent his soul at its most calm and collected. When she had first met him, those same vitriolic greens and shades of black and red had been common sights: rage, hatred, envy and a host of other dark, negative, heavy emotions poisoning his soul. In recent days, the golden hue, reminiscent of Terra's unique, elemental spirit had been the norm. He used the elemental qi at every opportunity, possibly too much for Raven's comfort, as she had no idea what kind of negative effects it could have on him.

Still, he had spent many hours, many days; weeks working to earn the ability to summon up that power. He had spent countless hours reshaping his own spirit, altering it and acclimating it. He had lived beneath the earth, had spent entire nights sleeping directly on the cold stone floors… all in an effort to make his ki compatible enough to travel through Terra's body without destroying it in the process. But even then, after that, his ability to use earth qi had not been overly impressive. He strived hard to master it in the weeks following Terra's restoration, but it had been a very slow process.

Until he returned from Atlantis…

Raven still had no idea what had happened in that undersea kingdom, she and the rest of the original Titans had been tricked away to Tamaran by Blackfire. But now, now she had been given a hint. A hint by Jinx herself, bless the girl's black – hopefully soon to be beating again – heart. After all, Ryouga's mastery of earth qi had been markedly greater when she had next seen him, after they had returned to Earth, but no one had had any explanations, asides from training. She certainly hoped that, in this case, Ryouga was not nearly the prodigy he thought he was, and that her hunch was right. If not…

Raven glanced down at Jinx's still face, slowly going even paler than was normal for the already ghostly girl. Squeezing Ryouga's hand tighter, though it probably had about as much effect as a gnat landing on his skin, she tried to urge him to quicken the process.

'Do it now, before it's too late!'

Taking in another long breath, eyes still closed, Ryouga reached out and touched a hand to Jinx's ankle. His grip was as light as a feather, his fingers shaking slightly as he caressed the sorceress' naked skin. It was, in Raven's opinion, a testament to how serious he was taking this.

"You can do this," she whispered in a low, encouraging voice. "Just like with Terra. You saved Terra, you can save Jinx, too."

Apparently her words must have held more weight than she thought, as his fingers stopped trembling. Gradually, too slowly, his aura began to shift. Rather than brightening, on the way to the color of sunlight, it darkened… taking on a reddish hue.

'Yes!' Raven gasped internally. There was a chance! If Ryouga could make his ki compatible with Terra, then maybe, just maybe, he could do so with Jinx as well! After all, if Raven was right, it was possible that feeding her power straight through him had actually increased his ability to emulate her spirit energy. It didn't give him her powers, not even in the slightest, but it did have other advantages. Jinx had mixed her power with his as well, and considering all of the countless hours he had spent in… in intimate contact with her… he just might be able to make his energy compatible with hers as well!

"What are you two doing?"

The question, asked in Ryouga's voice, but not by Ryouga, nearly shocked Raven right out of her trance. For an instant, she keeled forward, the pain overwhelming her as she struggled to control it, and she felt a series of violent tremors shoot through the younger Hibiki's aura like the aftershock of an earthquake. Hissing violently, she forced herself up, her hand squeezing Ryouga's so hard that her knuckles went snow white. Digging her nails in, with added talons of telekinesis, she tightened her grip until she felt her fingernails pierce through his breaking point hardened skin..

The pain focused him, rather than distracting him, and she quickly felt his aura calm once more, beginning to lighten from its dark red hue. Cracking open an eye, Raven stared up at the officer.

"No time… to explain," she bit out. She then turned to the Hibiki at her side. "You have to do it now. Wait any longer and it won't matter how close you get."

Eyes snapping open, her Ryouga nodded sharply. Perfect calm on his features, he smoothly leaned forward, looking almost unnaturally composed. Resting a single finger on Jinx's forehead, he held his other hand over her lower abdomen, arraying his fingers out in a circular pattern below her navel. Trained as she was, Raven knew well the chakra points he was aligning his fingers to contact. If they had had more time, they would have attempted a more familiar technique, applying energy to all of her organs simultaneously… exactly as they had done with Terra.

But Jinx didn't have that kind of time. 'It might be too late already…' Raven shook her head to rid it of that wicked thought. Ryouga's hand rested over her Sacral chakra, also the largest reserve of ki in the human body. Jinx's was all but empty, the poor girl had been drained nearly dry. It had been amazing that she'd still been breathing when she'd been brought back.

There was nothing that Raven could have done. She could heal damaged organs, shattered bones and torn muscle, but she could not replace someone's life force. But perhaps, now that Raven had healed Jinx's old injuries (mostly), perhaps her body could begin to replenish itself… if someone was just able to give her a helping hand… though 'jump start' sounded oddly appropriate in this situation.

With a thought, Ryouga pulsed his aura, and Raven watched in awe. Tiny, incredibly tiny and carefully controlled bursts of ki entered Jinx's body, immediately sinking into the chakra points and shooting down the girl's internal meridians like tiny stars.

Nothing happened.

"Again," she whispered harshly.

His aura pulsed again, this time a greater surge of power flowed into Jinx, before flowing through her system. Raven winced as she felt a sympathetic spike of pain shoot through her body. "Be careful," she hissed, "Too much and you'll kill her." 'Maybe not just her.'

She felt his hands almost lift away from Jinx, but she forced him to hold his position.

"Again."

The shroud of light hanging over Ryouga darkened for a moment, then grew lighter as his brow creased in concentration. Though the amount of energy he had just expended had been so miniscule that it could scarcely even be noticed by even most of the people on this ship, he was already sweating heavily from the exertion. Again, his aura pulsed, and again, tiny points of light shot through Jinx's body. Several, in particular, swirled rapidly around her abdomen, round and round they went, almost cycling-

"Again," Raven breathed this time with hope in her voice.

And again he did. More reddish light flowed, cycled, circled… dimmed…

A flash of pink!

Raven's eyes widened, so wide that it hurt. She strained all of her senses, ignoring the visual spectrum entirely as she focused all of her will upon the spiritual. The reddish sparks of Ryouga's infiltrating ki continued to dim, cycling around and around but not damaging any of the sensitive tissue through which they passed. They would fade away entirely soon – another pink spark appeared, this one not vanishing in a flash like the first.

"Ryouga, again," she ordered.

She could only imagine how eager he was to comply, but not a trace of it showed on his face, nothing but grim concentration showing there. Again, his aura pulsed, and only now did it strike Raven just how familiar this scene must have looked. All they needed was a pair of shiny paddles and a distinct lack of knowledge on how defibrillation actually worked, and…

It started off as a trickle, but within moments, the tiny stream of pink life force began to build up once more, cycling weakly, but stably through Jinx's slight body. For a moment, Raven nearly smirked – they were lucky, in a way, considering just how tiny Terra and Jinx were. How much ki did they actually really need to power those willow-thin bodies of theirs? Even though she could feel eyes burning through her from above, neither her, nor her Ryouga took their eyes off of Jinx.

'Wait, something is wrong.'

"Raven, she's not breathing!" Ryouga barked, his calm veneer beginning to crack.

Yes, yes, that was it. The astounding martial artist had managed to rekindle the spark of her life force… but the damn girl's body hadn't realized it had been resurrected yet! The tepid flow of ki which Ryouga had just nurtured was already beginning to slow again. Desperation danced in the back of Ryouga's eyes as he sent another pulse of his power into Jinx's body, artificially bolstering the flow of her ki. It was something of an odd reversal, where now Raven was watching as he was keeping her alive.

"W-what can we d-"

The obvious solution slammed home with painful clarity. Instantly, she glanced down at Jinx's pale face, her even paler lips, then turned to stare at Ryouga, aghast. Indecision wracked her. "I – you – Ryouga?"

He caught on to her meaning quickly enough, his eyes widening to saucers.

"Ryouga, you have to-"

Cutting her off, Ryouga gestured to his hands with a sharp dip of his head. Both of them were still resting on Jinx's brow and her abdomen. He made his point, quite clearly, that he wouldn't be able to help. Anxiously, Raven felt her face begin to burn with embarrassment… but one last look at Jinx helped to steel her resolve.

Taking a deep breath, and closing her eyes as tightly as possible, Raven did the last thing that she ever thought she would do: applied CPR to her greatest rival. 'Not rival. Your worst enemy,' her thoughts betrayed her. Pressing her lips over Jinx's, doing her best to try to form a seal, just as Robin had taught her – Azar, what an uncomfortable week that had been – she forced a blast of life giving air down into Jinx's lungs. Sitting up, she took another deep breath, puzzled as to why Jinx suddenly had a ring of bright red lipstick on, until she realized it was blood, undoubtedly her own blood, and repeated the process. She then sat up again, only to rest her hands on the slim girl's chest, applying pressure in evenly timed intervals.

Azar knew that they didn't want a Hibiki trying to do that – for a multitude of reasons.

Taking another deep breath, she began to breathe for Jinx again, forcing air into her lungs and causing her chest to swell with each exhale. She then began pressing down on the sorceress' chest again. Forcefully compressing Jinx's chest, she counted quickly in her head, trying to reach the optimum rate of one hundred compressions per minute. She wasn't just trying to get Jinx breathing again, but to stimulate the blood flow through her body. There was no magic trick to starting a stopped heart, the use of defibrillation in movies and television was criminally inaccurate when it came to proper usage. It wasn't used to restart a stopped heart, just to restore proper rhythm to a person suffering from tachycardia or fibrillation of the heart.

However, the proper application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation could, in some cases, actually stimulate just enough of a rhythm that defibrillation, or something similar, could be used. On her third round of compressions, she turned to Ryouga. "Stimulate her heart, now!"

The martial artist stared at her in shock for a moment, but hid it quickly. Swallowing loudly, he swiftly moved his hand from her brow and placed it on her chest. Again, it was not dissimilar to what he had done with Terra, though he had used acupuncture needles (in the loosest definition of the word) to transfer the energy in that case. They didn't have that luxury at the moment. Instead, he had no choice but to squeeze his eyes as tightly as he could, then press his hand down on Jinx's chest, forcing a pulse of ki directly into the meridians that ran through her heart.

Jinx's entire body jerked up off of the floor, every muscle in her body going taut and arching her back. A sharp gasp sounded loudly, and Raven and Ryouga both nearly fell back from the unexpected reaction, but leaned back in frantically to check on the raggedly breathing sorceress. Chest rising and falling unevenly, several long seconds later, Jinx's eyes actually fluttered open. Her eyes rolled around for a moment, disorientation and confusion keeping her from understanding the situation.

Soon enough, though, the young woman found something to concentrate on. Slowly, her gaze slid first over Raven, then Ryouga. With glacial slowness, her eyes then trailed down to their arms… to where Ryouga's one hand was pressed to her abdomen more than an inch south of her navel, and his other hand was, for all intents and purposes, cupping her left breast. Looking up again, something else seemed to occur to the slight witch, as she gingerly lifted her hand to wipe it across her mouth.

Looking at the bright red blood that was now smeared on her hand, then back at Raven's lips, smeared in the exact same shade of red, Jinx came to a distressingly understandable conclusion.

"… rape… whistle…"

And then her head fell back down to land on the towel that Raven had placed on the floor, her eyes sliding closed once more. Instantly, Ryouga snatched his hands away from Jinx's body, and Raven quickly reached for a towel and began to wipe away the blood that was smeared on Jinx's face; and her own. Still… it looked like she was going to make it.

"Thank god, I think she's going to be alright," Ryouga breathed in exhausted relief. Raven felt herself grow a bit embarrassed, watching him as he stared at the unconscious witch, the calm that he had been maintaining crumbling to dust rapidly. She could only stare herself, entranced by the array of emotions which flashed across his face: fear, love, relief, anguish, joy, only a Hibiki could possess such wildly uncontrolled feelings in such rapid order.

Reaching out, she grabbed his hand, heedless of the minor injuries she'd inflicted herself. "Ryouga… I am so sorry…"

He looked at her as if she was mad. "Sorry? For what? You just saved her life! You're the most amazing girl in the world!"

It took all of her self control to stop from blushing herself. Obviously, he didn't understand what she was talking about, but, honestly, she didn't feel like spoiling the moment by trying to explain it again. That, and she could still feel the intruding presence of another looming over them. Rather than acknowledge it, she went back to checking Jinx, and it was several long minutes before she was finally confident that the young woman was, in fact, no longer in any danger.

Only then, did they finally look up, sharing a quick glance.

As an afterthought, Raven released her Ryouga's hand, not even aware of when she had grasped it again, far too weary to heal the damage that she, herself, had done to it. She was sure he would stop bleeding in a few seconds regardless, damned immortal martial artists. As one, they both took in long, shuddering breaths, before finally turning their attention to the acting Major Hibiki, staring at them with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. On a whim, Raven muttered the first thing that came to her mind.

"You…" she searched for the right words. "You look like a bloody mess… but you're going to have to wait a few minutes if you're looking for any healing."

"Your nose is bleeding," he said it without panic, but with some clear concern. "And you've clearly exhausted yourself. So, no, I'm not going to ask you for that. I want to know Jinx's status."

Ukyou, meanwhile, crouched close by and handed her a handful of tissues to clean herself up. "Here ya go, sugar."

Raven took the offered tissues and began to clean herself off better. To her side, she saw Ryouga stare up at their commanding officer, nearly vibrating as he battled to contain his emotions. Sighing, she dropped a hand on his shoulder and answered for him.

"I think that she's stabilized," she answered. "We were able to catch the problem as it occurred, and I don't think her heart was stopped long enough to cause any permanent damage, I hope…"

Taking another deep breath to calm himself, her Ryouga glared, but not at the acting Major.

His ire was directed at the chef by her side.

"That should be compensation enough for you and Nabiki, right Ukyou?" He asked tersely. "After all, it's only fair, considering - wait, how did you put it? 'I can't believe Jinx did this to you'. What? Did you think we couldn't hear you two over there?"

Ukyou glared back at him, unrepentant.

"Yeah, well, I still can't!" she snapped back at him. "I've never seen wounds like her power caused! It isn't natural!"

"Yeah, Jinx is the monster here," he growled in response. "She hurts him as she's trying to save his life, and he kills her while he's trying to save his own ass."

"Didn't she cause the collapse in the first place?" Ukyou retaliated, still kneeling by Raven.

"Okay. That's enough," the elder Hibiki said, coughing into his hand. Neither of the two martial artists seemed to heed him, however, their hackles already rising in mutual antagonism. The younger Hibiki's lip was already curled in mid-growl, revealing an oversized canine.

Sweeping his arm out before him, Ryouga rose to his feet. "That was a god damned accident! You have no idea what the Hell it's like out there! Cyborg doesn't even trust you to pick up after us, let alone actually help tear that mess apart! That could have happened to anyone out there!"

He then pointed directly at Hibiki, though his glare was still locked on Ukyou. "What he did was no damned accident! He intentionally sacrificed Jinx to save his life! I was watching what he did! He used her like a damn battery, just directing her and bleeding her dry! So why don't you shut the Hell up before you talk about something you aren't even skilled enough to understand?"

Ukyou stood up a moment later, not willing to be looked down on, and jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "Oh, Hell no! You're the one who doesn't know what happened! But what do you expect from a big talker who's done nothing but pick up techniques from better fighters!"

A tense silence hung in the air as Ryouga stared at her. Raven struggled to rise to her feet, obviously fearing an explosion of violence-

And then Ryouga burst into laughter.

Everyone present froze, Ukyou looking just as shocked as Raven felt in that instant. A moment later, Ryouga nearly doubled over in laughter, before finally managing to straighten up. Finally, wiping a tear from his eye, he just stared at the battle chef incredulously.

"W-wow, really? You, actually just accused me of stealing techniques? I guess love really is blind, not to mention hypocritical." He grinned, chuckling at her expense. "Also pretty idiotic, to boot. Why don't you tell me? Where exactly did I pick up the technique that I just used to save Jinx's life? It sure as hell wasn't your Ryouga. It wasn't your damn, thieving Ranma, either. Hell, I doubt even your Cologne knows that trick. So, please, oh wise and ancient sage of the martial arts, please enlighten me as to who I'm stealing all of my moves from?"

"You - you cocky jackass!" She lunged at him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. "Just because you can pull a miracle out of your- "

A hand found Ukyou's shoulder, and another the younger Hibiki's. Bandaged fingers, red from blood under the surface leaking through, pressed down on the latter. Ukyou's eyes immediately shot over to the hand on her, realizing the touch was anything but friendly. A cold icy spike of killer intent shot out from that hand like the heart of a glacier. An identical feeling shot through the Titan opposite. It went without having to be explained that, if he so chose, Seiran's native Hibiki could literally kill them both with a touch.

"You're annoying me," a dark, angry voice snarled from within the officer's throat. "You both are. And you're acting unprofessional. I said: that's enough. Don't make me prove it."

Pushing them apart, the elder Ryouga looked darkly from one to the other.

"You're fighting over nothing." He turned to Ukyou again. "What happened out there was an accident, but we still need to check the logs and find out what went wrong. That's common sense." He then turned to face his dimensionally displaced double. "And I will never purposefully hurt Jinx. She's my subordinate, and I made a promise… to someone to look out for her. I made every effort on my part to keep her from being hurt, but accidents happen when people combine moves and you know that."

"Second," he drove home. "As officers we are held to a standard, and that includes not baiting our subordinates. We stop fights, we don't start them."

Still looking right past the Acting Major, Ryouga grinned darkly at the Chef. "It wouldn't have even been a fight. That implies that she was even physically capable of hurting me."

"I've never met anyone so fucking-!"

"Both of you!" The officer barked loudly, cutting off any remaining argument. He then lifted his hands, allowing them to mutually take steps back. "Remember where we are and what happened on that other ship. Don't let it affect you."

Staring at the blood on his shoulder, the acting Sergeant Hibiki sneered with disgust, making it obvious just what he thought of the blatant threat of lethal force the Acting Major had just issued as a means of controlling his subordinates.

Pointedly staring at the superior officer, he growled right back, "Try to remember that, yourself, sir.

Raven found herself sharing the sentiment, and even considered questioning the hypocrisy of the elder Hibiki calling others unprofessional mere seconds after using a very literal death threat to intimidate both Ryouga and Ukyou, but ultimately decided it would not help the already tense situation. She doubted he would even realize what he had done. Lethal force was just so common among the members of India and Juliet… would anyone else on the ship even care? She – she had to hope that it was just the effects of this damnable dimension affecting everyone.

"Oh," the young sergeant added, almost as an afterthought as he looked past the elder Hibiki once again and set his gaze right back on Ukyou. "And try to keep your fan girls in line, please. I don't think we want any repeats of a certain wedding."

Ryouga turned a wolfish grin back at Ukyou. "Wouldn't want anyone tossing around explosives just because they can't handle reality."

She flinched visibly at the reference. "H-how do you even know about-"

"Nabiki told us," Raven explained, taking a step between them. She then turned to Ryouga, a deep frown creasing her face. "And, please... enough. I know you're angry about what happened to Jinx, but you can't take it out on everyone else."

For her part, Ukyou was silent, though whether she was stewing or genuinely rethinking her words from before was unclear. The chef seemed determined to not look at either Hibiki and instead frowned off to the side where the ship was empty.

"Now," the elder Hibiki began anew. "What happened? She was breathing when we brought her into the ship."

Sighing, Raven pushed Ryouga a step back before replying, "It's just as Ryouga said. I'm not saying it was intentional, but the technique you used was incredibly dangerous. Destroying such a huge mass of raw material in such a short time drained her life force to critical levels."

Frowning, she looked down at the unconscious girl in question. "Compounding that with internal damage she had already suffered before, her body just... couldn't handle the strain. We were so lucky. If Ryouga wasn't here... there's no way she would have survived."

The officer looked down at Jinx, but quickly returned his attention to Raven. "Internal damage? How? I mapped out her body during the technique. ...All of the blowback was routed into myself."

Raven shrugged.

"I wasn't there, I have no idea what might have happened. It's quite possible that she was still wounded from... an earlier incident," she answered evasively, despite the fact they both knew exactly what she was talking about, "None of us have really had proper time to recover from our injuries from Azarath." Tapping her chin, she amended, "The injuries to her hand are definitely new."

"I can account for that, unfortunately." Ryouga shook his head and turned to where the stasis tube was housed at the other end of the hold. "If I had known she was in a condition like that... and then, during the technique..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "But there's no point dealing with what-ifs. What else can we do for her?"

"Keep Ukyou and Nabiki away from her, for one thing," Ryouga snarled under his breath.

Raven elbowed the martial artist in the side, though he showed no sign of noticing. "There's nothing anyone can do for her now. She just needs time to recover is all. Physically, she's no worse off than anyone else, just drained. Give her a few hours, and she'll likely be on her feet again."

Still... she couldn't stop herself from commenting, "Acting Major. What you did, it was far too careless. I know that sacrificing yourself for the Art is a noble cause to you people... but should you be so willing to sacrifice others?"

"Raven..." he replied in a even measured tone, "You should know better than to ask me that." His frown only deepened. "Do everything you can for Jinx. Neither of us are in any condition to get work done outside, and my armor was damaged in several places. We've just lost half our work detail. We're going to have to look into other options..."

This time, it was Ryouga that stepped between the two of them. Leveling one last heated glare at the elder Hibiki, he finally relented, letting out a tired sigh. "I don't think that will be necessary. I'll head back out now and help Starfire and Cyborg. As reckless as your trick was, it did clear a lot of wreckage. Between the three of us, I'm pretty sure we should be able to clear the rest of the way… eventually. That, and I'd rather not have anyone else come out, not with how badly some – all of us are reacting to... to whatever is happening in here."

A short pause, which was soon followed with an exhausted sounding "With your permission, sir…"

"Granted."

With that, Ryouga departed from the small gathering, setting about collecting his personal armor. Sighing sadly as she watched him go about it, Raven turned back to the CO.

"Perhaps you should consider allowing me to go out, as well?" she asked. "I know that I'm supposed to be confined to the ship, but considering the circumstances..."

"No." He thought about it again, but still decided, "No. I want you close by. You're the most powerful person we have. Right now, letting you outside is a risk I don't want to take. Not if there are other options. I want you as... insurance."

That sounded more than vaguely ominous. "Insurance against what?"

"A Green Lantern Ring."

Raven's violet eyes shot wide open at that. "What on Earth are you talking about? I know we found a ring..." She paused, her eyes narrowing as she studied the older Hibiki. "You aren't seriously considering actually letting anyone use that thing, are you? The way some people are acting on this ship?"

"It isn't coincidence that I kept it locked up all this time," he said with a defeated groan. Checking to be sure the other him was distracted, the officer's shoulders slumped slightly. "I don't like the idea. I really don't. But I can't ignore the damage caused outside, or the fact that getting this ship free will help morale. Our suits are low on air, and we're all on an edge, waiting to be pushed off."

"I'm aware of that," she replied seriously. Pulling her hood up, feeling the need for a touch of comforting claustrophobia at the moment, she glanced at the martial artist herself. "Which is all the more reason to leave that thing locked up, and let me go out and assist with cleaning out the tunnel."

Though it was rare for her to admit it, she couldn't suppress the tingle of anxiety rolling down her spine. "I'm honestly not certain that I could stop a Green Lantern, if push came to shove. Especially not if it was someone like Ranma that went berserk with it."

He nodded, understanding the nervousness she felt at the prospect. It was a feeling he shared.

"I'll discuss the matter further with Cyborg and Ranma. But if we have to test it out, I want you there to do what you can."

Seeing that she wasn't likely going to get him to bend on his decision, Raven let out a beleaguered sigh. "Very well. In the meantime, I'll watch over Jinx."

He smiled at her with the corner of his mouth, glad to have her spoken support. "Thank you, Raven. If only I had been more careful... Maybe if I had done nothing...?" A circumspect second passed, and he turned to Ukyou, who had been silent during the exchange. "But what's done is done. Let's find Konatsu. If he's using that god damned shadow-walking technique again...!"

As she watched them go, Raven lifted her hand to stare at the stained tissues she was holding. That had been bad, far too close for comfort. They had nearly lost Jinx to a foolish accident, and now it looked like two more members of the crew were at each other's throats. Watching their CO go, she didn't miss Ukyou's glare being directed at the younger Hibiki. Normally, Kuonji was a friendly enough woman, albeit one with a short fuse. The look in her eyes now was positively murderous.

Raven dabbed at her bloody nose again.

She couldn't help but wonder, as her mind drifted back to Jinx and the accident: why was it that only the members of Yankee actually seemed to care about the danger she had been in? Even Ranma, who benefited the most from misplaced affection from her own dimension's counterpart, hadn't spared so much as a glance or word their way while they had been tending to the downed sorceress.

She knew that Jinx hadn't made any friends, but they were still all comrades!

'Can I trust any of them?' she wondered, despite herself. 'He said he wouldn't do anything to hurt her, but look what happened to Jinx. Ukyou actually seemed glad that she nearly died...'

The violet haired Titan shook her head violently at the dark thoughts. No, it was just this place. This god forsaken place. It was affecting... them. That was all. If it wasn't for that, none of them would act that... cold towards one of their team mates.

'Would they?'

'Would you?'

Worryingly, Raven found that the answer to that question was elusive indeed.

---

"Wild flower in bloom
Weeping in the mountain air
Warmer times shall come

Long for gentle arms
Let me hear your voice once more
Leave me with your smile

Burden clouds my eyes
Beacon of light amidst gloom
Believe in my love

Fair pig tailed girl…"

Tatewaki Kuno tapped his chin as he considered that last line. 'Fair pig tail-ed girl' or was it 'fair pig tailed girl'? Five syllables or Four? The swordsman sighed and nibbled on the end of his stylus, carefully considering the words he was to put down on his electronic tablet computer.

English-style haikus were proving somewhat difficult. He had been given a specific working knowledge of the language thanks to the psionic devices back at Seiran, and he had taken English courses during his elementary education years, but using it creatively took practice. Even for one as esteemed and cultured as Tatewaki Kuno, age twenty, the Blue Thunder of the Far East.

It did much to ease the mind, at the very least. It also served to keep his thoughts away from the itchy stitches on his scalp and the rapidly healing tissue there. The incident that had left him with the humiliating marks was the very same that had driven the commanding officer, that one time rogue Hibiki, to keep his best fighter and most lauded teammate off active duty. It was widely known by all that the loss of Seiran's sharpest sword had been devastating to the morale of all those who looked to him as an great example, an upperclassman, and shining star.

It was amazing that they were coping as well as they were.

Pondering the next few verses of poetry, Kuno gave careful consideration to extolling the virtues of fair maidenhood, as exemplified by the pigtailed girl and Akane Tendo. On his return, he would personally present them both with the manuscript and embrace them as they swooned. Of course they would play hard to get – the proper role of a fair maiden – and not allow themselves to truly succumb to their affections. The two girls were very close, after all, and it surely had to be a point of contention between them who he loved the most.

In fact, that was good material! The question was just how to phrase it and how to allude to the two girls? One couldn't just say it outright. Perhaps if one was summer, the other spring, oh to lament the choice between them! From one came relief, as winter nights gave way to new life and a fresh start; from another came the vibrancy and full bloom of nature and the bosom of its bounty.

'Yes, yes, that's good… I like that…'

The door hissed open, momentarily distracting the budding poet from his work as he checked the syllable count and jotted down the next few lines. Finished and satisfied by the impeccable script, Kuno looked up and saw the CO and the lovely Miss Kuonji. The latter looked as comely as always, when she eschewed her manly attire and masculine mien; the former, however, looked as though he had mounted a woodchipper. …Which was not much of a stretch since he was known to be in relations with Nabiki Tendo. The poor fool.

Quickly stretching and hopping up onto his feet, Kuno gave a quick salute. Elsewhere in the small room, Shampoo, their would-be jailer – pardon: watcher – more languidly rose up to stand at attention. The Amazonian had not been given much to do of late aside from watching over her fellows. Apparently recovered from her wounds and the experience on Azarath, she was every bit the pure fighter, but lacked the special skills that would serve the learned Cyborg clearing rubble outside, or the extensive training with powered armor to be given the long distance patrols sent out the other day.

Yet, she had also not suffered the… episodes… that had plagued some of their number. She did seem somewhat tired, which was a bit strange since she seemed to sleep quite soundly, but perhaps that was simply boredom? There was little to do when so trapped within the ship. Some argued, naturally, over inane things like which celebrities they would sleep with (Jinx's list, supplied on the spot and without inquiry, had been composed entirely of unknowns, but despite that it had been curiously unnerving – who or what had a name like 'Aqualad'?), or who would prevail in fights between fictional characters, like Iron Man versus the Red Ribbon Army. Others had taken to spending their uneasy hours aboard writing or reading.

Only one activity had been explicitly forbidden.

"Konatsu," Ryouga said, stepping past Kuno and Shampoo.

The source of his inquiry was still seated, cross legged, on the other end of the room, his back to the wall. Kuno's attention shifted in that direction as well, taking in his comrade's haggard appearance. Konatsu had an unusual affection for rather effeminate dress and mannerisms, but one of his truly manly traits was a thorough appreciation for keeping up a dignified and kempt appearance.

Whether it was the lack of facilities or not, Konatsu seemed to have eschewed his normal good grooming: his long brown hair was loosely draped around his shoulders instead of groomed and styled back in a neat tail, and no amount of makeup could conceal the darkness under his eyes. He had been completely disarmed, as had they all, but neither Kuno nor Shampoo had missed the ninja quietly rubbing his nails together. The swordsman knew his teammate, Mousse, to practice something similar. The Chinese master was able to conceal small needles under his nails.

The kendoist wondered briefly, if those, too, had been taken away.

Konatsu, however, was not doing well for himself. He had explained to most everyone on the ship that he could get no rest or reprieve; as some specter seemed to haunt his every waking moment. He said nothing about his nights and his dreams, but one could guess they, too, were unpleasant. The legendary kunoichi had been the second person taken off active duty and put on a permanent watch.

"Hibiki-taichou…" the ninja boy lifted himself to his feet. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

Ryouga glared at the weary young shinobi. "You know there is."

Konatsu cocked his head in curious inquiry. "I can't imagine what- "

Kuno also blinked, and missed seeing the lieutenant of India Squad blast across the room. Though clearly wounded, he seemed capable of using a rather speedy 'shooting step.' The larger martial artist had followed up on the movement by crushing Konatsu up against the wall, his right arm pinning the ninja across the chest. A sharp, hard press, and Konatsu's chest broke and he vanished in a puff of smoke.

Leaving a straw dummy to fall at Ryouga's feet.

"He was a…?" Shampoo gawked. "But…! When…?"

"Multiple Body Technique," Ryouga growled, turning around to look at the three martial artists present. His eyes searched from one to the other. The room was small enough that a few men would be pressed together shoulder to shoulder, from one side to the other.

"Oh dear," the polite ninja whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. "That was quite fast."

"Konatsu," Ryouga said again, eyes narrowing. "You better not make me look for you."

"Konatsu-honey, why not just come out?" Ukyou asked, her hands on her hips. "This isn't helping…"

Ryouga's right foot tensed to move –

And the ninja appeared behind the chef, his hands in his pockets. Slowly, he raised them, having at least the grace to admit he had been caught. Ryouga's heel returned to the ground, and he slowly walked over, his face etched with unhappy fury. Ukyou stepped away, also looking displeased by the antics she had been involved in.

"I was just practicing my Tachikiru Hitokage," he explained, abashed at being exposed. Kuno frowned. The 'Severing Shadow' technique was, as he recalled, an assassination technique. Konatsu quickly added, "Just the hiding part, of course. Not the killing part."

"What part of 'no special techniques and no weapons on the ship' do you not understand?" The angry officer grabbed the ragged ninja by the front of his plain white undershirt. "Huh?"

Konatsu shied away for a moment, deferring as he always did…

Only to frown and glare back at his commanding officer.

"I don't see how it matters," the kunoichi grumbled. "So what if I make a copy of myself?"

"You know why!" Hibiki snarled back. "I gave the order for a reason! And you'll follow it!"

"It's… it's a stupid rule!" Konatsu hissed back, reaching up to try and shake off the bigger fighter's hand. "I don't see why I have to follow someone who gives bad orders."

Kuno shook his head, and wondered if he'd have to get involved. He truly didn't want to; he wanted to go back to his writing and his poetry. Ryouga's upper lip curled and he got closer, invading Konatsu's personal space. The ninja seemed to consider getting more physical, but ultimately he looked down and dropped his hands. It didn't help his cause that Ukyou was inching over to the side, and Shampoo was also clearing tensing her shoulders.

"The Rokubu 'Six Copies' technique is the only way I can get away," he finally said, sounding absinth-bitter. "I don't want to be here, Hibiki… taichou… I don't want to be here. I really don't want to be here! Without a copy, he'll go back to me. He won't leave me alone…"

Ryouga's expression didn't change, but he did let Konatsu go, carefully laying a hand on the ninja's shoulder. He started to reply, but paused, taking a breath to compose himself. At last, his expression softened.

"Listen, Konatsu…" he began.

"I know it isn't real!" Konatsu snapped, mercurial anger rising to the surface without warning. "What's real and what's not doesn't matter!" He bit his lip, and winced as he scraped the inside of his mouth. Pointing at the officer, he sneered, an expression Kuno couldn't recall seeing in the polite young warrior before. "What's driving me crazy is you, Hibiki-taichou. You and your… your stupid orders! You want me to stop? What are you going to do if I don't?"

Laughing a bit, Konatsu caught sight of Ukyou, and took a step away from her, too.

"What are you going to do?" Konatsu asked again, eyes back on Ryouga. "Because, respectfully, I don't think there's a damn thing you can do to me that's worse than this. That's worse than what's already happening." He ducked his head and ran his hands through his unruly long brown hair. "What can you do? What can you?"

At that, the acting Major seemed to be at a loss.

"You don't even know," Konatsu concluded, backing into the wall near the door Ukyou and Ryouga had entered from. "You don't even know…"

A shiver seemed to run down Ryouga's body, one that had nothing to do with the cool seventy-something temperature within the ship. Kuno wished again he could just lose himself in his writing. It wasn't that he didn't care – he did, truly – but this was so out of his element, he had no idea what to do, or how to respond. On the other side of the small room, Shampoo was watching her CO. Of them, Ukyou was the first and only one to approach Konatsu and try and comfort him, cautiously and carefully holding him by the shoulders and trying to calm him down.

"None of you really know," Konatsu said, even as Ukyou crouched down at his side. "Slipping away was so easy, you know. Hibiki-taichou." Dark brown eyes turned on Kuno, and the swordsman felt the urge to back away. "Why don't you take a look at what Tatewaki's been writing? Or ask Miss Shampoo why she feels so tired all the time?"

Instantly, the ninja boy seemed to catch up with everything he had said, and he looked up, like waking up from a dream, his eyes wide. Quickly bowing his head, he stood up and went ramrod straight.

"I'm – I'm sorry, Hibiki-taichou!" He sounded genuinely contrite. "What I said, I – I didn't…"

"Sergeant," Ryouga used his rank, and it got an immediate reaction from the would-be kunoichi, as he sharply inhaled in preparation for a dressing down.

"Sir!"

"I know… you're going through something rough," Ryouga began, but made no move to get between Konatsu and Ukyou's comforting presence. "None of us can imagine what it is, no matter how you try to explain it. But you are a soldier under my command, and you'll follow orders. You aren't helping yourself by doing this. No techniques in the ship."

"But… I never leave the ship…" Konatsu almost pleaded. He slumped a little. "I can… I can control it if…"

"If you make more and more copies and hide in people's shadows?" Ukyou asked, this time. "Konatsu. Running away and hiding isn't the answer. It isn't you."

Konatsu turned to her, but shook his head.

"Why this one thing? This - this man you killed?" she continued, still holding his shoulders. They all knew some of what Konatsu was seeing… and hearing. But he had never explained any more. "Is it something you regret…?"

"No!" Konatsu all but yelled. "No. I don't regret it at all! I don't know why I… I never… I don't know why now…" He ran a hand down his face. "I did the world a favor by killing that man."

"Some mens just need killing," Shampoo provided, still standing and with arms crossed.

"I just want to be left alone," Konatsu said with a pained groan. "Just for a few hours."

"You know I'm here if you ever want to talk about it, sugar," the chef offered, and unless Kuno was mistaken, it was an offer Konatsu seemed to genuinely fear. He pulled back slightly from her, looking instantly apprehensive.

"Konatsu," Ryouga spoke up, regaining the ninja prodigy's attention. "Let me make this clear. This is your last warning. No more techniques inside the ship. This is for the safety of everyone. No more."

"H… hai… yes, sir…"

Accepting this, the officer nodded slowly. The situation defused, Kuno walked a little closer, his stylus still in hand. Shampoo also seemed to hover a bit closer, but to Ukyou and Konatsu. The Amazonian was rubbing her hands against her arms, either nervous or cold. It did seem to be getting a bit chilly for some reason.

"Kuno," Hibiki said, and his eyes turned to the tablet the swordsman had been writing on. "Do you mind if I see that for a second?"

The noble swordsman shrugged and handed it over. "Ah! Of course not. I have been thinking much of late, and felt the need to express myself in written form. Haiku in English is a first for me, and these are but rough drafts truly, but…"

While the esteemed kendoist explained that these were but one of a trilogy of soliloquies planned for the pigtailed girl, Akane Tendo, and the lovely Starfire. Of course, these were only first draft materials, but Kuno soon saw his lieutenant's expression register some surprise at the quality of the work contained therein. No doubt he was duly impressed by the verisimilitude of the emotional narrative and the heartfelt eloquence of true love. Faced with such fundamental truths, any man of even rough culture and breeding would be shocked silent.

"You wrote this?" Ryouga asked, looking up from the tablet.

"Just today," Kuno replied. He looked at Konatsu with sadness, and resolved to also write a few more lines about the sufferings of all the crew on this mission into the darkness.

"I see."

It was a strange response. What did the lieutenant see?

After a few more seconds, he handed back the electronic pad.

"Did you see some error within my verses?" the kendoist asked. "I have written in script, and thus have no self check feature on which to rely."

"No… nothing like that," the leader of Juliet squad concluded, and padded the face of the tablet computer with his hand, concealing the fine script. "Just keep that to yourself for now, alright? I… don't want Ranma hearing about it."

"Ah yes!" Kuno reasoned – that made sense. "He would grow jealous, and we need his admittedly meager talents. No doubt he fears the day Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl escape his grasp, and how my words would touch their innocent hearts!"

"That's basically it, yeah," Ryouga wisely agreed. "So keep it a secret for now."

"Of course I shall."

Tucking the pad under his arm, Kuno never saw the look of shock and worry on his commanding officer's face as he turned away. He never saw what had really been written down, by his own hand.

---

She floated serenely, suspended in the dark nothingness which seemed to envelope and swallow whole this entire dimension. Her hair drifted lazily around her, long streamers of flame-red follicles dancing about in the absence of gravity and atmosphere. Her helmet floated several feet to her side, rotating on a whimsical axis, all but forgotten as she stared at the one thing worth beholding in all of this otherwise bleak and hopeless reality.

'So… beautiful…' she thought, unable to speak in the hard vacuum of space.

The object of her affection was clear: the massive, chaotic sphere of kaleidoscopic light which served as the heart of this dimension, shrouded teasingly behind long wisps of vapor and twisting about as if moving to the rhythm of some unheard song. It was utterly captivating to the Tamaranian.

Hanging nearly a kilometer above the inner shell of the hulk of destroyed alien ships, Starfire smiled faintly, holding her hands out to her sides, as if to embrace the loving light given off by the shimmering helix of plasmatic energy. The tingle of unknown radiation, apparently lethal to humans according to Saotome's readings, only invigorated her, filling her to completion with an almost unwholesome sensation of ecstasy.

She alone could luxuriate in the wondrous experience. The human species truly was a pitiable race. So fragile were they that the merest exposure to the vacuums of space could be lethal. So delicate were they that bombardment by high energy particles would break down their cellular structure, rather than energize it. And so aware of their weaknesses and shortcomings were they that they lashed out violently at anything, or anyone, even the slightest bit different – or superior - to themselves.

A frown creased her otherwise joyous face at that last thought. It was not universally true, in retrospect. Her friends, at the very least Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Ryouga, they were all unfortunately flawed, pitiable Homo Sapiens in nature. However, none of them shared the same xenophobic mores so prevalent among the rest of the humans she had been forced to interact with in the dimension of their banishment. Perhaps they were merely the exceptions which proved the validity of the rule?

That did seem far more likely. After all, none of her friends had shared the macabre sense of humor demonstrated so blatantly by the members of India and Juliet squadrons. The Tamaranian's shudder had nothing to do with the temperatures of deep space. To relish the death of an unknown race of aliens? To state, without regard or remorse, their willingness to kill others if it suited their purposes. To joke about the deaths of an entire vessel of Green Lanterns?

It was obscene!

The only human equivalent she could imagine would be to travel to a war memorial and to deride the veterans come to pay respects to their fallen comrades. What kind of sick monsters would so openly disrespect heroes fallen in such a senseless and tragic manner?

Not for the first time since being released into the custody of those that controlled the Seiran Mountain facility, Starfire reconsidered her choice to assist the UNETCO Organization. She had sworn, a seeming eternity ago, to the young Mint that she could never become an ally to a group that acted so malevolent as theirs. Even now, she wracked her mind, trying to recall how things had twisted around on her.

It had begun with the hijacking of the civilian aircraft. That much, at least, made sense. Her desire to protect the innocents caught between the crossfire of two implacable foes had overridden any other concerns she may have had at the time. And, for a time, it had seemed like she had made the correct decision. Her new allies had proven to be helpful and driven and even friendly towards her…

But had it all merely been a cover? As long as Lieutenant Hibiki and his fellows held the upper hand, as long as they felt secure in their superiority over their enemies, they were filled with levity and good will. However, as soon as their fragile egos were challenged, as soon as they felt themselves pushed into a corner, their true natures began to emerge. Their prejudices, their paranoia, their willingness – no, eagerness - to resort to lethal measures, all of their vile vices were surfacing like maggots crawling out of a rotting carcass.

Her only solace was that her friends seemed to share her opinions, though perhaps not as purely, as biased as they were towards their own species. Raven had been the one to tell her of the morbid jokes made at the expense of the Guardian, and her own disgust with their 'antics'. Ryouga had proven a constant and stoic companion, thankfully never allowing himself to slide to the same levels of merciless bloodlust which had unfortunately consumed his counterpart; as human as his body may be, his heart was that of a Tamaranian, and for that she loved him boundlessly.

Even Jinx had provided an unexpected though welcome source of friendship and strength over these hard times. Starfire could not understand why so many others were turning against the slight female – the accusing glares focused on Jinx after they had carried her back to the Pathfinder after the accident had been all the proof of that she had required – however, their scorn was for naught. If anything, Jinx seemed to draw strength from the spite aimed her way. Ever since she had awoken from the unfortunate battle with Raven, her drive and determination had doubled.

And… a small part of Starfire found herself even more at ease around Jinx, now that the young woman had seemingly lost all interest in a relationship with their Ryouga. Though she wanted very much to say that this was a purely selfless thing, silent congratulations for Raven, now free to pursue Ryouga's heart at her leisure… she could not lie to herself. Whatever it was that she felt for their Lost Boy, even she could not put words to it, was something that did not bear rivals gracefully.

'No human is worthy of a Tamaranian.'

No, it was for the best. Without Jinx fawning over him, Ryouga would be able to concentrate much more ably on his duties as an officer. Without Jinx acting as her rival, Raven would be able to interact with the young witch in a much less hostile manner. The relations of all of Yankee squadron would doubtlessly grow less tense, and their team would only benefit from this new dynamic.

Speaking of her squadron members, Cyborg was doubtlessly expecting her back by now. He had told her to 'take five' while he surveyed the damage caused to the tunnel by the unfortunate accident earlier. She had been more than eager to take him up on it, and had flown up here to enjoy the spectacular view. Reaching out, she grabbed her slowly spinning helmet and carefully shifted her lengthy locks back into place to allow her to put it back on and form a proper seal. Once the green warning light of the environmental seal blinked on, she reactivated the air recycling system, only to the barest minimum levels, just enough to allow her to speak.

It was yet another drawback of the human members of the crew. While everyone else was dangerously low on breathable air outside of the ship, her life support system was still in peak operating order, and at the current levels, would remain so for days if need be. Only Cyborg would be able to remain outside of the ship indefinitely with her, once everyone else's air supplies failed completely and trapped them inside the Pathfinder for good.

All the more reason to finish their work.

That in mind, she zipped back down the cavernous maw below her.

---

"Well, it could be worse," Cyborg explained to Ranma, the officer nearly a full kilometer away and safely nestled away inside the Pathfinder. Shifting his boot several inches to the side, he kicked up a small pile of what appeared to be snowflakes. Of course, these 'flakes' were actually composed of hardened steel, rendered into so much detritus by the unholy combination of Hibiki's Killing Point and Jinx's entropic energy.

Thankfully, most of the waste material had simply fallen down between the massive holes and gashes in the 'floor' of the tunnel. Of course, there were still massive piles of the stuff standing about all over the place, resting on the few sections of flooring that were still in place. Not that those would be any trouble at all. The gravitic drive of the ship would blow those away like so much sand; it wasn't even worth going to the effort of cleaning up the messes. It was still a bit mind boggling. Despite the fact that it looked like so much snow, the flakes still possessed the normal density of steel. There were literally hundreds of tons of the junk material sitting around, all destroyed in mere moments by two people.

Hell, Jinx and Hibiki could get out of the fighting business and into the demolition business. They'd make more money than even the ridiculously overpaid X-Com operatives could imagine, and not have to get nearly killed on a daily basis.

Though, he might have to try to convince the acting Major to omit this bit from his official report. He'd hate to think of what his higher ups might think of such a devastating combination. Cyborg didn't really like the idea of Jinx being turned into some kind of super weapon to be used against the Cydonian aliens.

"They cleared out a good twenty percent of the collapsed material, I would wager," he continued with his assessment. "Unfortunately, that still means that we're actually further back than we were before we even started this section. And considering that Hibiki is pretty much a lost cause to the cleanup crew, and Jinx is down and Ryouga is still keeping an eye on her, well, that means that it's just gonna be Star and me cleaning up the mess for the foreseeable future. …I hope one of you guys has a deck of cards on you in the ship, cuz this might take awhile."

"Actually, the Little Lost Boy is already on his way back out to meet you," Ranma told him over the wireless. "He literally just stepped out of the airlock. Still, that doesn't sound like good news to me, Cyborg. Any idea how long this minor catastrophe set us back?"

Looking around the vast expanse of the tunnel, now all but choked with scrap metal for the last hundred meters or so to the surface… he let out a weary sigh. "Wouldn't be surprised if this debacle set us back another day. Still, as I said, it coulda been worse. Honestly, considering the conditions we've been working in, and the lack of real training on pretty much everyone's part, it's a minor miracle that we got this far without any major accidents, as is."

Looking back down the tunnel and towards the ship, Cyborg zoomed in his sight. There, just as their pilot had stated, he could see Ryouga's distant form plodding gloomily through the poorly lit causeway, coming in his direction.

"Huh, so Ryo's already coming back out to help? That's great news. Even better, really, since that means that Jinx must be fine, right? No way that anyone'd be able to pry him away from her otherwise."

There was an uncomfortable pause from Ranma's end of the line.

"Actually, from what I just heard, she nearly bought it back there, though we only really have your Ryouga's word on that bit of news. Physio reads from the armor were all-good until they started taking it off. And of course, it happens the second I step away from the Nav. If you ask me, it can't have actually been as bad as all that if Bacon Bits was able to magic her back from the dead. Probably just another play to upstage his big brother, y'know?"

Cyborg stared at his communicator, aghast at the comments made by their superior officer. What? Jinx had nearly died, and he was playing it off like a power play from Ryouga to make himself the big man on campus? He was about to reply with a biting comment… but bit his tongue. No, it was just likely the effects of this damned place. No way that Ranma could possibly be that callous, even about Jinx, under any other kind of circumstances, and, frankly, compared to the disturbing levels that other members of the crew were descending to, if that was the worst Ranma was pulling, it was far from a problem at the moment.

"Hey, while we're on the topic of Yankee squad, Nabiki is telling me that Starfire is up on the surface? What on Earth is she doing up there? She's supposed to be assisting you, not site-seeing! And apparently she's not even wearing her helmet?"

"Hey, whoa there. Chill, man," Cyborg quickly countered. "I told her to take a break while I surveyed the damage. If she wants to go float out in space, then it ain't no big deal. As for the helmet thing, I'll talk to her about that. She's still got her chronometer, so she'll be back when she's supposed to."

Another short pause.

"Alright," Ranma relented a bit. "I'll leave it up to you, for now. But seriously, Cyborg, this isn't just me being a hard ass. If something were to happen and she's out of contact… to say nothing of just what the Hell kind of sunshine she's soaking up out there… I know you can handle things, just try to help out the rest of your team, okay? Not everyone is as rock solid as you in this damned place."

The cybernetic teen felt a weak frown slide on to his face. "Yeah… that's me, the Rock. Don't worry, the mission is my main concern at this point. I won't let anything endanger that."

"Good to hear, man," Ranma replied, the relief in his voice obvious. It sounded like he was about to end the call, when some else's voice suddenly filtered into the background. It was too far from the comm for him to hear whoever it was that was speaking clearly, but it hardly mattered as Ranma's voice sounded out clearly a second later. "Actually, change of plans. The acting Major wants to talk to ya back here in the ship. Why don't you collect Starfire and your Ryouga and bring them back as well? Sounds like this is gonna involve everyone."

Rolling his eyes, Cyborg nodded absently. "Yeah, sure, why don't ya tantalize me a little more? Alright, Lieutenant, I'll collect my posse and we'll be back asap."

Only then, did the commline finally go silent, leaving Cyborg alone in the darkness once more… well, save for Nabiki eavesdropping on everything he said, anyway. Speaking of which:

"Hmm," he spoke aloud, obviously to no one, as he was alone, "If only there was someone out there that had tips on how to impress Kasumi. A guy sure would pay a lot for that kind of info… too bad I don't got no idea who I'd ask, or what to do with all the cash burning a hole in my pocket…"

"Mmm." A feminine voice cooed. "Music to my ears..."

Cyborg gave a faux gasp of shock. "Nabiki! You weren't listening in on my innocent soliloquy, were you?"

"Consider me your cupid. The little voice on your shoulder helping you to seduce my sister. And all for a low, low fee."

"Heh, now that didn't sound at all evil. Still, maybe we'll be able to discuss your rate structure later, in a less world ending kinda setting?"

"I'd be happy to. Just remember Tendo for all your matchmaking needs. That's Nabiki, not Akane, Tendo." she chuckled at her end of the line, but turned a bit more serious. "I'll be here if you need anything."

"Including if I need a three ton girder moved by sundown? You know, a little exercise outside the ship can do a body good."

"It isn't like I enjoy being stuck in the ship. Especially with my Susan gone..."

Cyborg chuckled in amusement. "Heh, well don't worry bout it, 'Biki. Ain't like you're missing any scenery or nothing. It's-" Looking up, he noticed Starfire rapidly approaching down the tunnel towards him. "Whoops, looks like Star is just about back. I'll have to catch up with ya back on the ship."

"Sure. Look, Cyborg, " she added, more quietly. "Ranma may not sound it, but he's pretty angry. I'll talk to him before you guys get back. I have a feeling Starfire will listen more to you than either of our officers these days."

Cyborg grinned. "Her and pretty much every other member of our team. Okay, peace out, pretty lady."

As soon as Nabiki went silent again, he let out a weary sigh. Honestly he had no desire to 'talk to' Starfire about any possible infractions. Really, he should be getting Ryouga to handle that, the Lost Boy being their team leader and all. On the other hand, though, Ryouga was going through a crappy enough time as it was, without anyone cutting him any slack at all, and Starfire was pretty much the only one getting him through it. Cyborg couldn't really, in all good conscience, tell his buddy to turn around and yell at Starfire over something as lame as taking her helmet off in hard vacuum. She probably just wanted some time alone.

That in mind, as their errant Tamaranian gracefully landed at his side, he adopted the sternest expression he could as he regarded her. It was really a pathetic attempt on his part, the only result he garnered from Starfire for his efforts being a confused, slightly concerned look.

"Are… are you well, friend Cyborg? You appear as if you have slipped your camshaft again," she asked tentatively.

Groaning in embarrassment – would he never live that down? – he shook his head and refocused. Dropping a large hand on her armored shoulder, he matched her gaze intently. "Starfire, I want to know. Are you alright? You didn't take your helmet off again, did you?"

"Wha-" she stuttered, obviously startled at the sudden question. "Why would you - how - ?" Only for her expression to harden. Brushing his hand from her shoulder, she 'hmph'd' loudly. "And what if I have taken the occasion to remove my odious head coverings? It is not as if they provide any additional protection to me in these conditions, and the vibratory function upon my communicator is still perfectly functional. You would have had no difficulty contacting me if you well and truly needed me."

Unfortunately, the girl had a point. Her Titan communicator was perfectly capable of vibrating and sending and receiving text – not exactly advanced features – so it wasn't like she was completely out of contact at any point. The only thing that taking her helmet off did was prevent Nabiki from recording every single thing that Starfire said and did.

'Well, that didn't sound paranoid at all,' he thought to himself. It did suddenly put something of a 'Big Brother' vibe on the standing order to always wear her helmet. 'All because of this psionics crap.'

"Yeah, well…" he muttered less certainly now, "Orders are still orders, y'know? It's a safety issue."

Judging by the look on her face, that approach was going to fly about as well as a brick. A different approach, maybe? A quick look over his shoulder revealed that Ryouga was over halfway to their position now. Wait, that was it!

"I mean," he continued, "You might not agree with them, but you wouldn't want to get Ryouga in trouble now, would you?"

That gave the Tamaranian pause. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it. Ryo is responsible for us, so if one of us disobeys orders, no matter how silly they might be, then it'll look bad on him, right? It'll make it seem like he can't handle commanding our squad. You wouldn't want to see him kicked out, would you?"

Sure, it was dirty pool, but it wasn't too far from the truth. He still felt like a bit of a heel for going there, though, especially when the look of despair settled over Starfire's face like a funeral pall.

"Never would I desire to see Ryouga punished for my misdeeds!" she frantically replied. "I promise that I will do my utmost to follow all of the inane rules and regulations laid out by the officers of this mission."

"Well, that's all I can ask, Star." He drew her in for a quick one armed hug. "Don't feel too bad. This place is messing with all of us. Granted, some more than others, but we gotta do our best to get through this together. I'm sure when we get back home we'll all look back at this crazy mission and laugh."

Starfire fired a flat stare his direction.

"Far, far in the future, with flying cars and robot butlers and junk," he conceded with a grin.

"Do we not already have both of those things present in our own current time line?" The alien princess asked her question, tapping a metal clad finger to her chin as she contemplated his words. Again, she had something of a point, but she was missing the point that that wasn't the point!

"Yeah, well, we'll figure out the semantics." Gesturing back down the tunnel, he took a step in the direction of the Pathfinder. "Come on, let's go collect Ryo. Hibiki wants us back in the ship; apparently he's got something he wants to talk about."

"Go back to the ship?" The confusion was evident in her voice. "But we have barely stepped outside of the ship as it is. At this rate, our vessel will succumb to fossilization before we have a chance to free it."

Normally, the cybernetic Titan would have laughed at the joke… but considering the unnatural process which seemed to consume all of the vessels in this dimension, her whimsical comment struck far too close to home for his comfort. How long would it be before one of those space warps found its way to the Pathfinder? It was impossible to predict how many of the warps existed, and how they moved about, but it seemed that it was all but an eventuality that their ship would become their next victim. It was just a matter of when at this point.

Macabre thought on his mind, he gave Starfire's arm a gentle tug, coaxing her back towards the ship with him. "Yeah… wouldn't want that, yo. All the more reason to get back. The sooner we sort out what they want, the sooner we can get back out here."

Nodding sagely, the Tamaranian quickly floated past him, obviously excited to meet up with Ryouga again, despite the fact that it hadn't even been a half an hour since she'd seen him. Before she flew too far, though, she paused and looked back over her shoulder.

"Truly, I am glad to have you here, my friend. I admit that – that my locomotives of cognition have been somewhat grim of late. I can not say whether this place is the cause or not, but I take great solace in the fact that you are immune to the debilitating effects which are affecting the rest of the crew."

And then she was flying at high speed, her toes cutting wide furrows through the snow like metal flakes scattered across the deck plates below them. Cyborg could only stare at her back as she flew away, her words echoing through his head.

"Yeah, that's me."

Slowly, tentatively, Cyborg turned to look over his shoulder, gazing down along the lengths of the now dark tunnel. All of the construction lights beyond that point had been destroyed, and only the nearest light, some twenty meters back was illuminating on their position, casting impossibly long and dark shadows across the twisted morass of shattered steel.

A flicker of motion registered just on the corner of his vision. Holding perfectly still, holding his breath, he tried to unsee the motion. Disbelief did not help; ignoring it did not make it go away. Sweat began to bead on his brow as he tried to force his sight straight ahead, but inexorably, like the pull of a black hole, his eye slid to the side…

Greenish ooze bubbled up and flowed over a distant mound of scrap metal. His eye widened, even as his pupil contracted to a pinpoint, his entire body quivering at the sight. It wasn't ooze; it was a blob of protoplasm, an amoeba like creature, as horrifying as it was familiar-

His human eye snapped shut, every ounce of willpower he possessed preventing it from opening again. The second it closed, the second his electronic eye began providing all of his optical input, the ooze vanished. No, it had never been there to begin with. It was just an illusion, a phantasm of memories long since dead.

Looking down, he brought up a specific display on his arm. A gentle touch of his finger to the pressure sensitive screen allowed him to make modifications to the system specifications and allocations. Sliding his finger a quarter of an inch to the left, he shifted fifteen percent more of his higher functions over to the artificial half of his brain. A second later, he opened his human eye…

The creature was gone. It had never existed. It had merely been a manifestation brought on by fatigue and deleterious psionic interference from the dimensions unusual properties. He did not sigh in relief at this deduction.

After all… it was only logical.

"What!" Ryouga's irate bark cut through the commline. "But I just got out here! What do you mean we gotta go back in?"

From the distance, Ryouga waved to him. "Cyborg, what's going on? Did they say what they wanted? Or, for that matter, did Acting Major Jack-Ass explain why he didn't tell me about this roughly five seconds ago, before I got all dressed to come outside?"

Cyborg studied his commanding officer dispassionately for a moment… Only to shake his head vigorously. Feeling a bit off, he waved back, working up a weak grin as he walked to join them.

"Naw, man. Saotome left me hangin' in suspense. It's gotta be something big, though, if they're distracting us from our main objective, here."

Ryouga nodded. "Well, all I can say is that it better be. Now, pick up the pace, squaddie. Let's get this over with."

Without further ado, the Hibiki and the Tamaranian turned and made their way back to the ship. Sparing one last glance over his shoulder to the empty darkness behind him, Cyborg joined them a moment later.

'That's me… reliable as a Swiss watch.'

---

It had been another dead end.

Since the exploration of the Oan ship and the destruction of Nabiki's UAV, Pathfinder Actual had sent out further 'long range patrols' to map, scout and investigate other promising wrecks and derelicts. The two suits of MARS armor each had miniaturized oxygen recycling systems like those on the ship itself; as long as they had power for electrolysis and other chemical processes, and the filters remained functional, then air could by recovered indefinitely. The only limitation was the elerium power plants in the armor, and compared to the output needed for maintaining antigravity propulsion and induction, life support was trivial.

These two man patrols searched the area nearby, identified surface wrecks, and marked areas for later navigation. First priority was given to marking dangerous anomalies or other perturbations that could prove dangerous to a freed Pathfinder. They were also tasked to gather information on the other drives and technology used by other ships similarly trapped in the maw of this dimension.

An unspoken objective was also to relieve some of the tedium certain embers of the crew felt.

Every soldier was accustomed to waiting; it was a natural part of life. Soldiers waited between missions, between deployments, between rotations. On Pathfinder, unlike Seiran, there was no room to practice martial arts and no privacy to be had at all. For those members of the crew who could not assist Cyborg outside, a long range patrol – though far from a pleasant experience – was the only thing to break the unexpected and unfulfilling tedium of watching others go out, work, and come back exhausted.

Ryu Kumon and Mousse were the latest to be given that duty, returning with samples and some alien technology of dubious usefulness, but no good news. They had verified and identified three more large anomalies for Pathfinder and future teams to avoid, providing a rather detailed map of the immediate area around where the ship would exit. None could risk traveling too far without Nabiki's UAV. Once Pathfinder was loose, it would have to reduce speed to a near crawl and use its own sensors to avoid running into any invisible surprises.

More importantly, they had confirmed that there were no nearby threats.

It was a small bit of good news, though one that had been expected. There was nothing alive anywhere outside. The last ship they had gotten entrance to had been an ancient mile-long wreck full of empty rooms and degraded equipment. A few trinkets had been salvaged from a locked area, but most of the ruin had been consumed by twisting anomalies and warping energy: discolored and melded together like a frozen metallic soup. It had actually been a small reprieve from the even worse sights of the world topside.

They had finished with their report to the officers and the resulting catalogue of alien tech when the airlock opened, revealing someone surprising. Mousse nudged Ryu, halfway finished with wiping off his face with a wet towel. The sergeant followed the Hidden Weapons master's gaze to Cyborg, Starfire and the younger Hibiki, all freshly returned from the work outside, and all clustered together. Yankee was being more cliquish than usual.

"What do you think Cyborg is doing inside?" Mousse asked, keeping his tone conspiratorially low. "He's logged more hours outside than he has inside."

"You saw the mess out there," Ryu whispered back. Indeed they had seen the mess. It was hard to miss it clogging up half the tunnel on the walk down the molehole. "Maybe we're finally going to try using the main guns to blast our way out."

"I doubt that," the other man answered. "Must be important, however."

"That's up to Hibiki and Saotome," Ryu decided, shrugging at the implications. "That's what they get paid for, after all. I thought you wanted to check in with Jinx?"

Mousse said nothing to that, but he did adjust his glasses in the sort of manner that implied he didn't want to say any more than he already had. Both martial artists had heard about the pink haired witch getting injured – again – on the way back from their mission. The acting Major had also been hurt, but the man was a bloody tank. It was easier to count the missions and incidents when the blast-hardened meat-shield didn't end up damage soaking something or another.

Instead, the Amazon's hand snapped out, and a comb appeared mysteriously between his fingers.

A bright pink comb.

The Kumon heir raised a questioning eyebrow at the choice in color.

"Ummm... isn't that a girl's c -"

"I am aware," Mousse cut him off. "Of the color."

"Just making sure." Ryu simply ran his hands back through his hair, roughly aerating it into a messy mop. Finished with cleaning themselves up a bit, the two martial artists crossed the hold over to where Jinx was resting, next to the alien in the stasis tube. The little blue man was still being checked out, or so it seemed, by the ship's bigwigs. Neither Ryu nor Mousse knew exactly what anyone hoped to learn from the withered old corpse.

Jinx was laid flat on two sleeping rolls directly adjacent.

"She doesn't look like she's had a brush with death," Ryu observed, as the girl stretched, kicking and scrunching up one of the sleeping rolls under her. It looked more like she was catching a catnap.

"You worried for stupid pink hair girl?" Shampoo asked, from her perch on top of the stasis tube. The Amazon had clearly been tasked with watching over the villainess, which in turn meant that Ukyou must be with Konatsu and Kuno. Of course, everyone knew Jinx and Shampoo got along like cats and dogs, but Shampoo was still a soldier. If ordered to, she would watch over her worst enemy.

"I expected her to be the one in stasis after what was relayed to us," Mousse remarked with a shrug. "Shampoo. How have things been?"

The violet tressed Amazon leaned back to touch her shoulders to the wall. She didn't seem to give any discomfort over the fact that she was sitting on top of the dead blue alien's resting place and that it was still transparent. For her, it was seemingly just another place to get off the floor and find a spot to hang out on. Privately, Ryu found it rather catty behavior, but he kept that phrasing to himself.

"Usual crazy," she answered, repressing a yawn and covering her mouth with her hand. "Ninja boy almost picked a fight with pig boy."

"Konatsu?" Mousse asked, genuinely surprised.

Ryu was as well. "I can' believe it. …where is he now?"

"Crying with pancake chef," Shampoo replied with a casual huff. "Probably. They're supposed to be talking." Her brows knitted into a small, shallow frown. "Ninja boy used Severing Shadow and Multiple Body moves. I didn't even see him use them."

Shampoo glanced off to the side.

"Stupid spatula girl better watch that one carefully," she added, in a low voice, then more loudly, "Hibiki let him off this time, but he'll do it again. You wait and see."

Ryu and Mousse shared scowls at that. Konatsu was becoming… volatile. If he had been a squaddie, then that would be one thing, but he was an NCO. The only other formal NCO in the group, since the younger Hibiki was just an acting junior rank. This left the current command structure as Ryouga, Ranma, then Ryu… and then a mass of lower ranks. It was clearly up to the officers to try and salvage things, and that included dealing with an increasingly unstable genius kunoichi.

The question was how.

"No matter that," Shampoo concluded, facing the two and stretching her neck, one hand working out the kinks. "How was your mission? Good?"

"It was about the usual," Ryu answered.

"Wandering around. Dropping beacons. Trying to scout around without going insane or seeing things that aren't there," Mousse elaborated. "We checked out two wrecks. The small one had been gutted by an explosion. The bigger one had some tech we took back…"

"Little alien pea shooters," Ryu supplied, making a teeny-tiny gun with his right hand. "And some other junk."

"Nothing very useful," Mousse continued. "Only two bodies, though, and that ship must've been large enough for a hundred of the aliens."

"Yeah. That's kind of been the norm though, hasn't it?" Ryu asked, scratching behind his ear. "We almost never find many bodies. The ones Mousse and I found were locked up tight in the room with the guns. Everything else was clean. You'd think we'd be finding lots of bodies on these ships. Or vacuum suits or something."

"It's as if most of the victims just disappear when they die," Mousse wondered aloud. "Or maybe they all just jumped out an airlock and floated away?"

"As if creepy place needs to get creepier?" Shampoo barely repressed a shiver. "You think something is taking the dead ones?"

"Who says they're dead when it happens?" Ryu asked, intending it to be a witty quip.

Instead it came out… disturbingly macabre.

A long, ghastly silence stretched on between the three as the remark took on a life of its own.

"Hmm." Mousse pondered. His head turned and Ryu and Shampoo's attention also shifted towards the approaching group. Ranma and Ryouga were at the lead, and the latter was carrying a small box. From the shape, it looked to be one of the storage compartments where they'd been keeping alien tech and other salvaged artifacts. Cyborg was right behind the officers.

"Something going on, sir?" Ryu asked either of the officers as they got closer.

"Oh, there's somethin' goin' on, that's for sure," Ranma replied. "We're clearin' the front of the hold here."

"For what?" Mousse asked, glasses glinting.

"A weapons test," Ryouga answered enigmatically.

---

"So," Ranma began.

"Hm." Ryouga grunted.

Tossing the ring up into the air and catching it with one hand, Ranma balanced it on one finger, lifting it up to eye level. "It really doesn't look like much, does it? The Furinkan High class rings we got were fancier."

"Try not to drop our Ultimate Weapon, Saotome," Ryouga commented, arms crossed as he turned to Cyborg, standing at the officer's right side. The Titan was in turn flanked by a quietly observant Ukyou. Ranma was to the lost boy's left, and to his left, Ryu stood crisply at attention with a wary Raven. Other observers were forced further back, at the edge of the hold: Nabiki, Starfire and the younger Hibiki.

"Cyborg," Ryouga asked, "Are you sure you need to actually wear the ring? You were my first choice, so if there's any way to squeeze it on or anything…?"

Shaking his head in the negative, the bulky teen shrugged helplessly. "Honestly, I don't know nearly enough about how these things work to say one way or the other. As famous as they are, for all I know, you could eat them and they'd work fine. However, I have only ever seen them used while worn."

"Also," Raven spoke up from the sidelines, "I have heard rumors that not just anyone can use the rings: that they actually choose only the bravest and most noble of people to bear them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" barked the cybernetic genius in a terse tone.

"Ranma," Ryouga ordered, holding up a hand. "Give him the ring. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"No problem." The pigtailed one took a few steps and held out the still spinning ring, balanced on the tip of his finger. "Here ya go, man. Maybe it'll click for ya or something. I wouldn't recommend eating it, though."

Carefully picking it from the martial artist's finger, Cyborg examined the ring in his hand. Absently, his gaze drifted over to the display housed in his arm, though what he was looking at, no one could tell. A moment later, he focused his attention back to the ring, rolling it over in his palm. He didn't even bother trying to put it on; even his pinky finger was obviously too large for the small emerald band, and he didn't want to risk destroying it in the attempt. Rather, he simply closed his hand around it, dipped his head and closed his eyes.

His brow furrowed in concentration, and he appeared to be muttering something under his breath... but after several long seconds, nothing at all happened. Letting out a frustrated grunt, he opened his hand and casually tossed the ring back to Ranma.

"Damn," he grumbled. "Guess I'm no John Stewart. Looks like someone with somewhat more slender fingers than me is gonna have to try."

"Ranma," Ryouga said, watching as the ring arced through the air and back into the Saotome heir's hand. "You're up next. You've got the highest psionic skill here and the most experience."

The assembled teens watched as, this time, the ring finally found a willing and properly sized finger.

"Feels kinda cold," Ranma commented, holding up his right hand and staring at the ring on his middle finger. "But it fits." His brows creased for a moment as he concentrated. "I can feel something there. Not quite like a psi-amp."

"Psionic encryption?" Ryu asked, curious.

XCOM manufacture amps came in two versions: generic and personalized. Every field operative used a personalized amp with a five hundred and twelve bit key encryption. Just like smartlinked weapons, they couldn't be used by anyone except their owners or a field op with clearance from command. If this ring was like a psi-amp, as they believed it to be, then it was likely the deceased user had rendered it useless by dying and not recording his key.

"Nah. Not like that, I don't think," Ranma continued. "I can kinda feel it there, but whenever I give a little push it pushes right back."

"Maybe that's normal?" Ryu speculated. "Maybe you need to, you know, mentally overpower the ring to be able to use it?"

"Yeah," the younger Hibiki snarked, "Try overpowering the alien super weapon. Nothing could possibly go wrong there." Then with a sharp gesture, he point to his cloak wearing team mate. "And, are you joking? Raven is the most powerful psycher here by leagues. Why not let her give it a go?"

Immediately, the dark Titan shook her head.

"Please, no," she quickly replied, holding up her hands in a warding gesture. "I'd rather not. Not only would it make me unable to act as a possible counter to the ring, I... doubt it would react well to me."

"I've already talked to Raven about this," the elder Hibiki also spoke up. "She's declined and I'm not going to force anyone to try and wear it."

At that, everyone began to stare anxiously at one another across the hold of the ship. There were as many people that looked dubious about trying the ring, as there were that looked excited about the prospect. Unexpectedly, though, someone did finally step forward.

Moving to stand before Ranma, Starfire held out her hand expectantly. "Allow me to attempt using the ring. It is possible that this particular ring is simply more attenuated to more alien life forms?"

Her inquiry seemed to draw out an awkward silence.

"What is wrong?" she asked, still holding out her hand. "May I not at least attempt it?"

Ranma glanced from her to the acting Major.

"Starfire," that Ryouga began to explain.

"What?" she asked, growing visibly angry at the perceived stonewalling.

"While you may be right about it being attuned to non-humans…" he continued. "There have been some concerns raised about your lucidity."

"Lucidity?" she asked, hand lowering and starting to tense up. "What you mean is that you no longer trust me? Or do you only wish a human to wield such power? Is that it?"

"This dimension is affecting all of us to different degrees," he began again, trying to sound both placating and stern. "If this ring reacts to thoughts, I would prefer those thoughts to be as stable and even tempered as possible. I will not be trying on the ring either. It isn't that you're non-human."

"More likely it is the fact that-"

Whatever else the increasingly irate Tamaranian was about to spit out was lost, as she stopped mid speech. The cause of her silence was a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to regard its owner. Instantly, her grim expression melted away as the young Hibiki gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Don't worry, Kori," he stated with a somewhat nasty looking grin. "That ring would be wasted on you, anyway, as powerful as you are."

Pacified with surprising speed, Starfire nodded and happily gave him a quick hug. Even as she did, though, the Lost Boy regarded Ranma, his nasty grin widening.

"If you're going to be giving out power boosts, why not give them to someone that actually needs them." He then proceed to stare directly in the direction of a certain chestnut haired female. "Why not let Ukyou give it a go? I mean, at least then, if she goes mad with power, then we won't have any trouble putting her down."

"What? You've got some kind of problem with Ukyou, now?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, it's nice not being the sole target of all Earthly vendettas for once, but I'd kinda like to be kept in the loop, too."

"We had a falling out earlier, lieutenant," the chef explained, sending a cold glare at the younger lost boy. "Over some perceived remarks I made."

"That's right," Ryouga agreed with a growl. "You made a remark that would have earned you a one way trip through the wall if we'd been back in Nerima, and I just happened to perceive it."

Then, in an almost comical turn shift of mood, Ryouga turned to regard the pigtailed martial artist. "Also, what? I haven't had a problem with you since we got here, so what's that all about? You have something against me now?"

"Uh. No," Ranma replied. "I'm just wonderin' what's goin on. Neither of you Hibikis ever got really angry at Ukyou before, even when she smacked you around."

"I never smacked anyone around!" Ukyou protested.

"You kind of did," the elder Hibiki said, but kept his voice low.

"So what'd she say that's got ya so worked up?" Ranma asked, still holding the ring in his hand and on his finger. "Must've been something really bad."

Surprisingly, someone else deigned to answer the question before the Lost Boy could even draw in a heated breath in preparation for the oncoming diatribe.

"It's not important at this point," Raven stated in a voice that cried 'drop it'. "Anyone's insensitivity, real or imagined, is not the issue at hand at the moment. The issue is, and may I state that I am still against it entirely, is who is to use the ring."

Ranma shrugged. "I guess. Ukyou?

Ryouga nodded. "Go ahead."

"Here ya go, Ucchan." Ranma took the ring off his finger and handed it to his subordinate and old friend. "Give it a shake. Maybe it's like one of those watches…"

"Oh, like those ones that power themselves with your arm motion or something?" Ryu asked, giving it altogether too much thought.

"Yeah. You shake it and it powers up. Or maybe it's like a magic eight-ball?"

"I doubt it works like that, Ranma," Ryouga argued, and the three men watched as Ukyou slowly slid the ring down on her right ring finger, following the western tradition of where to wear a non-engagement ring. The okonomiyaki chef fitted it in place near the base of the finger and slowly opened and closed her hand. Looking down at the fixture, she said nothing.

"Ukyou?" Ryouga asked, prompting.

Ranma shrugged at her lack of response.

"Hey, Ukyou?" Ryu repeated, taking a tentative step forward. "You okay?"

"I feel…" she finally replied, closing her eyes. "I knew it was me. You wanted me."

Her mouth began to move, but failed to produce any words. Instead, her battle aura spiked - the clear blue turning almost instantly green, like a bucket of dye dropped into a churning pool of water. Bits of black and green struggled amid the aura, trying to form properly into shapes and solid matter. With an audible 'snap' bands struck her wrists and hands, adhering like liquid tape to her body. Others coiled around her chest, and legs, constricting tightly.

"Shit!" Ranma cursed, and he and Ryouga both rushed forward.

"Ah! Ah!" Ukyou held up her hands to ward them back, and she stumbled, bumping into Cyborg. One of the loops of black material was around her throat and another seemed to be trying to form a domino mask around her eyes.

"Aah!" she gasped, trying to pry the material from over her eye. "W- w- "

Ranma and Ryouga both tried to reach into the swirling maelstrom of her aura, now more like a tornado as black alien cloth spun snapped at anything in reach. The two martial artists could only pull back, their hands burned by green fire. Ukyou's battle aura was now fully solidified into a barrier, and no longer permeable. Even Cyborg, who had also been trying to steady her, was forced back by a pulse of green light.

Heedless, Ryu pushed past the two officers to try and at least free her throat. His left hand formed a blade wrapped in a vacuum, fully capable of cutting through tempered steel. It bounced off Ukyou's green hued aura, and another reactive pulse knocked him back into Ranma and Ryouga.

"Raven!" the latter yelled. "Contain it! Now!"

Holding out a hand, the Titan's violet eyes burned white with power. An instant later, a dome of black energy solidified over the green maelstrom of power. Standing around her, Ryouga, Ranma, Ryu and Cyborg looked torn between trying to intervene and keeping a safe distance. In the end, Ryouga made the choice for them.

"Back up," he ordered, forcing Ryu and Ranma away from the sphere. "Back up! We can't get through that aura anyway."

"But…" Ryu growled. "We can't just leave her in there!"

He grimaced at the storm of energy inside Raven's barrier.

Inside the black bubble, Ukyou struggled, finally clasping her hands against the surface. Hunched over, she shook her head as more and more of the black material latched onto her, furiously tearing away her clothes. Slamming a fist against the barrier, she spun around, now little more than a silhouette within the ebony sphere. Spikes of green light jabbed out, striking the onyx shield with enough force to make it shudder. Finally, one jade lance broke clean through before retreating.

At last a bright green glow completely enveloped the capsule, and the okonomiyaki chef disappeared entirely from view. For a few seconds, nothing could be seen inside.

"Raven," Ryouga barked. "Cyborg! Any idea what's going on in there? I'd really like to hear that this is normal for one of these rings!"

Frowning, Raven clenched her fist, and the dome doubled in thickness in response to her will, the damage caused sealing over. "I have no idea," she bit out, "None of us have ever seen a ring put on before!"

"And I can't read a thing through Raven's barrier, let alone the one around Ukyou," Cyborg added in frustration. "It sure as hell doesn't seem normal, though!"

Unannounced and unanticipated, a pair of palms outlined against the black shield. More than one of those assembled jumped at the sudden appearance, but rather than go limp, the hands pulled back slightly. Two of the fingers on the right hand came together, and they tapped three times on the obsidian surface.

Looking to her commanding officer, Raven saw him nod, and dropped the shield sphere.

As the black energy receded, Ukyou's form became clear. Gone were the flurry of black and green cloth, along with her aura. All had been condensed into a form fitting bodysuit. Green formed a mantle over her shoulders and her collar except for a banded ring of black around her throat. A black domino mask had formed over her face, narrow over the eyes, and contoured green colored the costume over her lower legs and forearms. Conspicuously absent was any form of material over her midriff, leaving it somewhat scandalously exposed.

At the sight, Cyborg chuckled loudly and leaned over, nudging his teammate playfully in the ribs. "Hey, looks like someone is biting your style there, Star."

The Tamaranian merely replied with a dismissive sniff.

"Ugh." Ukyou groaned reaching up to her face. Digging fingers into the mask, she ripped it off and threw it to the side, where it disintegrated before hitting the floor. Stumbling a few steps she ended up near Raven before steadying herself with one hand against the wall.

"This feels… breezy…" Ukyou finally said, and looked down at her bare stomach. "What the…!" Quickly covering herself with her hands, the chef also noticed the rest of her costume. "Why is this so tight? Why is there a boob window? All the boys turn around now!"

The younger Ryouga waved dismissively. "Oh, please. Even I'm not shocked at your new look. You look pretty much like half of the girls that went to the Hive Academy."

"Heck, you're more modest than some Super Heroines I've met in my day, too," Cyborg added, though his grin was far more amused than his team mate's.

"I really want to visit your dimension, you know," Ryu commended with a cheeky grin. "I like its fashion sense."

Turning around, the embarrassed and irate chef took a few calming breaths.

Hands on her midsection, she willed more of the costume to… to cover itself up and be a little modest for god's sake! They weren't here to attract horny customers to buy food! Compliantly, black fabric shifted to cover her midriff. Just as quickly, she did away with the horrible transparent "boob window" by filling in the hourglass/lantern shape with more green.

Taking in the color change around her arms and legs, she frowned at it. Bits receded, forming smaller bracers and then thickened to form textured bricks along the back of the forearm. Black fell away from her hands, leaving the gloves fingerless. Lastly she forced a green belt to form around her waist, along with a bandolier like the kind she preferred for holding mini-spats. Feeling over her shoulder she also made sure it had the clasps for her battle spatula.

"Your world must be perverted," Ukyou grumbled to the ring as she turned back around. "This thing better not be like that Battle Dogi."

"Battle Dogi?" Cyborg asked.

"Perverted clothes," Ranma answered with a grin. "Long story."

"I don't know how you guys even work in these costumes," Ukyou said, this time to Raven. "At least it doesn't have high heels."

Raven looked down at her own costume, clearly confused as she held her cloak out wide for a better view of her leotard. "I'm not sure I understand your meaning. I wear this because of how easy it is to move in while fighting. But high heels? You should see Black Canary..."

Ryouga the elder picked that moment to interrupt. "Ukyou?"

"Ah, yeah! I forgot!" the chef quickly held her hands together holding her hair behind her head and sealed the chestnut hair together with a green and black clasp. She then stood at attention. "I'm fine, sir. I think the ring was just having trouble adjusting to me. It feels sort of… weak. And old. But it still works!"

She winced, and touched her stomach.

"And..." she hesitated. "I don't know. I think it did something to interact with my battle aura."

"Clearly," Ryouga replied. "I'd like Cyborg to take a look at you first, before we go any further. I don't want it… draining the life out of you or anything like that. I can't sense your normal aura at all."

Ranma nodded, also having noticed that fact. "I can't either. Not even a trace."

"Me neither!" Cyborg added loudly, only to chuckle loudly to himself. "You guys and your crazy religions. Anyway, let me get a few scans going. Not that I'm planning on being able to understand too much. The power the GL's use is supposed to be as old as the universe itself. A bit beyond my pay grade there."

"Just do what you can," Ryouga told him.

"I feel fine," Ukyou assured the two officers as Cyborg crouched down and started scanning her and checking the readings on his arm-mounted computer. "A little weird… and a little self conscious at being stared at… but fine. I think the ring's just routing my aura into it."

"And you don't find that a little troubling?" Ranma asked, frowning at the implications. "What happens if you take it off?"

"I'm not powering this thing down until I get some new clothes!" she quickly answered. "But it won't kill me. It just wants to… to work closely with its user. Since I had my aura up, it… I guess it tried to integrate it or something? Don't worry about it!"

"We can't help but worry about it, Ukyou," Ryouga grumbled. "At least with a rifle or psi-amp you can just put it away…"

"Actually, it's a lot like that, Ryo," Cyborg muttered as he continued his scans. Not bothering to turn back to them, he waved his arms up and down Ukyou's hips. "It's not an alien symbiote or anything like that. It's just a tool, admittedly a super intelligent one, but it can be removed pretty easily."

Looking up for a moment, obviously sorting through his memory, Cyborg began to count off on his fingers. "I mean, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner... Guy Florist - or something like that - anyway, we got a laundry lists worth of Green Lanterns on Earth, and not a single documented case of a ring reacting poorly with one of them."

"So, do I have a clean bill of health?" Ukyou asked, clearly eager to test out her new abilities.

Cyborg 'hmm'd' as he continued his scans. "Well, you got some pretty nasty split ends there that you should probably get looked at, but that is as absolutely as far as I'm gonna go with teasing the new human super weapon while directly within spatula range."

"And that's why you're a super genius while the rest of these guys spend most of their time getting uppercutted or malleted. Oh, but I can't wait to test this out!" Ukyou all but squeed in girlish glee. "I can already feel it trying to teach me how to use it!"

Ryouga motioned Ranma and Ryu back as he walked over. "That is why we're here. Raven. Can you seal the three of us off? You can stay outside or inside, as long as you're able to react to what happens…"

Before Raven could reply, however, the rather distinct sound of someone going 'tap-tap' on a metal surface rang over the air. A half dozen pairs of eyes searched the room, some wondering if they had imagined the sound, others already trying to pinpoint it. Very slowly, all their attentions turned to the cylindrical tube set into the floor.

"Is that…" Ranma began to say. "What I think it is?"

The younger Hibiki stared, wide eyed.

"I..." he licked his lips, taking a step back. "I think the guy that Shampoo was just sitting on is awake..."

Ryouga didn't bother to speculate. "Ryu. Ranma." He pointed quickly to the sides around the stasis tube. "Nabiki. Take Jinx to the CR. Everyone else back."

It only took a second for the training in the two martial artists turned soldiers to kick in. They moved with blinding speed, taking up positions, ready to strike. Nabiki, silently watching all this time, quickly complied and picked up the still sleeping Jinx, getting a restless hand pressed into her face while doing so. Ryouga waited until the two girls were in the control room, and the door closed, before taking the last few steps towards the stasis tube.

Holding up his hand, he made a fist, and the room fell silent.

Leaning over, and switching the lid from tinted to transparent, the officer's eyes widened slightly. No sooner had his eyes made contact, however, than he stumbled back a step. Lowering his arm, the acting Major took a few seconds to collect himself.

"It's…"

He blinked, slowly shaking his head.

"It's… alive." He scowled, fighting a voice only he could hear. "I can't believe it. The alien is alive," Ryouga said, and slowly turned to face Ukyou. "And it knows your name."

---

x

---

"Romak Varto's log. Day of the Spiral Horn. Week of the Vestment. Cycle Seventeen of the Sarsonian Era."

"I met our Guardian, today."

A pause.

"Redact that. Our Esteemed Guardian. I have been loaned to him on special Corps business."

Another pause.

"My first impression of Trespasser is... that he is methodical and efficient, but cold and aloof. As with all Guardians of Oa, he is ancient beyond the normal measure of time, but Trespasser seems somehow even older than the others. He is organizing this expedition under the direct aegis of Foundation. He must have quite the influence among his fellows. As is my duty to Foundation, I have not been made privy to additional details nor have I pressed for them."

"This will be my second tour of duty under the direct supervision of a Guardian who has left his post on Oa. Both were research expeditions that also required armed escort. I do not expect this mission to be as uneventful as the one to the former Empire of Tears. Though he does not seem prone to excessive exposition, no more than any other Guardian, I believe I could hear between the lines that Trespasser is expecting additional losses among embedded personnel."

Another pause.

"The 'embedded personnel' being the Green Lanterns recommended for this mission. We shall protect the Guardian with our lives, of course. We serve the Corps as the Corps serves the Cause, and our Cause is Just. What is more curious is that our normal Rules of Engagement have been changed, including the free use of lethal force. One would think we were going into the Darkest Night or the like. Well, regardless. This will only be a surprise for the other Lanterns. Hopefully they will adapt quickly."

"Though I was briefed on them beforehand, and have read their profiles, I have not worked before with any of the other Lanterns assembled for the expedition. All in all, though, they seem to be a good group. None of them knew each other either, so I have arranged for some joint exercises to help us get to know our individual skill sets. They do not know what I am, of course, nor do they know about Foundation. Hence why I am in command. I do not particularly enjoy keeping my fellow Lanterns in the dark. Why has Foundation not staffed our security with only those who have taken a Second Oath? It would make things so much easier."

"I believe that will be all for now. Romak Varto's log. Session Terminate."

---

/ARCHIVE/

AUDIO Encoded
Bundle: (D.4.6.103)
INTSec Priority Violet

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS
Voice Identification Confirmed: Y5/Jinx (99.2 percent)

SESSION Begin

Hello me, it's me again…

(pause)

Heh heh heh, I love that song. I totally need to get the Hibiki twins to sing that, it'd be so sick it's contagious!

(pause)

Well, anyway, finally got another few seconds of time to myself. Though, actually, in retrospect, it's not as hard as I had originally thought. It's not too tough to get alone time when most of your team mates seem to hate you like you were Courtney Love.

(pause)

Well, not everyone, anyways. At least Star still treats me like a normal human being… a bit ironic there, considering that she's harbouring a bit of an anti-human sentiment lately. Then again, if she wants to put me into the 'superior to humans' group with her, then I won't argue.

(pause)

Hmm, I think I'm getting side tracked. Anyway, where was I again? Things that piss me off and that I need to get off my chest. …Yeah.

(pause)

In retrospect, now that I've had some time to chill out, I might have been a bit harsh on the whole unetco thing before. I mean, if I was them, I'd be doing the same thing. I mean, we're practically begging to be taken advantage of. It's only natural that they'd take us up on it.

(pause)

One of the odd things I've noticed is, on the few occasions that I've spoken with the acting Major, everyone is always cringing, like I'm gonna explode in his face, or something.

(pause)

I don't get it. I think Hibiki and Ranma are actually doing a good job. I mean, yeah, they're still a bit on the newb side, but they're learning quick. And the way they handle things… man, if we coulda got these guys into the Academy back home, they woulda been super stars.

(pause)

Form us up a little Just-Us League… (laughter) Yeah, that'd be pretty awesome! Naw, the Lieutenants are both all good, my kind of people even, but there has been someone else that's been on my mind a lot lately.

(pause)

It's kind of funky, thinking about it now, how things come full circle. I remember talking to Starfire about Nabiki, this Nabiki, and the Nabiki back home. I remember saying how our Nabiki was the real villain, and how this one was a goody two shoes. And now, again, the topic of Nabiki came up with Starfire again, just a few hours ago…

(pause)

I think I made a serious mistake in my initial assessment. A full blown, fatal error that could be the end of me if I'm not careful.

(pause)

It wasn't unetco that took advantage of Cyborg and Star and the rest. It was Nabiki! She played Yankee squad, before they were a squad, like a violin!

(pause)

Just listening to Starfire explain it - I really should have asked about this long ago, but it hadn't seemed important - it was just so… so masterful.

(pause)

Ryouga, Raven and the rest, they had been right on the verge of sitting back and behaving themselves. I mean, sure, they were antsy to do something, but had no idea what that something might be. But then along comes Nabiki, and a happy little coincidence in the form of a mid-air abduction.

(pause)

(laughter) Just how helpful, how accommodating, Nabiki must have seemed. Going out of her way to make sure that Raven and the rest could get into the Pit to see the interception. How above and beyond the call of duty she went to pull strings and convince people what a good idea it would be to help the Titans get in and see what was happening.

(pause)

Nabiki knew exactly how they would react to seeing the kind of horrors she drummed up for them. Just from my own experience, I would say that she was counting on it.

(pause)

(low whistle) That magnificent bitch. I don't know whether I should burn her eyes out for getting me into this, or bow down before her in adulation. All it took after that was some minor convincing here and there, getting the Lieutenants to agree and the Commander to okay it, and 'bam!' Combat Team Yankee was born.

(pause)

I had said that my Nabiki was the more deliciously evil of the two… but now I wonder. Cuz, the more I think of it, the more I realize just why Nabiki did it. I know her too well. It wasn't to save the world, or to help innocent people. No, she did it for one reason, and one reason only.

(pause)

She did it to give her Ryouga a few more pieces of cannon fodder to help keep him alive.

(pause)

This Nabiki, this magnificent, manipulative Nabiki, took four naïve, wide eyed kids - and one witty, lovely me - and threw them into the meat grinder of a war that had nothing to do with them, and that they had no real understanding of. All just to give her boyfriend a little better chance of living a little longer.

(pause)

Top grades, Nabiki Tendo. The Headmaster would have loved you.

(pause)

Man, this has me in a weird mood, now. I honestly don't know why I'm so pissed. I mean, I wouldn't have done any different... well, aside from the fact that I doubt I could have come up with such a plan so easily or so quickly… and it's not like any of the Titan's are really my friends…

(pause)

So why is this burning me up so much? Why is it making me think so much about my own criminal past? Why is it filling my head with such strange ideas that never occurred to me before?

(pause)

I… I swear that I just had the strangest epiphany, like, an hour ago. Like a crystal suddenly just solidifying in my mind, I had this crazy idea. Like I understood why it was that villains always lost to heroes, despite heroes being so weak, and stupid and so utterly outclassed.

(pause)

I don't know why, but it's almost like I'm looking at the whole damn thing from the outside in, and only now can I see the whole truth… It's-

(pause)

Ah, crap, here comes the acting major. Time to put on my game face. Model Soldier number two-five-six reporting for duty. These guys think I'm just a nutty psycho? I'll show them how well I can play their game.

(pause)

Hmm, ah well, time to go, I guess. The L.T. says it's our turn to work on clearing the tunnel again.

(pause)

All I can say is 'Thank God' to that. We're so close now.

(pause)

Almost out…

SESSION Terminated

TRANSCRIPT END

/ARCHIVE/