Disclaimer - Tenchi and the crew are unfortunately not my property. I had no part in creating them, though I am desperately trying to figure out how to give myself Ryoko's abilities. I am not writing this for the purpose of making money, though if any kind souls see fit to give donations I will not complain. I am writing merely because I'm an obsessive person in general and I really need to get it out of my system. Mayhem is my creation however, and anyone using him without my OK will anger the Great Shaven Cat Goddess and cause her to sic her elite pack of Killer Llamas on you. Criticism is welcome, flames are ignored, praise will inflate my ego greatly, and make sure I actually finish this one-day. Enjoy.
Many thanks to my talented editor, and fellow fanfic author, for his help in making this readable. THANK YOU DREZ!!!!
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Mayhem, Chaos, and General Messes
Chapter 7
Close Encounters
"She has been like that for nearly half an hour Lady Funaho." The young guard whispered nervously. "She won't respond to anything... we didn't know what else to do." He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.
"You did the right thing." Funaho reassured, giving the nervous young man an encouraging smile. "I'll see to her, you just go back to your duties, I will call if we need anything." With that the guard bowed, turned and resumed his normal patrol, but the worried looked remained fixed on his face.
Entering the spacious office quietly, the elegant woman called out softly, "Misaki? Sister? Are you alright?" Upon hearing her "sisters" voice, the usually hyperactive captain of the guard, spun her chair around, revealing her tear-streaked face.
"I failed them." She whispered, choking back a sob.
"Failed who sister?" Funaho asked quietly kneeling down in front of the distraught woman. Unable to say anymore Misaki merely handed the violet haired woman a small computer pad, pressing play as Funaho took it in hand.
The hologram that popped into being was fuzzy and distorted, but easily recognizable as a former member of the royal guard who had left his position to join the GP in order to pursue the murderer of her husbands brother. After a moments thought she managed to recall the man's name, Heero.
"My Lady Misato, I regret having to report to you this tragedy in such a manner, but I cannot at this time break off my pursuit of my quarry lest he slip away completely, and I thought it best that you receive the news from someone loyal to the Royal family rather than by way of a messenger." The hologram paused, the figure seemingly struggling with how to proceed. "As you no doubt have heard, the criminal, Mayhem, was pursued to a remote colony world, where he was reported killed."
"Taking to heart how previous such reports have turned out, I proceeded to the planet on my own to confirm the report." The small figure paused again, a delicate hand going up to nervously run through its long blonde hair. "I only learned that the planet was the current residence of the Crown Princess's shortly before I arrived... and I must report with a heavy heart... that I was to late. When I arrived the residence was little more than a crater. And I found the wreckage of one of the two GP cruisers assigned to the planet in orbit around the planets moon." He paused again, the head dropping, seemingly in shame, before continuing on. "I was ambushed shortly after that by the other missing patrol ship, my ship was seriously wounded before I was able to raise my shields, and the fiend fled before I could return fire."
Funaho could feel tears running hotly down her face as she sat back heavily on the rooms plush carpet, just barely holding onto the pad as it continued to deliver the grim message. "Unable to effectively pursue or send a message because of the damage my ship sustained, I made the decision to land and look for any trace of survivors. I found none, but I was able to identify the remains of ten individuals. Most weren't in my ships database, but I was able to confirm the identities of Princess Ayeka and Princess Sasami, as well as the ex-pirate Ryoko and a Professor Washu. I have attached a full report of the evidence collected and other details to the message. I am sorry My Lady... I swear I will bring the animal before you, alive if possible." With that the message ended, the pad slipped from Funaho's nerveless fingers, and the two sisters hugged each other in mourning.
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"What the hell was that?!" Kiyone shouted, bursting out of the bedroom she had been sharing with Mihoshi wearing a nightshirt and not much else, her pistol in hand and ready. Mihoshi followed a second later wearing a pair of loose sweats and one of her seemingly endless supply of pink tank-tops, still half asleep but her pistol also in hand. Sasami and Katsuhito soon followed.
"Someone just blew up the Emperors suite." Keith replied, cursing under his breath as he stared across the gap between the hotels two towers at the burning top floor.
"What? Why?" Sasami cried looking at the devastated floor in shock.
"They undoubtedly thought that was where we were." Katsuhito responded grimly.
Keith strode over to the window and glanced down. "We're surrounded."
"Now what do we do?" Ayeka asked worriedly.
"The roof." Keith replied curtly, turning away from the window and sprinting for the door. "Kiyone, your with me... everyone else grab what you can and meet us there in five!" he shouted behind him, grabbing Kiyone by the wrist and dragging her behind him.
"But I'm not even dressed!" the emerald haired detective protested as she was dragged out the door.
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"What are we doing up here?" Kiyone asked as they sprinted up the short stairwell up to the roof, self consciously tugging her suddenly too-short nightshirt down.
"Getting a ride." Keith responded, "There's a hover-car heading for the roof of this tower."
"Did it ever occur to you that it might be a police vehicle?" Kiyone hissed in response.
"To quiet." Keith responded, coming to a halt in front of the roof door and testing the knob. "Locked." He muttered, reaching into his coat for the pistol hidden there.
"I'll take care of the lock." Kiyone hissed, watching him pull out the gun with a bit of surprise. "That primitive little firecracker of yours will make to much damned noise." She added, pushing him out of the way and playing with a few controls on her GP energy pistol. "So do you have a plan or are we just going to charge out guns blazing." She asked, more than a hint of sarcasm coloring her tone of voice.
"We wait until the cars close enough to cover any noise we make, I'll distract them, you get the car when it touches down." He responded with a shrug.
"And if there's more than one person up there? She asked, raising her voice a bit to be heard over the sound of the approaching hover vehicle.
"Improvise."
"Great." The green haired detective muttered under her breath, pointing her pistol at the lock.
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She smiled cruelly as the fire consuming what was left of opposite towers top floor started to spread downward and people started pouring out of the hotels front door, only to be stopped by the hundreds of police already forming a thick wall around the hotel.
She felt a slight surge of admiration over that little detail orchestrated by her lord. Even if any of her prey had been missed, they would find it difficult to get through that mass of uniforms without hindrance. Her little fire wouldn't spread very fast and would be relatively easy to put out, after all, she had designed it that way. It would help limit the confusion and prevent anyone from taking advantage of it to get away. Undoubtedly, every one of the senior officers and detectives involved in the operation were in her lords service as well, and would plant and lose evidence as was appropriate. With a satisfied smirk, she packed up the last of her equipment and turned to face the incoming hover car, her heavy cloak blowing dramatically in the wind generated by its engines.
It was no more than ten feet off the roofs surface when the door leading into the hotel slammed open, smoke pouring from a hole where the lock used to be. Throwing the heavy case that held her equipment towards the landing hover car, she reached inside her cloak to grab the pistol holstered there even as a dark shape sprinted from the open door, several loud cracks echoing from the pistol in its hand. The shots were only loosely aimed at her, but forced her to dive for cover behind a nearby air conditioning unit.
"Should I abort?" the voice of the car's pilot spoke into her ear through her headset.
"NO!" She shouted in response, peeking around the corner to squeeze off a few blasts. "Retrieve the case, then you can pull out, not before."
"Yes Ma'am... he's charging!" Responding to the warning she pulled a long knife from her belt even as she stood up to fire at the man charging her position.
"Damn he's fast." She snarled as her target went into a quick roll to avoid her first few blasts, and then kicked out of it into a leap that no Jurian could have pulled off without some sort of enhancement. He was within ten feet of her when one of the blasts connected with a flash and a puff of greasy smoke. The grin that started to form on her face turned into a look of disbelief when he kept coming.
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The small black hover vehicle came to a rest on the hotels roof with a soft thunk, and he fumbled nervously with his harness even as he threw open the door. Getting the straps undone after a few seconds of effort, he pulled himself out of his seat and pulled off his headset, hastily throwing it onto the seat behind him as he spotted the case he had been ordered to retrieve and ran towards it.
He never even felt the stun bolt that dropped him onto the roof in a limp sprawl.
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Her pistol went skittering across the roof as her target tackled her to the ground, cursing she brought her knife up with a hard shove, burying the razor-sharp point into his belly and up under his ribs. She grinned in satisfaction as he yelled in pain, spitting up blood from the lung her knife had punctured. After seeing him take the hit from her blaster she probably shouldn't have been surprised when he still managed to strike out with a hard right cross that caught her on the jaw, knocking her out and making the hood of her cloak fall back. Even as her world went dark she could see the expression of her opponent go from fierce bloodlust to one of complete and utter shock.
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Kiyone jogged over to where Keith had tackled his opponent, blaster at the ready, even as the rest of the group, minus Katsuhito, poured onto the roof.
"Keith!" she barked, holstering her pistol when she realized that the woman was unconscious. "Are you alright? We need to go, NOW!"
When he didn't respond, continuing to stare at the limp form of his opponent in shock. She stepped closer; glancing at the sprawled form he was kneeling beside. She was actually rather attractive the teal-haired detective noted absently, but she couldn't see anything about the woman that should be getting this kind of response out of her new companion. That's when she noticed the blood, and the charred patch on Keith's shoulder. "Dammit, he's in shock." She muttered, quickly kneeling beside him and putting his arm over her shoulders.
"Someone get over her and help me with this guy!" She shouted towards the rest of the group, as she pulled them to their feet with a grunt, staggering under the weight of Keith's surprisingly heavy form. Ayeka was there only a few seconds later, getting the other side of the young man and putting his other arm over her own shoulder.
"Is he alright?" Ayeka asked worriedly, grunting a bit from the exertion as they half-helped, half dragged Keith towards the waiting hover car.
"He's lost a lot of blood, but I can't see any open wounds on him." Kiyone responded. "I guess his healing power is as effective as he made it out to be. MIHOSHI, I'm driving! You get in the passenger side!" she shouted ahead as the blonde detective started to climb into the car.
"Where's Lord Katsuhito?" Kiyone asked Ayeka as they got within ten feet of the car, raising her voice to be heard over its engines.
"He and that reporter are staying behind." Ayeka responded, smiling briefly at Sasami in thanks as the young girl held open the rear passenger door for them.
"Why?" Kiyone asked as they manhandled Keith into the car.
"My Brother did not say." Ayeka responded climbing into the car beside Keith and looking worriedly at his fading wounds. "But I trust him, and I am sure he has a plan. He always does." She added, a small smirk accompanying the remark.
"If you say so." Kiyone replied with a sigh, closing the door and climbing into the drivers seat, slipping on the headset that was lying there. Turning around just as Sasami climbed in the other side, she did a quick headcount to make sure they weren't leaving behind anyone who didn't want to stay, and pushed the throttle forward and the sleek little car lifted of the roof and sped away into the night, flying right underneath the first of a swarm of arriving firefighting vehicles on their way to combat the blaze.
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"What the hell is going on?" Kanno asked fearfully. His voice colored by confusion and fear as he followed the elderly gentleman down one of the emergency stairwells.
"Explanations will wait until our situation is less hurried young man." Katsuhito responded in an even tone. "Now tell me," he asked conversationally, stopping on a landing in order to fiddle with something at his wrist, "How do I look?" With that his habitual disguise dissolved to reveal a handsome young man not much older than Kanno.
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Ayeka carefully pulled Keith's unresponsive form into a reclining position, his head on her lap. With a barely audible sigh, the young mans eyes drifted shut and his form relaxed a little. Absently brushing some of the boy's shaggy mop of hair out of his eyes, Ayeka noticed a gleam of gold peeking out from under his shirt collar. Curious, the young princess pulled it out so she could take a good look. Hanging from a thin gold chain was a simple cross, and on either side of the cross were two equally simple gold bands, one noticeably larger and thicker than the other. She gasped slightly when she realized what the two rings probably were.
"What is it Ayeka?" Sasami asked, looking at her older sister curiously. Ayeka looked over at her younger sister, clad in a nightshirt and a pair of sweatpants that she had pulled on for modesties sake, and thought for a second about how to answer the question without telling Sasami anything Keith might not want her to know.
"They're wedding rings." Keith answered before Ayeka could think of what to say, his voice low, barely more than a mumble. "The Cross is a religious symbol, an old present from my parents."
"You're married?" Sasami asked, her voice betraying her surprise.
" I was." Keith replied tiredly, gently taking the necklace out of Ayeka's hand and looking at it with sad eyes. "I told you about Talia didn't I?"
"She was your wife?" Sasami asked, her big eyes positively full with sympathy.
"Mmm-hmm." Keith replied absently, tucking the necklace back under his shirt. "Satoshima bought her while I was being trained, and then he bought me. We escaped together... and things just sorta happened." Keith finished with a small, wistful smile, his eyes drooping shut.
"What happened to her?" Sasami asked quietly, biting her lip a bit worriedly.
"She died a little more than a year ago during a raid by some Jurian Military and GP." Keith replied, a bit curtly.
"I'm so sorry." Sasami replied, with a sniff, her voice small.
"There's nothing for you to be sorry about Kid." Keith replied with a sigh, opening one eye to look down towards the blue-haired princess.
"But you said there were Jurian soldiers..." Sasami started to respond, her voice trailing off.
"You weren't the one who sent those soldiers after me Sasami." Keith replied. "That was Heero's idea, and I don't blame anyone for what happened but him. Even the soldiers were just following orders." Keith said with a sigh.
"Old memories aside," Ayeka interrupted in a gentle voice, looking down at Keith questioningly, "How are you feeling?"
"...I just lost a lot of blood, she was a hell of a lot faster than I though she'd be." Keith replied after a moment's hesitation, refusing to meet the elder of the two princesses gaze. "Give me a while to rest and get some food in me and I'll be back to my normal self in no time."
"Are you sure?" Ayeka asked worriedly.
"Yes." Keith replied quickly. "Yes, I'm sure."
"But you were..." Ayeka started to reply.
"Princess." Keith interrupted before she could say anything else. "Just drop it... please."
"... Very well." Ayeka agreed with a sigh, blushing a bit when Keith resettled his head to a slightly more comfortable position on her lap, his eyes drifting closed again.
"You know what Ayeka?" Keith mumbled.
"What Mr. Mayhem?" she replied, resisting the urge to squirm when his breath brushed across the part of her upper leg exposed by the khaki shorts she was wearing.
"You make a nice pillow." He finished, grinning a bit. Sasami giggled, and Ayeka's blush darkened about ten shades.
"Hey Keith!" Kiyone called back, her tone a bit amused as well, "Before you go back to sleep, any ideas about what we should do next? I already checked with the Yagami, and she's says she's swarming with GP."
"Somehow I'm not surprised." Keith replied with a yawn. "There's another spaceport about three hundred kilometers due south of here, head for it."
"What's down there?" Kiyone asked.
"Just someone who owes me a couple of favors." Keith replied. "Wake me up when we get there."
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Katsuhito strode calmly and confidently through the crowded city streets, a much more nervous looking young man trailing closely behind him. When they were well away from the mob of police and firefighters that had surrounded the Grand Jurai, Kanno turned to the older man and took a long look, trying to place the naggingly familiar face. They had gone nearly ten blocks before he figured it out.
"Yosho!" the young reporter exclaimed in surprise. "The lost Prince of Jurai!"
"I don't recall being lost." Yosho responded calmly. "I know exactly where I've been."
"Well no-one else did!" Kanno retorted heatedly, too upset by the night's events to remember the proper forms of address.
"Well then, I suppose that makes this quite an opportunity for a young reporter such as yourself doesn't it." Katsuhito replied, his trademark smirk firmly in place. "So you do a little favor for me and I'll make sure you get an exclusive interview not only with me, but with my sister as well, at least in regards to the details surrounding tonight's events."
"Exclusive interviews..." Kanno trailed off, a slightly glazed look on his face as he pondered exactly how much of a boost that would be to his career. "What do I have to do?"
"I'll explain shortly, but for the moment I'd simply like to put as much distance between us and the hotel as possible." Katsuhito replied curtly, continuing his way down the street, his unconcerned manner at odds with his words.
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It was a familiar dream, and a pleasant one while it lasted. He'd been having it off and on for over a year now. The nightclub could have been any one of dozens he'd been in for one reason or another over the past few years. The music was more a throbbing beat that you felt through the soles of your feet than anything else. The crowd was equally nondescript, faceless bodies thrashing wildly to the deep bass pulse, made even more surreal by the flashing lights and drifting smoke. And in the center of the chaos... Talia. Lithe body following the music with considerably more grace than most of those around her, her barely-there layer of fur catching the lights and making her seem to glow as her wild mane of raven hair moved about her head like a living thing.
He'd simply watch her, waiting for the moment that they'd catch each other's eyes and she'd slow the rhythm of her dance to something more inviting, holding his gaze with her silver eyes as a seductive smile played across red lips. He'd stand entranced, approaching her in a daze when she beckoned for him. Wrapping his arms around her slim form, he'd pull her against him, burying his face in her hair and breathing in her scent.
"Hello Pet." Keith murmured, savoring the feel of her as she pressed herself against him, her own slim arms going around his waist.
"Hello yourself Hun." Talia murmured in return. "It's been a while, I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me." She teased, leaning back just far enough to let them look each other in the eyes.
"It'll never happen Lia'ne." Keith responded, brushing his lips against hers. "You will always be a part of me, and I a part of you." He grinned, "That was the whole point of the bonding wasn't it?"
Talia grinned and kissed him back, laughing softly. "I'm glad to see you were actually listening. With the way you were staring at me during the whole affair I would've sworn you didn't hear a thing I said." She mocked.
"You can hardly blame me for staring Pet." Keith countered, "But I took everything you said to heart."
"Good." Talia sighed happily. "Now tell me, who is she?" the question was accompanied by a wicked grin as she looked him full in the eyes.
"Wha...?" Keith sputtered in response, trying desperately to figure out how to respond, and completely helpless to escape her gaze. Talia laughed, pulling him down for a kiss.
"The purple haired girl Hun, I know you like her..." she said with a grin, "I don't mind, I know you're not going to forget about me, and I'm not so selfish that I'd make you spend the rest of your life all alone with just little ol' me to keep you company."
"Jeez, don't scare me like that Lia'ne." Keith growled jokingly, hugging Talia's slim form back to him again. "So what do you want to know?"
"Well talk about it next time." Talia replied a bit sadly, and Keith could feel the dream start to slip away as the real world started to impose itself on his senses, Talia's face fading away with one last wistful smile.
"Keith-san." The voice sounded a thousand miles away, but was coming closer fast.
"Keith-san!" Ayeka... definitely Ayeka. "Keith-san, wake up! We are there."
"Hmmm?" Keith mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes and sitting up with a wince.
"We are at the spaceport." Ayeka repeated with a smirk. "You are not exactly a morning person are you Keith-san?" Keith just stuck his tongue out in response, absently combing his shaggy brown hair back into a semblance of order with his fingers.
"Where'd you land us Kiyone?" he asked with a yawn.
"Near a docking bay 42." Kiyone answered back over her shoulder as she finished shutting down the small cars systems. "Will that work?"
"So long as nobody minds walking a couple miles." Keith replied with a shrug, following Ayeka as she stepped out of the car.
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"Are you sure we can trust this contact of yours?" Ayeka asked, her voice a bit hesitant as they walked through the poorly lit spaceport, the sun just barely starting to burn through the morning fog. Around them small stores and stands tucked between the worn docking bays that dominated the landscape were starting to open and set up for the day. The beginnings of the morning's crowds started to appear on the narrow streets.
They were for the most part dressed in the clothes they had fled in, though Kiyone had pulled on a pair of jeans the second they had landed, and Keith had duck around a corner just long enough to replace his ruined shirt with a simple black sweat shirt that was just oversized enough to hide the worst of the bloodstains decorating his jeans.
"Marcus?" Keith responded, grinning a bit. "He's a pirate, a smuggler, and a general all-around crook... but yeah, on this I think I can trust him. He owes me big time and he's almost always a man of honor when it comes to debts owed. Besides, we've got a secret weapon with us."
Ayeka didn't reply, simply exchanging confused glances with Kiyone.
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"I'm sorry kid, but I canna help yah." The bear-like man standing in front of them said, his voice firm.
"What the flying fuck are you talking about yah damned pirate." Keith bit out, staring up at the larger man, a low growl punctuating the words. "You owe me, and I've been damned generous about letting it slide until now."
"If tha' nutcase who's always chasin' yah around even suspected I'd helped you I may as well kiss my arse good-bye yah little S.O.B. " the big man growled back, crossing his massive arms over his equally massive chest.
"So I gotta do this the hard way then?" Keith snarled. "I bet that shiny new courier sitting out on the tarmac back there would be plenty fast enough to get us out of here." He grinned ferally, showing off a sharp set of fangs, "How much did the tub cost yah Marcus? Specially after all the... modifications... I'm sure you've had done."
The big man practically glowed red through his beard as he glared down at Keith, "Yah wouldn't dare yah little punk." He snarled through clenched teeth.
"Then find me another option old man." Keith shot back in harsh, clipped, tones.
"Please Mister Marcus." Sasami interrupted from where the rest of the party was watching the proceedings nervously. "All we need is a ride."
Marcus's fierce expression melted under the young princess's pleading gaze. "...alright, I'll see what I can do." The big man sighed. But then gave Keith a hard glare and added "Bringin' that wee gurl with yah was dirty pool May'em."
"I know." Keith replied with a grin. "Thanks Marcus." He added sincerely.
"Jus' donna expect it tah happen ag'in runt." Marcus added as he turned around and started towards the hangar door. "My dept is PAID af'er this. Now c'mon tha lot of yah, I think I have somthin' tha jus' might w'rk."
Keith motioned for the rest of the group to follow and trotted after the big man, following him into the cavernous hangar. Inside were over a dozen ships, ranging from small couriers and shuttles to a pair of bulk transports, either of which could have carried all of the smaller ships in the hanger all at once.
"So which one do you think is our ride?" Kiyone muttered to Keith when she caught up to him.
"Dunno, probably one of the couriers though." Keith replied with a shrug. "Those bulk transports are too damned slow for smuggling something as wanted as we are, and the shuttles are mostly sublight jobs."
"Not this time Boyo." Marcus interrupted, throwing them a smug grin over his shoulder. "Yer ridin' in tha beast t'day." He continued, pointing to the more battered looking of the two bulk transports.
"I'm trusting you on this Marcus." Keith replied warningly. "But you'd better have one hell of a plan up your sleeve if you expect me to ride in that junkpile."
"Jus come aboard yah paranoid git'" the bear-like man responded with a snort, punching a code into a keypad by the hatch with the ease born of long practice and then striding through when the hatch creaked open.
Stepping through the hatchway, the group found themselves standing on a narrow walkway that circled the ship's spacious main hold. It's cargo for the trip was readily apparent, a half dozen large shuttles taking up almost all of the room in the bay.
"Wow!" Mihoshi exclaimed, looking at the nearest shuttle with an admiring eye. "That's a Galaxytech Mk3 Gravwell Diver!"
"Is that a good ship Mihoshi?" Sasami asked, curious more because of the Blonde detectives reaction than because of any real interest in the rather plain looking shuttle.
"Oh yeah!" Mihoshi enthused, bouncing a little in her excitement as she walked over to get a closer look at the ship, which in all honestly was rather ugly, a squat ovoid with no visible windows and only a fat few ridges running from front to back preventing it from looking entirely like a metal egg. "They use them for getting really close to black holes, exploring really deep in gas giants and stars, and going lotsa other places that would crush other ships like an egg!"
"I swear, sometimes that girl scares me." Ayeka commented, shaking her head in abject wonder at the bubble-headed girl's antics.
"Oh, that's nothing." Kiyone replied shaking her head. "Did you know that she had the highest score of her entire class on her final exam?"
"She did?" Ayeka responded, surprised.
"Yep." Kiyone sighed. "But the teacher ended up having to grade the thing by hand because she did it in twelve different colors of pencil. It confused the grading machine so badly that it literally overheated... it took them three days to fix the damned thing too." Kiyone finished with a snort.
"Well I'm glad tah see tha at least one o' yah likes tha ugly thing." Marcus said with a smirk, as he watched Mihoshi all but hug the fat ship. "'Cause it's where you're gonna spend the trip out."
"But it's only designed to carry three people!" Mihoshi protested, finally distracted from her examination of the squat vessel.
What?" the rest of the group chorused in surprise.
"I know." Marcus answered with a shrug "but she's tha only one tha's shielded well enough tah hide yah all from GP sensors. She's hooked inta this beasties life support system, so tha won' be a pro'lem, it'll jus be a bit cramped is all." The big man added, thumping the main transports inner hull to indicate exactly which "beastie" he was referring to.
"It'll do." Keith replied over the girls' protests. "So where are you planning on dropping us off old man?"
"No' far Runt." Marcus replied with a smirk. "Jus' over tah Rylos 9."
"Rylos 9?" Kiyone repeated, a touch of alarm present in her voice. "As in the Rylos 9 run by the Si'Glara Crime family?"
"Well saying that they run the planet is a bit of an exaggeration." Keith replied with a shrug, "but you're thinking of the right place."
"Do you have any idea what they do to GP officers they catch on planet there?" Kiyone hissed angrily.
"I'm not going to tell anyone if you're not." Keith answered. "Don't worry, I know the place pretty well and I have some people there I trust." He reassured the teal haired detective before she could issue another protest. "The lot of you are going to need a wardrobe change before we leave, but other than that, we should be fine."
"A wardrobe change?" Ayeka asked nervously, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of her belly.
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The shuttle's interior was just as cramped as advertised. Three heavily cushioned seats running in a row from front to back, each about ten feet from the one in front of it, with about two feet of headroom, and little else. The middles station was even raised up about three feet, making it impossible to see the other stations directly, and the space between the seats was just short of completely taken up by delicate electronics and other equipment, leaving the seats as the only places fit for human habitation, and further isolating the different stations. In all honesty, they may as well have been completely separate rooms. Needless to say, it was not a ship designed for long trips.
Mihoshi and Sasami were in the front seat, Sasami on the tall blonde's lap, both of them deeply engaged in a two person handheld fighting game that they'd bought on their short-notice clothes-shopping trip. Kiyone was seated in the extra cramped center seat, all but sealed into the plush chair by an array of control panels and displays. Despite the cramped conditions, she was fast asleep. Not that anyone else in the shuttle could blame her for that, of all of them, the teal haired detective had probably gotten the least amount of sleep of any of them over the past few days. This of course left Ayeka perched on Keith's lap in the rearmost seat, neither of them particularly comfortable with the situation, but both trying hard to hide that fact.
"I still fail to see how these clothes are going to help us escape notice." Ayeka protested for the dozenth time since they'd purchased them, squirming a bit in an attempt to readjust the, in her opinion, too-short black skirt that she was wearing.
"Ayeka, between you, Kiyone, and Mihoshi, nothing we dress you in is going to NOT attract the attention of every male who gets in sight of us." Keith replied, biting his lip in an only partially successful attempt to distract himself from Ayeka's wriggling. "At least this way you won't look out of place."
"Yes, but couldn't I have gotten something a little less revealing?" she griped, gesturing down at the midriff-baring pink t-shirt she was wearing, blushing a little at the offhand compliment Keith had just paid her and the two detectives.
"The city we're headed for is a steam-bath on its good days Ayeka." Keith drawled. "This time of year you'd probably be cooler vacationing in hell. Trust me, you don't want to be wearing anything more than what's required to maintain a semblance of decency on this trip."
"Then why are you wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt?!" Ayeka retorted, turning around as best she could to glare at him accusingly.
"That's different." Keith responded, meeting her glare with one of his own.
"How exactly is it different." The young princess snapped, her violet eyes glinting dangerously as they bore into his silver green ones from mere inches away.
"Lets just say that I'm not a pleasant sight in anything less than full coverage Princess." Keith responded, practically growling out her title.
"Keith, even I can tell that you are far from an unattractive man underneath all of those layers of clothing you seem to be fond of." Ayeka bit out in response, the hint of a blush that appeared on her cheeks at the admission doing little to soften her tone of voice. "That is hardly an excuse."
Keith sighed, breaking away from the glaring contest and letting his head fall back against the chairs headrest. "Well thank you for the complement, but I'm not talking about what kind of shape I'm in Ayeka." He half groaned, "I stopped worrying about that the first time I went wolf."
"Then what are you talking about Keith." Ayeka asked with a sigh of her own.
"You're not going to let this one slide are you?" Keith replied, running his fingers through his shaggy mop of brown hair in a frustrated gesture.
"Not if you are going to insist on me wearing this outfit I'm not." The young princess replied with a smirk.
"Fine then." Keith sighed. Holding up an arm for demonstration he unceremoniously pushed the sleeve up, revealing a forearm that was more scar tissue than normal skin.
"Oh Tsunami!" Ayeka gasped quietly. "How..."
"I'm like that basically from the neck down Ayeka." Keith answered before she could finish asking the question. "There are a few areas that I'm happy to say have taken relatively little damage over the past few years," he added with a wry grin, "but for the most part I'm a walking scar."
"But can't you heal...?" the question trailed off unfinished.
"If I concentrate on it I can force a wound to heal clean." Keith explained with a sigh, "but most of the time I don't have that luxury, and I haven't figured out how to get rid of a scar once its been formed."
"I shouldn't have pressed." Ayeka apologized quietly, "I'm sorry Keith."
"You don't need to apologize Ayeka." Keith responded, squeezing one of her hands reassuringly. "They don't really bug me most of the time, but they are one hell of an identifying mark and being on the run constantly for a few years tends to make a guy a bit paranoid." He finished with a grin.
"So, how much longer are we going to be stuffed into this overpriced tin egg?" Ayeka asked, shooting her temporary seat cushion a smile, and effectively dropping the subject.
"We have about one more hour of me having to deal with your squirming if everything goes the way I expect it will." Keith replied with an exaggerated groan after glancing at his watch.
"It's not my fault you make such a lumpy chair." Ayeka replied with an equally exaggerated sniff.
"Well if you'd stop squirming so much it wouldn't quite so lumpy Princess." Keith shot back with a wicked grin, poking the young princess her side in just the right spot to elicit a startled yelp from the girl.
"Hentai!" Ayeka yelped, realizing exactly where she was sitting and what exactly she was feeling all at once. Blushing scarlet, her hand came up reflexively and slapped Keith across his cheek with a loud smack.
"Ow..." Keith said after a second, though the sting from the slap was gone before he even opened his mouth.
"Its your own fault for..." Ayeka trailed off, blushing beet red, all to aware of where she was seated, and of the look that Kith was giving her. It was the same look he'd had on his face just before he'd thrown her over his shoulder to dump in the shower when he'd kidnapped her. Predatory, dangerous... plus a hint of something else that sent a pleasant shiver running down her back.
"There are a few things even I have no control over Ayeka. THIS," he emphasized exactly what he was referring to by bucking his hips slightly, "is one of them."
"Keith!" Ayeka gasped slightly as she felt him buck underneath her, the bulge she was now much too aware of rubbing up against her in a rather sensitive area, making her squirm even more. "Stop that!"
"Then you stop that damned wiggling!" Keith responded in a low growl that Ayeka could feel through her back from where it was pressed against his chest. The vibrations seemed to penetrate her entire being and she could feel her body react to the surprisingly pleasant sensation.
"Oh Kami," Ayeka groaned involuntarily, trying to get into a less compromising position in the extremely limited space available to them while simultaneously trying to keep her skirt from riding up, but the low-slung control panel that was holding both of their legs in place prevented her from doing more than moving forward a few inches and the attempts were only serving to aggravate the situation. The warm feeling that had started to form in her belly when she had become aware of the bulge underneath her lap was growing rapidly at the friction that their movement was causing.
Keith's eyes flashed silver when the heady scent of Ayeka's arousal reached his nose and he could feel the powerful, primal, instincts that had come with his transformation flare almost uncontrollably. Despite his attempts to maintain control he felt his canines grow a few millimeters and sharpen themselves into razor fine points, his fingernails following suit and forming short claws. The world around him seemed to get a bit fuzzy around the edges and he could've sworn that he could practically see the scents permeating the small space. It was getting harder to think by the second and the woman sitting in his lap was rapidly becoming the only thing he was at all aware of. A throaty growl started low in his chest and seemed to reverberate in the cramped quarters, and he found his eyes drawn to her slim neck.
Realizing that her attempts to get away were only goading Keith... and herself she admitted reluctantly... on, Ayeka forced herself to calm down and hold still. Taking a deep, calming, breath she leaned back, trying to ignore the feel of the man underneath her despite her seemingly heightened sense of touch. The penetrating growl that issued from him even as she let the breath out completely undid her attempts though, and she bit her lip to stop the low moan that tried to slip out. The gasp of both pleasure and pain that followed not even a second later she couldn't have stopped even if she'd known about what was going to happen.
He could feel the hot pulse of blood rushing through the large artery in her neck underneath his tongue. The bite wasn't all that hard, though if he kept his current ministrations up for more than a few seconds there would be an impressive mark there, but his newly-sharp canines pierced through the soft skin they contacted, drawing a soft swell of blood to the surface, where his rough tongue lapped at it. His large hands, rough with calluses from years of fighting, clasped her waist, the short claws adorning his fingertips brushing lightly across the exposed skin of her stomach.
"Keith!" his name exited Ayeka's mouth in a gasp, the young princesses back arched in an instinctual response to the intense feeling being generated by the hot mouth on her neck. After the brief flash of pain that she had felt at the beginning, the sensation had become pure pleasure, and one of Ayeka's hands reached back to tangle in Keith's shaggy mop of brown hair, unconsciously encouraging him to continue...
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Kiyone woke with a start, looking around sleepily as she tried to figure out what had woken her up. After a few seconds she shrugged her shoulders and leaned back, letting her eyes drift shut again. She was almost asleep again when she heard it... barely. Right on the edge of hearing, names uttered in gasping tones, low moans, groans... she blushed bright red as it hit her exactly what she was listening to.
"Ayeka and Keith?" she muttered, shaking her head in wonder. "I would never have guessed."
With that she pulled out a pair of earplugs (a necessity when sleeping in the same room as Mihoshi) and put them in, leaning back in the plush seat and closing her eyes with a sigh.
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...the ship fell out of hyperspace with a violent shudder and the normal gut-twisting sensation that accompanied the shift into or out of realspace, and Ayeka pulled away from him like she had been burned.
"So close..." the thought went through both their minds as they frantically grabbed for the discarded articles of clothing lying around the small cabin.
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Sasami looked worriedly at the shuttles rearmost hatch, wondering what was taking her sister and Keith so long. She was just about to ask Kiyone if she knew when the thick outer hatch slid open and Ayeka scrambled out.
"Are you alright Ayeka?" the blue-haired princess asked worriedly, walking up to her sister, and noting her somewhat rumpled appearance, though not entirely sure what to make of it.
"I'm fine Sasami" Ayeka reassured, though she sounded a bit out of breath, and one hand was playing nervously with the thick leather chocker that she was wearing.
"If your sure..." Sasami replied, sounding a bit doubtful. "Did Keith give you that necklace?" she asked, taking a closer look at the chocker. It was about two inches thick, though it tapered to about half that in the front, was cut from velvet-soft black leather, and clasped at the front with a large cat's-eye gem mounted in a simple silver setting.
"He is lending it to me, yes." Ayeka replied, giving her sister a genuine, if slightly nervous smile. "Excuse me Sasami, but I really need to powder my nose." Ayeka added, excusing herself and quickly walking over to ask Marcus, who had just stepped into the cargo bay, for directions.
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"What were you thinking?" Ayeka asked her reflection in the mirror over the noise of the faucet, fixing it with a glare. "You were not thinking at all, that was the problem." She answered herself with a groan, letting her forehead rest against the cool surface of the mirror with a soft thunk. "At least not with your head."
"You love Tenchi you nitwit." She told herself, "However attractive you may find the man, you will not let yourself get caught up in the heat of the moment again. If he presses the matter you will apologize and make it clear that you are NOT interested in pursuing a relationship of that nature with him." She lectured her reflection sternly.
"Maybe I can keep him as a concubine." Ayeka muttered to herself with a groan, letting her head fall back forward against the mirror with another thunk. "Or not." she sighed. "Now I know I have spent to much time around Ryoko." She added, pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation.
Splashing her face with cool water, she started straightening her rumpled hair, giving up on getting it back into it's traditional style and simply tied it into one thick tail. Giving her reflection a critical eye, she fished out a tube of pink lipstick and applied it to her kiss-bruised lips. Next she turned her attention to the dark mark Keith had managed to leave on her neck. The choker he had lent her covered most of it up, but not all of it, and after thinking about it for a second she pulled out her concealer and applied it liberally to the bruise before replacing the thick necklace. Not perfect she decided, but it would do so long as no one looked to closely. After straightening her clothing and adding the belt and bracelets that Keith had lent her to go with the choker, the violet haired girl gave herself another once-over in the mirror, decided that she was at least reasonably presentable, and turned to the door.
Many thanks to my talented editor, and fellow fanfic author, for his help in making this readable. THANK YOU DREZ!!!!
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Mayhem, Chaos, and General Messes
Chapter 7
Close Encounters
"She has been like that for nearly half an hour Lady Funaho." The young guard whispered nervously. "She won't respond to anything... we didn't know what else to do." He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.
"You did the right thing." Funaho reassured, giving the nervous young man an encouraging smile. "I'll see to her, you just go back to your duties, I will call if we need anything." With that the guard bowed, turned and resumed his normal patrol, but the worried looked remained fixed on his face.
Entering the spacious office quietly, the elegant woman called out softly, "Misaki? Sister? Are you alright?" Upon hearing her "sisters" voice, the usually hyperactive captain of the guard, spun her chair around, revealing her tear-streaked face.
"I failed them." She whispered, choking back a sob.
"Failed who sister?" Funaho asked quietly kneeling down in front of the distraught woman. Unable to say anymore Misaki merely handed the violet haired woman a small computer pad, pressing play as Funaho took it in hand.
The hologram that popped into being was fuzzy and distorted, but easily recognizable as a former member of the royal guard who had left his position to join the GP in order to pursue the murderer of her husbands brother. After a moments thought she managed to recall the man's name, Heero.
"My Lady Misato, I regret having to report to you this tragedy in such a manner, but I cannot at this time break off my pursuit of my quarry lest he slip away completely, and I thought it best that you receive the news from someone loyal to the Royal family rather than by way of a messenger." The hologram paused, the figure seemingly struggling with how to proceed. "As you no doubt have heard, the criminal, Mayhem, was pursued to a remote colony world, where he was reported killed."
"Taking to heart how previous such reports have turned out, I proceeded to the planet on my own to confirm the report." The small figure paused again, a delicate hand going up to nervously run through its long blonde hair. "I only learned that the planet was the current residence of the Crown Princess's shortly before I arrived... and I must report with a heavy heart... that I was to late. When I arrived the residence was little more than a crater. And I found the wreckage of one of the two GP cruisers assigned to the planet in orbit around the planets moon." He paused again, the head dropping, seemingly in shame, before continuing on. "I was ambushed shortly after that by the other missing patrol ship, my ship was seriously wounded before I was able to raise my shields, and the fiend fled before I could return fire."
Funaho could feel tears running hotly down her face as she sat back heavily on the rooms plush carpet, just barely holding onto the pad as it continued to deliver the grim message. "Unable to effectively pursue or send a message because of the damage my ship sustained, I made the decision to land and look for any trace of survivors. I found none, but I was able to identify the remains of ten individuals. Most weren't in my ships database, but I was able to confirm the identities of Princess Ayeka and Princess Sasami, as well as the ex-pirate Ryoko and a Professor Washu. I have attached a full report of the evidence collected and other details to the message. I am sorry My Lady... I swear I will bring the animal before you, alive if possible." With that the message ended, the pad slipped from Funaho's nerveless fingers, and the two sisters hugged each other in mourning.
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"What the hell was that?!" Kiyone shouted, bursting out of the bedroom she had been sharing with Mihoshi wearing a nightshirt and not much else, her pistol in hand and ready. Mihoshi followed a second later wearing a pair of loose sweats and one of her seemingly endless supply of pink tank-tops, still half asleep but her pistol also in hand. Sasami and Katsuhito soon followed.
"Someone just blew up the Emperors suite." Keith replied, cursing under his breath as he stared across the gap between the hotels two towers at the burning top floor.
"What? Why?" Sasami cried looking at the devastated floor in shock.
"They undoubtedly thought that was where we were." Katsuhito responded grimly.
Keith strode over to the window and glanced down. "We're surrounded."
"Now what do we do?" Ayeka asked worriedly.
"The roof." Keith replied curtly, turning away from the window and sprinting for the door. "Kiyone, your with me... everyone else grab what you can and meet us there in five!" he shouted behind him, grabbing Kiyone by the wrist and dragging her behind him.
"But I'm not even dressed!" the emerald haired detective protested as she was dragged out the door.
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"What are we doing up here?" Kiyone asked as they sprinted up the short stairwell up to the roof, self consciously tugging her suddenly too-short nightshirt down.
"Getting a ride." Keith responded, "There's a hover-car heading for the roof of this tower."
"Did it ever occur to you that it might be a police vehicle?" Kiyone hissed in response.
"To quiet." Keith responded, coming to a halt in front of the roof door and testing the knob. "Locked." He muttered, reaching into his coat for the pistol hidden there.
"I'll take care of the lock." Kiyone hissed, watching him pull out the gun with a bit of surprise. "That primitive little firecracker of yours will make to much damned noise." She added, pushing him out of the way and playing with a few controls on her GP energy pistol. "So do you have a plan or are we just going to charge out guns blazing." She asked, more than a hint of sarcasm coloring her tone of voice.
"We wait until the cars close enough to cover any noise we make, I'll distract them, you get the car when it touches down." He responded with a shrug.
"And if there's more than one person up there? She asked, raising her voice a bit to be heard over the sound of the approaching hover vehicle.
"Improvise."
"Great." The green haired detective muttered under her breath, pointing her pistol at the lock.
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She smiled cruelly as the fire consuming what was left of opposite towers top floor started to spread downward and people started pouring out of the hotels front door, only to be stopped by the hundreds of police already forming a thick wall around the hotel.
She felt a slight surge of admiration over that little detail orchestrated by her lord. Even if any of her prey had been missed, they would find it difficult to get through that mass of uniforms without hindrance. Her little fire wouldn't spread very fast and would be relatively easy to put out, after all, she had designed it that way. It would help limit the confusion and prevent anyone from taking advantage of it to get away. Undoubtedly, every one of the senior officers and detectives involved in the operation were in her lords service as well, and would plant and lose evidence as was appropriate. With a satisfied smirk, she packed up the last of her equipment and turned to face the incoming hover car, her heavy cloak blowing dramatically in the wind generated by its engines.
It was no more than ten feet off the roofs surface when the door leading into the hotel slammed open, smoke pouring from a hole where the lock used to be. Throwing the heavy case that held her equipment towards the landing hover car, she reached inside her cloak to grab the pistol holstered there even as a dark shape sprinted from the open door, several loud cracks echoing from the pistol in its hand. The shots were only loosely aimed at her, but forced her to dive for cover behind a nearby air conditioning unit.
"Should I abort?" the voice of the car's pilot spoke into her ear through her headset.
"NO!" She shouted in response, peeking around the corner to squeeze off a few blasts. "Retrieve the case, then you can pull out, not before."
"Yes Ma'am... he's charging!" Responding to the warning she pulled a long knife from her belt even as she stood up to fire at the man charging her position.
"Damn he's fast." She snarled as her target went into a quick roll to avoid her first few blasts, and then kicked out of it into a leap that no Jurian could have pulled off without some sort of enhancement. He was within ten feet of her when one of the blasts connected with a flash and a puff of greasy smoke. The grin that started to form on her face turned into a look of disbelief when he kept coming.
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The small black hover vehicle came to a rest on the hotels roof with a soft thunk, and he fumbled nervously with his harness even as he threw open the door. Getting the straps undone after a few seconds of effort, he pulled himself out of his seat and pulled off his headset, hastily throwing it onto the seat behind him as he spotted the case he had been ordered to retrieve and ran towards it.
He never even felt the stun bolt that dropped him onto the roof in a limp sprawl.
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Her pistol went skittering across the roof as her target tackled her to the ground, cursing she brought her knife up with a hard shove, burying the razor-sharp point into his belly and up under his ribs. She grinned in satisfaction as he yelled in pain, spitting up blood from the lung her knife had punctured. After seeing him take the hit from her blaster she probably shouldn't have been surprised when he still managed to strike out with a hard right cross that caught her on the jaw, knocking her out and making the hood of her cloak fall back. Even as her world went dark she could see the expression of her opponent go from fierce bloodlust to one of complete and utter shock.
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Kiyone jogged over to where Keith had tackled his opponent, blaster at the ready, even as the rest of the group, minus Katsuhito, poured onto the roof.
"Keith!" she barked, holstering her pistol when she realized that the woman was unconscious. "Are you alright? We need to go, NOW!"
When he didn't respond, continuing to stare at the limp form of his opponent in shock. She stepped closer; glancing at the sprawled form he was kneeling beside. She was actually rather attractive the teal-haired detective noted absently, but she couldn't see anything about the woman that should be getting this kind of response out of her new companion. That's when she noticed the blood, and the charred patch on Keith's shoulder. "Dammit, he's in shock." She muttered, quickly kneeling beside him and putting his arm over her shoulders.
"Someone get over her and help me with this guy!" She shouted towards the rest of the group, as she pulled them to their feet with a grunt, staggering under the weight of Keith's surprisingly heavy form. Ayeka was there only a few seconds later, getting the other side of the young man and putting his other arm over her own shoulder.
"Is he alright?" Ayeka asked worriedly, grunting a bit from the exertion as they half-helped, half dragged Keith towards the waiting hover car.
"He's lost a lot of blood, but I can't see any open wounds on him." Kiyone responded. "I guess his healing power is as effective as he made it out to be. MIHOSHI, I'm driving! You get in the passenger side!" she shouted ahead as the blonde detective started to climb into the car.
"Where's Lord Katsuhito?" Kiyone asked Ayeka as they got within ten feet of the car, raising her voice to be heard over its engines.
"He and that reporter are staying behind." Ayeka responded, smiling briefly at Sasami in thanks as the young girl held open the rear passenger door for them.
"Why?" Kiyone asked as they manhandled Keith into the car.
"My Brother did not say." Ayeka responded climbing into the car beside Keith and looking worriedly at his fading wounds. "But I trust him, and I am sure he has a plan. He always does." She added, a small smirk accompanying the remark.
"If you say so." Kiyone replied with a sigh, closing the door and climbing into the drivers seat, slipping on the headset that was lying there. Turning around just as Sasami climbed in the other side, she did a quick headcount to make sure they weren't leaving behind anyone who didn't want to stay, and pushed the throttle forward and the sleek little car lifted of the roof and sped away into the night, flying right underneath the first of a swarm of arriving firefighting vehicles on their way to combat the blaze.
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"What the hell is going on?" Kanno asked fearfully. His voice colored by confusion and fear as he followed the elderly gentleman down one of the emergency stairwells.
"Explanations will wait until our situation is less hurried young man." Katsuhito responded in an even tone. "Now tell me," he asked conversationally, stopping on a landing in order to fiddle with something at his wrist, "How do I look?" With that his habitual disguise dissolved to reveal a handsome young man not much older than Kanno.
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Ayeka carefully pulled Keith's unresponsive form into a reclining position, his head on her lap. With a barely audible sigh, the young mans eyes drifted shut and his form relaxed a little. Absently brushing some of the boy's shaggy mop of hair out of his eyes, Ayeka noticed a gleam of gold peeking out from under his shirt collar. Curious, the young princess pulled it out so she could take a good look. Hanging from a thin gold chain was a simple cross, and on either side of the cross were two equally simple gold bands, one noticeably larger and thicker than the other. She gasped slightly when she realized what the two rings probably were.
"What is it Ayeka?" Sasami asked, looking at her older sister curiously. Ayeka looked over at her younger sister, clad in a nightshirt and a pair of sweatpants that she had pulled on for modesties sake, and thought for a second about how to answer the question without telling Sasami anything Keith might not want her to know.
"They're wedding rings." Keith answered before Ayeka could think of what to say, his voice low, barely more than a mumble. "The Cross is a religious symbol, an old present from my parents."
"You're married?" Sasami asked, her voice betraying her surprise.
" I was." Keith replied tiredly, gently taking the necklace out of Ayeka's hand and looking at it with sad eyes. "I told you about Talia didn't I?"
"She was your wife?" Sasami asked, her big eyes positively full with sympathy.
"Mmm-hmm." Keith replied absently, tucking the necklace back under his shirt. "Satoshima bought her while I was being trained, and then he bought me. We escaped together... and things just sorta happened." Keith finished with a small, wistful smile, his eyes drooping shut.
"What happened to her?" Sasami asked quietly, biting her lip a bit worriedly.
"She died a little more than a year ago during a raid by some Jurian Military and GP." Keith replied, a bit curtly.
"I'm so sorry." Sasami replied, with a sniff, her voice small.
"There's nothing for you to be sorry about Kid." Keith replied with a sigh, opening one eye to look down towards the blue-haired princess.
"But you said there were Jurian soldiers..." Sasami started to respond, her voice trailing off.
"You weren't the one who sent those soldiers after me Sasami." Keith replied. "That was Heero's idea, and I don't blame anyone for what happened but him. Even the soldiers were just following orders." Keith said with a sigh.
"Old memories aside," Ayeka interrupted in a gentle voice, looking down at Keith questioningly, "How are you feeling?"
"...I just lost a lot of blood, she was a hell of a lot faster than I though she'd be." Keith replied after a moment's hesitation, refusing to meet the elder of the two princesses gaze. "Give me a while to rest and get some food in me and I'll be back to my normal self in no time."
"Are you sure?" Ayeka asked worriedly.
"Yes." Keith replied quickly. "Yes, I'm sure."
"But you were..." Ayeka started to reply.
"Princess." Keith interrupted before she could say anything else. "Just drop it... please."
"... Very well." Ayeka agreed with a sigh, blushing a bit when Keith resettled his head to a slightly more comfortable position on her lap, his eyes drifting closed again.
"You know what Ayeka?" Keith mumbled.
"What Mr. Mayhem?" she replied, resisting the urge to squirm when his breath brushed across the part of her upper leg exposed by the khaki shorts she was wearing.
"You make a nice pillow." He finished, grinning a bit. Sasami giggled, and Ayeka's blush darkened about ten shades.
"Hey Keith!" Kiyone called back, her tone a bit amused as well, "Before you go back to sleep, any ideas about what we should do next? I already checked with the Yagami, and she's says she's swarming with GP."
"Somehow I'm not surprised." Keith replied with a yawn. "There's another spaceport about three hundred kilometers due south of here, head for it."
"What's down there?" Kiyone asked.
"Just someone who owes me a couple of favors." Keith replied. "Wake me up when we get there."
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Katsuhito strode calmly and confidently through the crowded city streets, a much more nervous looking young man trailing closely behind him. When they were well away from the mob of police and firefighters that had surrounded the Grand Jurai, Kanno turned to the older man and took a long look, trying to place the naggingly familiar face. They had gone nearly ten blocks before he figured it out.
"Yosho!" the young reporter exclaimed in surprise. "The lost Prince of Jurai!"
"I don't recall being lost." Yosho responded calmly. "I know exactly where I've been."
"Well no-one else did!" Kanno retorted heatedly, too upset by the night's events to remember the proper forms of address.
"Well then, I suppose that makes this quite an opportunity for a young reporter such as yourself doesn't it." Katsuhito replied, his trademark smirk firmly in place. "So you do a little favor for me and I'll make sure you get an exclusive interview not only with me, but with my sister as well, at least in regards to the details surrounding tonight's events."
"Exclusive interviews..." Kanno trailed off, a slightly glazed look on his face as he pondered exactly how much of a boost that would be to his career. "What do I have to do?"
"I'll explain shortly, but for the moment I'd simply like to put as much distance between us and the hotel as possible." Katsuhito replied curtly, continuing his way down the street, his unconcerned manner at odds with his words.
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It was a familiar dream, and a pleasant one while it lasted. He'd been having it off and on for over a year now. The nightclub could have been any one of dozens he'd been in for one reason or another over the past few years. The music was more a throbbing beat that you felt through the soles of your feet than anything else. The crowd was equally nondescript, faceless bodies thrashing wildly to the deep bass pulse, made even more surreal by the flashing lights and drifting smoke. And in the center of the chaos... Talia. Lithe body following the music with considerably more grace than most of those around her, her barely-there layer of fur catching the lights and making her seem to glow as her wild mane of raven hair moved about her head like a living thing.
He'd simply watch her, waiting for the moment that they'd catch each other's eyes and she'd slow the rhythm of her dance to something more inviting, holding his gaze with her silver eyes as a seductive smile played across red lips. He'd stand entranced, approaching her in a daze when she beckoned for him. Wrapping his arms around her slim form, he'd pull her against him, burying his face in her hair and breathing in her scent.
"Hello Pet." Keith murmured, savoring the feel of her as she pressed herself against him, her own slim arms going around his waist.
"Hello yourself Hun." Talia murmured in return. "It's been a while, I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me." She teased, leaning back just far enough to let them look each other in the eyes.
"It'll never happen Lia'ne." Keith responded, brushing his lips against hers. "You will always be a part of me, and I a part of you." He grinned, "That was the whole point of the bonding wasn't it?"
Talia grinned and kissed him back, laughing softly. "I'm glad to see you were actually listening. With the way you were staring at me during the whole affair I would've sworn you didn't hear a thing I said." She mocked.
"You can hardly blame me for staring Pet." Keith countered, "But I took everything you said to heart."
"Good." Talia sighed happily. "Now tell me, who is she?" the question was accompanied by a wicked grin as she looked him full in the eyes.
"Wha...?" Keith sputtered in response, trying desperately to figure out how to respond, and completely helpless to escape her gaze. Talia laughed, pulling him down for a kiss.
"The purple haired girl Hun, I know you like her..." she said with a grin, "I don't mind, I know you're not going to forget about me, and I'm not so selfish that I'd make you spend the rest of your life all alone with just little ol' me to keep you company."
"Jeez, don't scare me like that Lia'ne." Keith growled jokingly, hugging Talia's slim form back to him again. "So what do you want to know?"
"Well talk about it next time." Talia replied a bit sadly, and Keith could feel the dream start to slip away as the real world started to impose itself on his senses, Talia's face fading away with one last wistful smile.
"Keith-san." The voice sounded a thousand miles away, but was coming closer fast.
"Keith-san!" Ayeka... definitely Ayeka. "Keith-san, wake up! We are there."
"Hmmm?" Keith mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes and sitting up with a wince.
"We are at the spaceport." Ayeka repeated with a smirk. "You are not exactly a morning person are you Keith-san?" Keith just stuck his tongue out in response, absently combing his shaggy brown hair back into a semblance of order with his fingers.
"Where'd you land us Kiyone?" he asked with a yawn.
"Near a docking bay 42." Kiyone answered back over her shoulder as she finished shutting down the small cars systems. "Will that work?"
"So long as nobody minds walking a couple miles." Keith replied with a shrug, following Ayeka as she stepped out of the car.
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"Are you sure we can trust this contact of yours?" Ayeka asked, her voice a bit hesitant as they walked through the poorly lit spaceport, the sun just barely starting to burn through the morning fog. Around them small stores and stands tucked between the worn docking bays that dominated the landscape were starting to open and set up for the day. The beginnings of the morning's crowds started to appear on the narrow streets.
They were for the most part dressed in the clothes they had fled in, though Kiyone had pulled on a pair of jeans the second they had landed, and Keith had duck around a corner just long enough to replace his ruined shirt with a simple black sweat shirt that was just oversized enough to hide the worst of the bloodstains decorating his jeans.
"Marcus?" Keith responded, grinning a bit. "He's a pirate, a smuggler, and a general all-around crook... but yeah, on this I think I can trust him. He owes me big time and he's almost always a man of honor when it comes to debts owed. Besides, we've got a secret weapon with us."
Ayeka didn't reply, simply exchanging confused glances with Kiyone.
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"I'm sorry kid, but I canna help yah." The bear-like man standing in front of them said, his voice firm.
"What the flying fuck are you talking about yah damned pirate." Keith bit out, staring up at the larger man, a low growl punctuating the words. "You owe me, and I've been damned generous about letting it slide until now."
"If tha' nutcase who's always chasin' yah around even suspected I'd helped you I may as well kiss my arse good-bye yah little S.O.B. " the big man growled back, crossing his massive arms over his equally massive chest.
"So I gotta do this the hard way then?" Keith snarled. "I bet that shiny new courier sitting out on the tarmac back there would be plenty fast enough to get us out of here." He grinned ferally, showing off a sharp set of fangs, "How much did the tub cost yah Marcus? Specially after all the... modifications... I'm sure you've had done."
The big man practically glowed red through his beard as he glared down at Keith, "Yah wouldn't dare yah little punk." He snarled through clenched teeth.
"Then find me another option old man." Keith shot back in harsh, clipped, tones.
"Please Mister Marcus." Sasami interrupted from where the rest of the party was watching the proceedings nervously. "All we need is a ride."
Marcus's fierce expression melted under the young princess's pleading gaze. "...alright, I'll see what I can do." The big man sighed. But then gave Keith a hard glare and added "Bringin' that wee gurl with yah was dirty pool May'em."
"I know." Keith replied with a grin. "Thanks Marcus." He added sincerely.
"Jus' donna expect it tah happen ag'in runt." Marcus added as he turned around and started towards the hangar door. "My dept is PAID af'er this. Now c'mon tha lot of yah, I think I have somthin' tha jus' might w'rk."
Keith motioned for the rest of the group to follow and trotted after the big man, following him into the cavernous hangar. Inside were over a dozen ships, ranging from small couriers and shuttles to a pair of bulk transports, either of which could have carried all of the smaller ships in the hanger all at once.
"So which one do you think is our ride?" Kiyone muttered to Keith when she caught up to him.
"Dunno, probably one of the couriers though." Keith replied with a shrug. "Those bulk transports are too damned slow for smuggling something as wanted as we are, and the shuttles are mostly sublight jobs."
"Not this time Boyo." Marcus interrupted, throwing them a smug grin over his shoulder. "Yer ridin' in tha beast t'day." He continued, pointing to the more battered looking of the two bulk transports.
"I'm trusting you on this Marcus." Keith replied warningly. "But you'd better have one hell of a plan up your sleeve if you expect me to ride in that junkpile."
"Jus come aboard yah paranoid git'" the bear-like man responded with a snort, punching a code into a keypad by the hatch with the ease born of long practice and then striding through when the hatch creaked open.
Stepping through the hatchway, the group found themselves standing on a narrow walkway that circled the ship's spacious main hold. It's cargo for the trip was readily apparent, a half dozen large shuttles taking up almost all of the room in the bay.
"Wow!" Mihoshi exclaimed, looking at the nearest shuttle with an admiring eye. "That's a Galaxytech Mk3 Gravwell Diver!"
"Is that a good ship Mihoshi?" Sasami asked, curious more because of the Blonde detectives reaction than because of any real interest in the rather plain looking shuttle.
"Oh yeah!" Mihoshi enthused, bouncing a little in her excitement as she walked over to get a closer look at the ship, which in all honestly was rather ugly, a squat ovoid with no visible windows and only a fat few ridges running from front to back preventing it from looking entirely like a metal egg. "They use them for getting really close to black holes, exploring really deep in gas giants and stars, and going lotsa other places that would crush other ships like an egg!"
"I swear, sometimes that girl scares me." Ayeka commented, shaking her head in abject wonder at the bubble-headed girl's antics.
"Oh, that's nothing." Kiyone replied shaking her head. "Did you know that she had the highest score of her entire class on her final exam?"
"She did?" Ayeka responded, surprised.
"Yep." Kiyone sighed. "But the teacher ended up having to grade the thing by hand because she did it in twelve different colors of pencil. It confused the grading machine so badly that it literally overheated... it took them three days to fix the damned thing too." Kiyone finished with a snort.
"Well I'm glad tah see tha at least one o' yah likes tha ugly thing." Marcus said with a smirk, as he watched Mihoshi all but hug the fat ship. "'Cause it's where you're gonna spend the trip out."
"But it's only designed to carry three people!" Mihoshi protested, finally distracted from her examination of the squat vessel.
What?" the rest of the group chorused in surprise.
"I know." Marcus answered with a shrug "but she's tha only one tha's shielded well enough tah hide yah all from GP sensors. She's hooked inta this beasties life support system, so tha won' be a pro'lem, it'll jus be a bit cramped is all." The big man added, thumping the main transports inner hull to indicate exactly which "beastie" he was referring to.
"It'll do." Keith replied over the girls' protests. "So where are you planning on dropping us off old man?"
"No' far Runt." Marcus replied with a smirk. "Jus' over tah Rylos 9."
"Rylos 9?" Kiyone repeated, a touch of alarm present in her voice. "As in the Rylos 9 run by the Si'Glara Crime family?"
"Well saying that they run the planet is a bit of an exaggeration." Keith replied with a shrug, "but you're thinking of the right place."
"Do you have any idea what they do to GP officers they catch on planet there?" Kiyone hissed angrily.
"I'm not going to tell anyone if you're not." Keith answered. "Don't worry, I know the place pretty well and I have some people there I trust." He reassured the teal haired detective before she could issue another protest. "The lot of you are going to need a wardrobe change before we leave, but other than that, we should be fine."
"A wardrobe change?" Ayeka asked nervously, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of her belly.
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The shuttle's interior was just as cramped as advertised. Three heavily cushioned seats running in a row from front to back, each about ten feet from the one in front of it, with about two feet of headroom, and little else. The middles station was even raised up about three feet, making it impossible to see the other stations directly, and the space between the seats was just short of completely taken up by delicate electronics and other equipment, leaving the seats as the only places fit for human habitation, and further isolating the different stations. In all honesty, they may as well have been completely separate rooms. Needless to say, it was not a ship designed for long trips.
Mihoshi and Sasami were in the front seat, Sasami on the tall blonde's lap, both of them deeply engaged in a two person handheld fighting game that they'd bought on their short-notice clothes-shopping trip. Kiyone was seated in the extra cramped center seat, all but sealed into the plush chair by an array of control panels and displays. Despite the cramped conditions, she was fast asleep. Not that anyone else in the shuttle could blame her for that, of all of them, the teal haired detective had probably gotten the least amount of sleep of any of them over the past few days. This of course left Ayeka perched on Keith's lap in the rearmost seat, neither of them particularly comfortable with the situation, but both trying hard to hide that fact.
"I still fail to see how these clothes are going to help us escape notice." Ayeka protested for the dozenth time since they'd purchased them, squirming a bit in an attempt to readjust the, in her opinion, too-short black skirt that she was wearing.
"Ayeka, between you, Kiyone, and Mihoshi, nothing we dress you in is going to NOT attract the attention of every male who gets in sight of us." Keith replied, biting his lip in an only partially successful attempt to distract himself from Ayeka's wriggling. "At least this way you won't look out of place."
"Yes, but couldn't I have gotten something a little less revealing?" she griped, gesturing down at the midriff-baring pink t-shirt she was wearing, blushing a little at the offhand compliment Keith had just paid her and the two detectives.
"The city we're headed for is a steam-bath on its good days Ayeka." Keith drawled. "This time of year you'd probably be cooler vacationing in hell. Trust me, you don't want to be wearing anything more than what's required to maintain a semblance of decency on this trip."
"Then why are you wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt?!" Ayeka retorted, turning around as best she could to glare at him accusingly.
"That's different." Keith responded, meeting her glare with one of his own.
"How exactly is it different." The young princess snapped, her violet eyes glinting dangerously as they bore into his silver green ones from mere inches away.
"Lets just say that I'm not a pleasant sight in anything less than full coverage Princess." Keith responded, practically growling out her title.
"Keith, even I can tell that you are far from an unattractive man underneath all of those layers of clothing you seem to be fond of." Ayeka bit out in response, the hint of a blush that appeared on her cheeks at the admission doing little to soften her tone of voice. "That is hardly an excuse."
Keith sighed, breaking away from the glaring contest and letting his head fall back against the chairs headrest. "Well thank you for the complement, but I'm not talking about what kind of shape I'm in Ayeka." He half groaned, "I stopped worrying about that the first time I went wolf."
"Then what are you talking about Keith." Ayeka asked with a sigh of her own.
"You're not going to let this one slide are you?" Keith replied, running his fingers through his shaggy mop of brown hair in a frustrated gesture.
"Not if you are going to insist on me wearing this outfit I'm not." The young princess replied with a smirk.
"Fine then." Keith sighed. Holding up an arm for demonstration he unceremoniously pushed the sleeve up, revealing a forearm that was more scar tissue than normal skin.
"Oh Tsunami!" Ayeka gasped quietly. "How..."
"I'm like that basically from the neck down Ayeka." Keith answered before she could finish asking the question. "There are a few areas that I'm happy to say have taken relatively little damage over the past few years," he added with a wry grin, "but for the most part I'm a walking scar."
"But can't you heal...?" the question trailed off unfinished.
"If I concentrate on it I can force a wound to heal clean." Keith explained with a sigh, "but most of the time I don't have that luxury, and I haven't figured out how to get rid of a scar once its been formed."
"I shouldn't have pressed." Ayeka apologized quietly, "I'm sorry Keith."
"You don't need to apologize Ayeka." Keith responded, squeezing one of her hands reassuringly. "They don't really bug me most of the time, but they are one hell of an identifying mark and being on the run constantly for a few years tends to make a guy a bit paranoid." He finished with a grin.
"So, how much longer are we going to be stuffed into this overpriced tin egg?" Ayeka asked, shooting her temporary seat cushion a smile, and effectively dropping the subject.
"We have about one more hour of me having to deal with your squirming if everything goes the way I expect it will." Keith replied with an exaggerated groan after glancing at his watch.
"It's not my fault you make such a lumpy chair." Ayeka replied with an equally exaggerated sniff.
"Well if you'd stop squirming so much it wouldn't quite so lumpy Princess." Keith shot back with a wicked grin, poking the young princess her side in just the right spot to elicit a startled yelp from the girl.
"Hentai!" Ayeka yelped, realizing exactly where she was sitting and what exactly she was feeling all at once. Blushing scarlet, her hand came up reflexively and slapped Keith across his cheek with a loud smack.
"Ow..." Keith said after a second, though the sting from the slap was gone before he even opened his mouth.
"Its your own fault for..." Ayeka trailed off, blushing beet red, all to aware of where she was seated, and of the look that Kith was giving her. It was the same look he'd had on his face just before he'd thrown her over his shoulder to dump in the shower when he'd kidnapped her. Predatory, dangerous... plus a hint of something else that sent a pleasant shiver running down her back.
"There are a few things even I have no control over Ayeka. THIS," he emphasized exactly what he was referring to by bucking his hips slightly, "is one of them."
"Keith!" Ayeka gasped slightly as she felt him buck underneath her, the bulge she was now much too aware of rubbing up against her in a rather sensitive area, making her squirm even more. "Stop that!"
"Then you stop that damned wiggling!" Keith responded in a low growl that Ayeka could feel through her back from where it was pressed against his chest. The vibrations seemed to penetrate her entire being and she could feel her body react to the surprisingly pleasant sensation.
"Oh Kami," Ayeka groaned involuntarily, trying to get into a less compromising position in the extremely limited space available to them while simultaneously trying to keep her skirt from riding up, but the low-slung control panel that was holding both of their legs in place prevented her from doing more than moving forward a few inches and the attempts were only serving to aggravate the situation. The warm feeling that had started to form in her belly when she had become aware of the bulge underneath her lap was growing rapidly at the friction that their movement was causing.
Keith's eyes flashed silver when the heady scent of Ayeka's arousal reached his nose and he could feel the powerful, primal, instincts that had come with his transformation flare almost uncontrollably. Despite his attempts to maintain control he felt his canines grow a few millimeters and sharpen themselves into razor fine points, his fingernails following suit and forming short claws. The world around him seemed to get a bit fuzzy around the edges and he could've sworn that he could practically see the scents permeating the small space. It was getting harder to think by the second and the woman sitting in his lap was rapidly becoming the only thing he was at all aware of. A throaty growl started low in his chest and seemed to reverberate in the cramped quarters, and he found his eyes drawn to her slim neck.
Realizing that her attempts to get away were only goading Keith... and herself she admitted reluctantly... on, Ayeka forced herself to calm down and hold still. Taking a deep, calming, breath she leaned back, trying to ignore the feel of the man underneath her despite her seemingly heightened sense of touch. The penetrating growl that issued from him even as she let the breath out completely undid her attempts though, and she bit her lip to stop the low moan that tried to slip out. The gasp of both pleasure and pain that followed not even a second later she couldn't have stopped even if she'd known about what was going to happen.
He could feel the hot pulse of blood rushing through the large artery in her neck underneath his tongue. The bite wasn't all that hard, though if he kept his current ministrations up for more than a few seconds there would be an impressive mark there, but his newly-sharp canines pierced through the soft skin they contacted, drawing a soft swell of blood to the surface, where his rough tongue lapped at it. His large hands, rough with calluses from years of fighting, clasped her waist, the short claws adorning his fingertips brushing lightly across the exposed skin of her stomach.
"Keith!" his name exited Ayeka's mouth in a gasp, the young princesses back arched in an instinctual response to the intense feeling being generated by the hot mouth on her neck. After the brief flash of pain that she had felt at the beginning, the sensation had become pure pleasure, and one of Ayeka's hands reached back to tangle in Keith's shaggy mop of brown hair, unconsciously encouraging him to continue...
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Kiyone woke with a start, looking around sleepily as she tried to figure out what had woken her up. After a few seconds she shrugged her shoulders and leaned back, letting her eyes drift shut again. She was almost asleep again when she heard it... barely. Right on the edge of hearing, names uttered in gasping tones, low moans, groans... she blushed bright red as it hit her exactly what she was listening to.
"Ayeka and Keith?" she muttered, shaking her head in wonder. "I would never have guessed."
With that she pulled out a pair of earplugs (a necessity when sleeping in the same room as Mihoshi) and put them in, leaning back in the plush seat and closing her eyes with a sigh.
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...the ship fell out of hyperspace with a violent shudder and the normal gut-twisting sensation that accompanied the shift into or out of realspace, and Ayeka pulled away from him like she had been burned.
"So close..." the thought went through both their minds as they frantically grabbed for the discarded articles of clothing lying around the small cabin.
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Sasami looked worriedly at the shuttles rearmost hatch, wondering what was taking her sister and Keith so long. She was just about to ask Kiyone if she knew when the thick outer hatch slid open and Ayeka scrambled out.
"Are you alright Ayeka?" the blue-haired princess asked worriedly, walking up to her sister, and noting her somewhat rumpled appearance, though not entirely sure what to make of it.
"I'm fine Sasami" Ayeka reassured, though she sounded a bit out of breath, and one hand was playing nervously with the thick leather chocker that she was wearing.
"If your sure..." Sasami replied, sounding a bit doubtful. "Did Keith give you that necklace?" she asked, taking a closer look at the chocker. It was about two inches thick, though it tapered to about half that in the front, was cut from velvet-soft black leather, and clasped at the front with a large cat's-eye gem mounted in a simple silver setting.
"He is lending it to me, yes." Ayeka replied, giving her sister a genuine, if slightly nervous smile. "Excuse me Sasami, but I really need to powder my nose." Ayeka added, excusing herself and quickly walking over to ask Marcus, who had just stepped into the cargo bay, for directions.
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"What were you thinking?" Ayeka asked her reflection in the mirror over the noise of the faucet, fixing it with a glare. "You were not thinking at all, that was the problem." She answered herself with a groan, letting her forehead rest against the cool surface of the mirror with a soft thunk. "At least not with your head."
"You love Tenchi you nitwit." She told herself, "However attractive you may find the man, you will not let yourself get caught up in the heat of the moment again. If he presses the matter you will apologize and make it clear that you are NOT interested in pursuing a relationship of that nature with him." She lectured her reflection sternly.
"Maybe I can keep him as a concubine." Ayeka muttered to herself with a groan, letting her head fall back forward against the mirror with another thunk. "Or not." she sighed. "Now I know I have spent to much time around Ryoko." She added, pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation.
Splashing her face with cool water, she started straightening her rumpled hair, giving up on getting it back into it's traditional style and simply tied it into one thick tail. Giving her reflection a critical eye, she fished out a tube of pink lipstick and applied it to her kiss-bruised lips. Next she turned her attention to the dark mark Keith had managed to leave on her neck. The choker he had lent her covered most of it up, but not all of it, and after thinking about it for a second she pulled out her concealer and applied it liberally to the bruise before replacing the thick necklace. Not perfect she decided, but it would do so long as no one looked to closely. After straightening her clothing and adding the belt and bracelets that Keith had lent her to go with the choker, the violet haired girl gave herself another once-over in the mirror, decided that she was at least reasonably presentable, and turned to the door.