Dr. Serj Zeighger watched as the henchmen unloaded the truck. He bet it would be a hard thing to do with a young girl with bleached hair constantly yelling at you but he really didn't care. Sympathize, yes; care, no.

'Why did I choose her for those experiments years ago?' he asked himself as he rubbed his temples. He remembered when he was searching for someone to test out the effects of a modified Chemical X insignia on humans for his "partner"; she was the one in a hundred that had stayed humanoid.

Of course now he wished she would just mutate and be out of his life.

"I said careful!" she screamed at some guy as he dropped something unbreakable.

"I hate my life," Dr. Zeighger said as he went to the terminal to report his progress.

*******************1

Dexter tapped his foot. Sitting around and waiting made him nervous and a tad wound up, but that was what you got for nearly getting impaled by some psycho machine's sword.

He winced as he jerked his bandaged arm the wrong way, but it was livable.

Life for him had changed since he joined the assault to stop Dr. Zeighger's experiments. From trying to clean up the insane doctor's monsters, Dee Dee's attempted suicide and Lee Lee's alliance to evil, to finding out the insane doctor was still alive, the Gezoisya zaibatsu organization's involvement and Mandark's change to good had left Dexter very, very confused with what was going on.

Dexter leaned back in his chair, thinking.

Lee Lee was an easy explanation; she liked being evil. Mandark's shift from chaos to justice had something to do with Toji. The Gezoisya zaibatsu could be explained because they were created in secret to hunt down demons and monsters that threatened the safety of life, and Dr. Zeighger was a threat in and of himself.

But there was one mystery Dexter couldn't crack; what happened to Dee Dee?

*********************2

Dee Dee sighed, reread the report and still didn't like the news.

Usagiko was caught by the Gezoisya zaibatsu. Why she was there, it didn't say.

'She went there under her own power.' Dee Dee thought angrily, when Bubbles reads this there will be hell to pay. Dee Dee walked into Bubbles' workroom with the file in hand and tossed it right in front of the older blond girl.

"She's getting to be a pain," Bubbles said after reading the report, "But damn it, she's useful."

A moment of silence filled the large room then Bubbles spoke.

"Let her rot a little. It'll teach her a lesson for going off on her own."

Dee Dee nodded and left the room.

************************3

Masahiro watched his parents run about the house looking for something stupid called an "MX-80A" device, which was on the coffee table.

"Is that it?" He pointed out the small computer board-like thing. His father walked over and looked at it.

"Uh.... Yeah, it is," Mr. Watanabe said as he picked up the device. "Now I just need the car keys."

"Ahem." Masahiro pointed to the keys that were under the device; Mr. Watanabe looked embarrassed.

His parents said their goodbyes to him and left. Masahiro sat on the couch bored out of his mind.

'Don't want to bother Brick-kun,' he thought. 'Nothing… no TV, not much in a mood for just joy riding so that leaves...' Masahiro thought about it. What did that leave, anyway?

Masahiro turned on the TV anyway in hopes of finding something to inspire him. There wasn't much except hetero porn, bad cartoons and talk shows. Since he didn't have much to do he got up and went out. After a quick drive to the mall, he went to the arcade.

The 'bouncer square' wasn't really a happening place but it contained some of Masahiro's most favorite games; the place was kind of like any other large arcade. Packed with arcade cabinets, pinball tables, pachinko slots and coin changers, people puttered around on their near Ryu-like quest for high scores.

"Hello Mr. Stewart," Masahiro said to the arcade owner, a Canadian man, who was putting up a poster. "What's going on around here?" He attempted small talk with the owner.

"Well, first this nutcase was doing this satanic crap in front of the VF4 machine; he said that he was trying to acquire dark magical powers to beat the milkman."

"He needs it," Masahiro said as he shook his head. "Anything else?"

Mr. Stewart finished placing the poster up and said "Well there's a King Of Fighter's sign up in the other end of the mall."

"No thanks, bad enough I have to deal with the nuts in Townsville. I don't want to fight one that knows martial arts and has some kind of god-power."

Mr. Stewart laughed and they said their goodbyes. Masahiro melded with the crowd and went about playing his favorite games.

()()()()()()()()()()()() Author's Corner: More in-joke game references. ()()()()()()()()()()

Okay, I went a little overboard with Masahiro's section but I got a tad nostalgic with the arcade stuff.

All well, a lot of us have our habits.

Oh and VF4 = Virtra Fighter 4.

One final note I finally found a name for Jack's organization, took me a while though.