Zombies are the creation of Max Brooks, whose tireless devotion to spreading the word about the undead menace has been the salvation of my life and my warm, delicious living flesh.

Guardian
Chapter 26
Evolution

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"My god!"

Snake, Kyle, Tiro, Tycho, Junko, and Sakura all jolted to attention.

"What? What is it?" Sakura said, her face the very picture of dread as she whirled around.

Seras shook his head slowly from where he was stooped over a computer keyboard, right next to a complex array of test tubes and complicated electronic implements. "This... I never imagined this might happen..."

Junko frowned, and briefly finished tying the bandage wrappings tight around Tycho's leg. "Just spit it out, already!"

The drunken scientist looked over the exhausted officers gathered in his lab and staring at him, the tension palpable. Then he took a deep breath.

"I just saved a whole lot of money on my car insurance by switching to Gei-" WHOMP! A boot promptly smashed into Seras' face, knocking him over onto the floor.


Junko turned to Snake, who was already taking off his other boot just in case it would be needed. "Thanks."

Seras grunted as he stumbled to his feet, rubbing his face. "For goodness sakes, will you people lighten up? The big emergency is over already, you'd think a little joke would-" WHOMP!

Snake slumped back against the wall. "I'm out of boots now, so next time I'm just going to shoot you. This is fair warning."

Junko stood up and wiped her forehead. "Tuko, you said that the T-virus was 100% deadly, right? What should I do if one of us is infected?"

The medical officer got to his feet unsteadily, rubbing his head. "The most effective prescription would be a bullet to the head," he said bluntly, causing Junko, Sakura and Tiro to pale considerably. "That way you'll die quickly, and won't take anyone else with you."

"Th-That's horrible!" Sakura protested.

"Well, what do you want me to say? It's not like I made the damn thing." Seras replied in annoyance. "Let me get one thing straight, since apparently none of you were listening before, and now I have your attention: the T-virus is the single deadliest biological weapon in existence. If you're infected, you WILL die. And THEN, after you die, you'll turn into a stumbling, flesh-eating zombie that will do everything in its limited power to spread the virus to every living thing you can find. It is absolutely CRITICAL that you avoid exposure to the T-virus whenever possible in the field. It's not only your life at stake; an outbreak could destroy an entire city, easily!"

"Yeah, I really think we're going to have to call in some outside help to rebuild from this one," Snake said to Junko as he rubbed his chin.

"The Captain's only going to be gone for a couple of days while she recovers from having the bullet removed," the redhead said anxiously. "How much can any construction firm fix in that amount of time?"

Tiro crossed his arms over his chest. "No matter what it takes, we MUST see the HQ rebuilt, and FAST. We can pool our savings together, if need be."

"You're not serious!" Tycho complained.

Snake shook his head. "If Asuka sees HQ like this, she'll just dock our pay to have it rebuilt anyway. PLUS some kind of extra punishment on the side. Yamazaki is right."


Seras twitched in annoyance as the officers continued to talk amongst themselves, completely ignoring him.

"Irritating to be disregarded all the time, isn't it?" Yamma asked from where he was putting up micro-scans on the observation board.

"Oh, hush you," the drunk mumbled as he grabbed for a beer sitting on the lab table.

His arm stopped short as a slim hand took him firmly by the wrist.

He was fairly surprised to see Sakura standing over him, preventing him from making further progress to his drink.

"Please... Tuko... I'm listening. Wh-What does this mean for Ranma?" she asked timidly, her face pale but determined.

Seras raised an eyebrow, and then withdrew his hand. "What does it mean for him? Well... I've only had a few hours to research the blood sample, but already I can tell you that his case is... more than a little unique."

"Unique HOW?" Sakura pressed.

Seras sighed. "All I can tell you is that his body is fighting the virus. And doing much better than any of us would. I don't think the virus will kill him, but the T-virus possesses considerable capacity for mutation."

Sakura let go of him, but she still looked pensive.

"Look, let's not worry about Saotome right now. If there's one officer who could take care of himself, it's Ranma," Seras said reassuringly. "I'll run a battery of tests and get this sorted out as soon as possible. What's critical right now is that you all make sure you've been properly treated. This strain of the virus isn't airborne, so a good disinfectant cycle should keep you all safe as long as you have no open wounds. You give Ranma's house a call when you get home, and if you can't get ahold of him, then I'll have some answers for you tomorrow."

Sakura nodded, glancing away as she noticed that the others were leaving the lab one by one. "I see... well, thank you for all your hard work!" Bowing deeply, she turned around and raced to catch up to Kyle as he exited the room.


Seras shook his head as he returned to his work. "Honestly, why would they let simple-minded girls like that into this department? Most people have a hard enough time saving their own skin," the man grumbled.

"For the same reason they allow self-absorbed drunkards with no formal qualifications, I imagine," Yamma said.

"Oh, shut up and administer those samples like I asked," the medical officer groused.

"Fine," the taller man mumbled as he picked up the rack of test tubes, each containing a bit of murky green fluid. "... So, are you actually going to tell me what, exactly, we're testing for, here? Or why half of the building has been demolished? Last I heard, today's mission was a success, and yet our place of operations is in ruins."

Seras blinked, and then stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "......... Nah. Now stop yapping and get working."

"Sigh. Yes, sir."

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"Ranma, are you sure you're feeling okay?" Mizu asked as they approached the movie theatre arm-in-arm.

"Of course I'm okay! I'm better than okay! I'm feeling GREAT! Really great! Really ultra-super-great!" The pigtailed man said gleefully, grinning from ear to ear.

Mizu sweatdropped as she watched her date laugh at something only he found funny. "Yes, well... that's sort of why I'm concerned. It's not like you to be QUITE this happy for no reason." It wasn't only that, of course; Ranma had also seemed abnormally twitchy and hyperactive ever since they left the restaurant, and she couldn't figure out why. He hadn't had anything with caffeine or alcohol in it, she was sure.

Ranma turned toward her, a brilliant smile on his face. "Who says it's for no reason? I'm having a great time with a beautiful woman; why shouldn't I be happy?" Without waiting for his date to flush or stutter, he reached around her back and pulled her close.

Now Mizu KNEW something was wrong. Ranma NEVER flirted. He didn't have to, for one thing (he certainly didn't need to pass any compliments to her if he wanted to get into her pants). While he might occasionally blurt out something particularly charming while stumbling through a conversation, strategic compliments were something that Ranma Saotome didn't do.

Not that she was complaining, or anything.

"Oh. Well, if you put it that way," Mizu squeaked out as she tried to get her heart rate back under control. 'Is he... is he feeling me up? I think he just felt me up!'


Ranma barely glanced at the man at the door as Mizu fumbled in her purse for the tickets she had bought ahead of time. Truth be told, he didn't know WHY he felt so happy, but he was fairly sure it didn't have much to do with Mizu being there. His body, which had been miserable ever since that accident with the biohazard container in the afternoon, had recovered completely, and then some. He was at 200%; he felt like he could take on an entire army, with Herb at the lead and Saffron waiting at the end.

There were other effects, too. Strange effects that he was trying to ignore. His mind kept wanting to wander, for some reason, and he kept seeing odd colors and hazy images on the edge of his field of vision.

To distract himself from the odd hallucinations, he was paying more attention to Mizu. EXTREMELY close attention. His eyes kept lingering on her smooth, sensual curves and the swell of her breasts, and his nostrils flared periodically as he took in her scent; the rich strawberry perfume mixed liberally with her own delicate pheremones intoxicated his sharpened senses.

He wanted to touch her. Well, he WAS touching her, but he wanted to touch her more. In private, preferably while they were both naked. Urges that he had easily ignored in the past - shoved aside to prevent distraction and trouble - assaulted him relentlessly, and he found himself seizing them to avoid the bizarre new sensations on the edge of his consciousness.

"My, aren't we frisky today?" Mizu had meant it as a teasing joke, but her heart was beating so fast that she fumbled her words and it ended up sounding more like an accusation.

Ranma shrugged and removed his arm. "Sorry. I just thought-"

"No! Er, I mean, yes, it's fine!" the raven-haired woman said, panicking. 'Damn it! Get a grip, girl! You know how rare it is to find Ranma in the mood!'

The pigtailed man just looked confused, so Mizu took his arm and pulled him aside, her face burning red. "Ranma... ah... how to put this..." she frowned cutely as she fretted over how to ask what was on her mind. Though she knew that Ranma was typically very dense and unresponsive when it came to romance, he was being strangely forward now, and she didn't really know how to deal with it. "You're being a bit more... aggressive than usual, and it's not that I don't like it, but... ah..."

She was saved from any further pondering when Ranma suddenly cupped her cheek with one hand as he smiled down at her, obliterating her ability for organized thought.

"Did you want to just skip the movie?" He said, grinning. "Maybe get right to that kiss you wanted?"

Mizu didn't stand a chance. Her face glowed red as she sidled up next to her date. "Y-Yes. Maybe back at my place?"

"My house is closer," Ranma noted, pulling her up against him further so that he could feel the heat from her body against him. Raw, primal forces assailed his psyche, demanding more; it took a fair amount of his harshly ingrained discipline and mental control to keep himself from stripping the woman then and there.

Mizu nearly swooned as she nodded, and quickly moved with Ranma toward the front entrance, her heart nearly bursting out of her chest. She had hoped to make considerable progress in her relationship with Ranma tonight, but she had never hoped to get so far so quickly!

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The target has been sighted. Sector 8-B, street level. Target is breaking off from neutral concentration.

Yamiko nodded silently as she looked over the series of computer monitors arrayed in front of her, while Yoshi and Alexandra waited patiently behind her. Most of the monitors were blank, while those that were currently active either showed huge collections of random data, save a single screen that was zooming in on a certain couple currently exiting the theatre.

Proximity warning... neutral unit is within combat range, moving with target toward checkpoint zeta.

Alex leaned forward. "Hmmm... it seems like our little policeman has a date tonight. How cute." She smirked cruelly. "Designate her as a secondary target. Splatter both of them into paste."

Yamiko raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged. "Confirm neutral unit as secondary objective. Hold position and await ambush marker 3-3-H."

As the field of vision shifted along with the process of the reconnaissance drone, Yoshi frowned. "Wait. Bring the drone back. Shift the view back to the right."

Yamiko and Alex both blinked at the sudden and urgent request, and Yamiko quickly put her hand on the manual control, shifting the camera view back over to the theatre even as the drone started moving across the length of the rooftop.

Yoshi scratched his chin in interest, and both women stared at him pensively. "Ah. They were going to see Scary Movie 4."

Yamiko swiftly fell over, stumbling over her chair and crashing onto the floor. Alexandra slapped her forehead.

The diminutive scientist turned away from the monitor toward his current companions. "Is that one any good? Personally, I thought the series went completely downhill after the first one. Adding Leslie Nielson to the cast was surely an act of desperation more than anything else."

"Professor Konta, really!" Yamiko stuttered as she got to her feet. "This is a serious field test! It's not the time to be making jokes!"

"I find that those are the best times to make jokes, actually," Yoshi argued pointedly, nodding to himself. "The tension gives the punch lines more impact."

Yamiko could only gape at the bespectacled man, and then glanced up at Alexandra.

The brunette simply shrugged and rolled her eyes, indicating that, yes, this WAS the professor's usual behavior.

The lady doctor straightened and sniffed condescendingly. "Professor Konta, while you may be my superior and - if the rumors hold even a grain of truth - a brilliant scientist, but there are certain standards of professionalism expected of individuals of such esteem! Cracking silly jokes in the middle of a field test is unacceptable behavior!"

Yoshi looked entirely unimpressed by her criticism. "Is it as bad as not paying attention during a field test and getting the observer drone run over?"

"Is it as bad as-?" Yamiko began to repeat his words in her confusion, and then her eyes widened before she turned around.

Crunch! The monitor flickered as the image of a tire truck flashed on the screen, and then it went snowy.

Beep! System error. Drone contact interrupted. Re-establishing remote link... failed.

A vein popped up on Yamiko's head as she began to simmer,and Yoshi clicked his tongue.

"Those automated units aren't cheap, Doctor. You should really be more careful."

The snowy-haired woman whirled around, her hand balling into a fist as she searched for the words to properly express her current frustration.

Failing at that, she looked up at Alexandra.

Alex simply shrugged. "What do you want from me? He's right. He's a twisted, smug little prick, but he's right."

Yoshi seemed almost pleased at the commentary, which did nothing to improve Yamiko's rapidly darkening mood.

"I'll launch another drone immediately," she mumbled through clenched teeth as her fingers danced across the keyboard.

Attempting to distract herself from her sudden urge to throttle her colleague, she decided to ask a question that had been on her mind. "So, why was this man chosen as the test target? I understand he's a police officer, but do you really think one policeman is going to be an effective combat test against my cyborgs?"

"Of course not," Alex said casually, running a hand through her hair, "this isn't a combat test so much as a control test. Me and Igov need to ensure that these things can follow orders and fight without going out of control or suffering sudden operations failures."

"Ah, I see," Yamiko mumbled as another monitor flickered to life, showing an image of the street as the small, spider-like camera drone skittered onto the sidewalk and then started scaling a wall.

Yoshi nodded. "If we'd wanted a combat test, we would have sent more of them."

It took a few moments for that to sink in before Yamiko frowned. "Don't you mean less?"

"No, he's right," Alex mumbled as she watched Ranma and the unfamiliar woman came into view once more. "Unless these creations of yours are spectacularly more effective than we've guessed, they don't really stand a chance."

The Russian woman shook her head. "I don't understand how..." she trailed off for a moment. "Well, considering that combat is hardly my area of expertise, I suppose I can assume that you know what you're talking about... but if that's the case, why did we choose this individual for a field test?"

"Spite, mostly," Alex admitted, picking up a cup of coffee and taking a sip. "If our reconnaissance is to be believed, he's mostly responsible for the slaughter of our entire combat team this morning. Killing his date will be a nice start toward paying him back for that."

"It wasn't entirely his fault," Yoshi pointed out. "That redhead supposedly did quite a bit of damage too."

"I'm not sure if I believe that," the buxom woman mumbled. "If anything, it's probably a freak accident involving the T-virus."

Enemy approaching ambush point. Awaiting orders. An electronic voice buzzed from above, and before Yamiko could say anything, Alex took control.

"Activate units five through eight and engage the enemy. Fire at will," she said gleefully, a cruel smirk on her lips.

Immediately, four more monitors flickered to life. Confirmed.

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"It's... It's not that I'm complaining or anything," Mizu stuttered, her face flushed as she was held closely against Ranma's side. "You've just never been... you know, this receptive before."

"Hummm... yeah, I guess so," Ranma mumbled distractedly. "I dunno. I feel really... mellow right now."

Just a few more blocks. Just a mere ten more minutes, and then he would take her.

Small parts of his brain assaulted his libido, telling him that this situation was all wrong; that he should be more concerned with the strange things that were happening to his mind, and less concerned with ravishing one of his dear friends.

Despite the couple's progress toward his house, the common sense started to make headway, and Ranma frowned.

Something WAS wrong here. He had responsibilities and duties that he should be performing. He had left his friends fighting an infestation of killer insects back in HQ; shouldn't he have checked on them as some point to make sure they were okay? Or to let him know that HE was?

As that point took hold in Ranma's mind, more concerns floated to the surface. WAS he okay? There was no denying, even in his current sort-of inebriated state, that his behavior was completely bizarre. What was happening to him? How long would it last? Was he even himself anymore?

'What the hell am I doing here?' he started to wonder to himself as he started to become more aware of his surroundings. 'The others might be in trouble! Something might have happened! Holy hell, I actually ATE a guy! And here I am trying to get into Mizu's pants? What's wrong with me?'


"Ranma?" Mizu asked in concern as the pigtailed man stopped. "Is something the matter?"

Ranma slowly let go of her, wobbling back and forth as if in a daze.

"Ranma! Ranma, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

He didn't answer, instead falling to his knees and clutching his head while groaning in a way that made it pretty obvious that he wasn't okay.

Mizu, being a grand example of a competent, well-trained emergency worker, immediately started rooting around in her purse for her cellular phone rather than panicking. She'd work on making Ranma comfortable after an ambulance was on the way.

When she flipped open her phone, Mizu was both confused and terrified to find that she was not receiving service in the immediate area.

'Okay. Okay, don't panic. THINK. Why wouldn't I have service out here? I'm in the middle of the city!' There was absolutely no reason for the cell phone not to be receiving a signal in this area... unless someone was deliberately killing the signal. But why would anyone do that?

Spending a few seconds to mull that over didn't yield any useful results, so she decided to move on to alternative plans.

'All right, I need to contact help somehow... asking random people won't do any good; unless I got extremely lucky and stumbled into a doctor on his night out, I wouldn't find anyone better trained for something like this than I am. I know! A land line! Whatever's the problem with my cell wouldn't affect a normal phone!'

Taking a moment to glance at Ranma, she noted that he had started mumbling to himself as he clutched his head in pain. Troubling, obviously, but it didn't seem like he'd die if she left him for a little bit.

She immediately began scanning the nearby buildings. They were all small retail shops that had been closed for the night, meaning that any one of them would have a phone, but all of them had locked doors.

A significant obstacle, but hardly insurmountable.

"I'm going to borrow this for a bit," Mizu said reassuringly as she reached for Ranma's waist and drew his pistol from its holster. "I'll be right back, okay? I'm going to call for help! Stay right here!"

"It can't... the guy shot... the bullets... knife in the..." Ranma's mumbling was starting to become more frantic and fevered, so Mizu quickly turned away and dashed to the nearest building behind her.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!"

A woman's scream caused her to halt in surprise and whirl around, cursing her luck that some OTHER calamity was occurring at the same time her date needed help.


Target sighted. Beginning attack.

The seven-foot monstrosity mumbled through its metal face mask in buzzing monotone, stepping heedlessly past the terrified woman that had screamed.

Another cyborg, this one sporting a rifle built directly into its arm, followed alongside the first, while two more lagged behind to cover their approach in a clumsy formation that Igov had programmed specifically for this test.

Stopping at a range of about ten meters, the cyborgs in the front took aim with their rifles.

Mizu spent a good second gaping at the sight of four bionic men tromping around on the streets, but quickly regained her senses once she realized they were aiming weapons. "RANMA!! Run! They're going to-"

Br-raap! Br-raap!

Mizu felt her heart seize in her chest as a pair of heavy rounds blasted right into the pigtailed man, who didn't even seem aware of the threat until blood burst from his back and he was thrown onto the pavement.

As the raven-haired woman's mind ground to a halt, her soldier's instincts promptly took over, and before she had even begun to process what had just happened, she had ducked around the corner of the shop she was about to break into and switched the safety off the pistol in her hands.

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Alex, Yamiko, and Yoshi all stared wordlessly at the image of Ranma splayed out on the pavement, lying comatose atop a narrow, fan-like blood slick.

"Well," Yamiko said eventually as the cyborgs started their advance on the secondary target, "that wasn't very impressive, now was it?" She was tempted to start singing the praises of her creations, since they had just dispatched a target that had been gauged at far beyond their ability, but honestly the cyborgs' performance had been rather underwhelming as well; there was nothing particularly spectacular about walking up to a prone man in the street and gunning him down while he was preoccupied.

"No. No, it wasn't," Alex said bemusedly.

Yoshi shook his head. "Maybe he was having a bad day?"

"Considering he was just killed, yes, I'd say he was having a very bad day," Alexandra quipped, watching carefully as the last cyborg moved past the body lying in the street to chase down the woman. "Wait. Have one of them stay with the body."

Yamiko gave her a look. "What for? It's better if they stay together when-"

"Just do it," Alex snapped, leveling a glare at the Russian woman. Yamiko glared back, but then turned toward the console.

"Unit seven, secure the immediate area and hold position. Your new defensive objective is the body of the target."

Confirmed. Breaking off from formation...

On one of the monitors the image halted, indicating that the cyborg it was feeding data from had stopped moving. After a few seconds of delay, it started to turn around toward the street once more.

Bzsht! Suddenly the view from the monitor shook violently, and then turned to static.

"What? What happened?" Yamiko asked, alarmed. "Unit seven! Status report!"

Connection lost. Attempting to reestablish contact... failed. Unit N-007 has been marked as a casualty. Cause of deactivation: unknown.

"I think I can hazard a guess," Alex mumbled. "I knew it was too good to be true."

Yamiko gave her superiors an odd look, then turned back toward the monitors. "Unit six! Unit eight! Fall back to unit seven's last known position and secure the area immediately!"

Confirmed. Breaking off from formation...

Once again, the images representing the vision of the respective cyborgs stopped and turned around toward the street.

Yamiko's eye twitched. The spot where Ranma's body had laid was bare, save for a fan-shaped streak of blood. To make matters worse, unit seven - that is, the lower half of unit seven - was lying in a heap less than a meter from the blood slick, and was creating its own pool of internal fluids from the twisted and torn tubes and wires sticking out of its waist.

"You... You can't be serious..." the Russian scientist mumbled as the cyborgs moved to defend the dismembered remains of their companion.

"Huh. Seems a bit more... BRUTAL than usual," Yoshi noted. "I wonder if something was wrong with him?"

"Seems likely," Alex mumbled. "Oh! Unit five is almost on the girl."

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Mizu's heart thundered in her chest as she lay crouched behind several garbage cans, the muzzle of the 13mm. jackal shaking as her hands trembled.

'They killed Ranma... they killed Ranma! Those... Those metal freaks shot him! They shot him dead!'

The image of blood spurting from his back and splattering over the asphalt replayed over and over in her mind, and her teeth clenched.

'They KILLED HIM!! Those twisted bastards killed him!'

It is generally accepted in the field of psychology that the first two stages of grieving were denial and anger. It was normal to react to the death of a loved one first by reinforcing in one's mind that it wasn't true, and cling to that illusion.

Mizu was an exceptionally realistic woman. She decided that it would be much more efficient to skip to the "anger" stage.

Ch-chak! She checked the ammunition in the jackal and then pulled back the slide, and her hands stopped shaking as her eyes narrowed. 'How dare they?! They won't get away with this! I'll KILL them!'

A fairly loud scuffling noise came from the mouth of the alley, accompanied by the sounds of heavy footfalls.

As Mizu's mind broiled in its rage, her military training once more took over, judging the cyborg's progress down the alley and figuring out the best time to ambush the blasted thing.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

Silence. The cyborg had stopped.

Br-raap!

Operating on instincts that had apparently failed Ranma earlier, Mizu dove out from behind her cover right as the cyborg fired, the heavy rifle punching easily through the light cover but ultimately failing to hit the target.

The Core soldier rolled into a crouch, and spent a moment to stabilize herself as she lined up Ranma's pistol.

Blam!! Thwom!

Both Mizu and the cyborg jerked back from the pistol's discharge; Mizu because the pistol's kick had nearly shattered her right arm, and the cyborg because the large, explosive, armor-piercing round HAD shattered its left shoulder, spraying chunks of metal, gore, and blood - not to mention the arm connected to the shoulder - onto the ground behind it.


As the cyborg staggered backward from the damage, Mizu winced badly and decided on a change of tactics.

'Dammit! If I fire this thing again I'm going to lose my arm! I've got to escape and get help!'

The most obvious route to safety was the fire escape, but she seriously doubted that the thin metal railing would offer much protection from the heavy rifle that the monstrosity was carrying.

Making a quick decision in her mind, she tossed the jackal away before darting toward the cyborg, who was just starting to lift its rifle - one-handed this time, by necessity - back into firing position.

Thwack! A sharp roundhouse knocked the rifle clean out of the cyborg's grasp, and sent it clattering against the wall of the alley, where it fell among some trash bags.

Mizu hesitated for a moment as she saw the weapon tumble to the cement floor of the alley. The handgun was useless to her - as apparently even Ranma's weapons were too much for feeble, normal human beings to handle - but the rifle?

She REALLY wanted these cybernetic bastards dead, but what chance did she really have against four of them? She didn't know anything about them other than the fact that they were obviously dangerous, partially mechanical, well-armed, and apparently weren't terribly concerned when having entire limbs blown off. She, on the other hand, had no armor, didn't have her usual weapons, was all alone, and her arm was now injured.

Soldier's intuition won out over her vengeful desires, and Mizu rolled away from the wounded cyborg just before it punched at her, a metal spike emerging from its knuckle at the last moment to stab into the air she previously occupied.

"That thing has a pile built into its arm? Where do these freaks COME from?" She groused as she got up and dashed to the wall, jumping up to grab the bottom rung of a secured fire escape.

The cyborg below glanced up at its target, and its limited programming ground to a halt as it tried to implement the best possible response.

After several seconds of delay, which Mizu had used to climb up the fire escape and then jump up to the next story, the cybernetic soldier turned and slowly moved to recover its rifle.


Mizu grunted as she climbed up the last ladder, and then jumped up to grab hold of the edge of the roof before pulling herself up.

'I can scout out the other borgs from the roof, then find a way inside and get to a phone. I can call-'

For the umpteenth time that night, she felt her heart stop. Crouched on the opposite edge of the roof, silhouetted against the street lights, a man was hunched over some sort of trash heap, facing away from her.

A pigtailed man.

Before she could find her voice, the figure seemed to flicker and then vanish, like an illusion.

Her heart pounding within her chest, Mizu scrambled across the length of the roof on her hands and knees, not daring to call out Ranma's name for fear of attracting attention from whatever malevolent forces were apparently hunting her. Instead, she approached the mess that the figure had been hunched over.

It seemed to be the remains of one of the cyborgs, though that wasn't readily apparent; it was a hideous mess of torn-up flesh and machinery, with much of the machinery forcibly ripped out of the flesh it had been joined to.

She had no idea what Ranma would be doing with a mutilated cyborg corpse, but she didn't really care so long as she knew that he was alive enough to do it.

Something lodged in what appeared to be a skull split into three pieces attracted her attention, and she tenderly reached over the pool of blood and oil to pluck that particular chunk of gore from the pile.

It was a knife. Specifically, a Japanese kodachi with a very familiar emblem embossed in its steel handle.

Mizu felt her entire body go weak as the shock, grief, rage and terror pent up within her seeped out of her all at once, and she collapsed onto her knees, clutching the blade desperately. 'He's alive. Oh, thank the gods, he's alive...'

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"Tch. Too slow," Alexandra mumbled critically. "They couldn't even kill the floozy."

"In all fairness, the woman obviously had a fair bit of military training," Yoshi reasoned, adjusting his glasses. "It's doubtful even a police officer would have reacted so effectively. Certainly Mister Saotome did not."

Yamiko simmered quietly as she stared at the screens, the gears turning in her head. Putting aside the "supercop" or whatever that man was, her cyborgs' performance against the girl highlighted some very embarrassing weaknesses in her design. She'd always considered warfare to be an exercise in metrics, covering as wide an area as possible with firepower, while planting as much solid metal between your soldiers and your enemies' weapons. Seeing her creation foiled by a single woman with a pistol (albeit a bizarrely powerful one) was quite galling.

'Hopefully they'll have a better showing in proper combat,' she thought.

A sudden signal from one of the cyborgs in the street caught her attention, and her eyes widened.

"What is this?!"

Yoshi and Alexandra turned their attention to the monitors, though both of them were far less surprised.

"Oh, it looks like Saotome's back," Yoshi said. "For the best, really. We didn't have an extraction plan for the surviving units anyway."

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Ranma's hand twitched irritably as he landed on the sidewalk across from the pair of cyborgs guarding the mutilated body of one of their own. His other hand clenched one of his mono-molecular edged kodachi tightly, reassured by the steely firmness and weight.

'I shouldn't have left the other blade behind... but I really don't want to deal with Mizu right now.'

He swayed lazily to one side as a heavy rifle round sailed through the spot his head had occupied.

No more stray thoughts assaulted his consciousness. No more conflict within his mind impaired his reflexes or burdened his decisions. For the first time that night, his rational mind and the strange, savage new instincts were in perfect alignment; they both wanted these strange new soldiers dead, and then wanted to hunt down whoever sent them and tear them apart. The savage instincts wanted to do a few things AFTER that that were unusual, creepy, and quite illegal, but in the heat of combat, Ranma didn't care.

Several more shots buzzed past as he slipped into the streets, moving in small bursts of intense speed before swaying drunkenly and altering his direction and momentum.

Thwap! One shot managed to hit him, and he jerked backward as the bolt punched into his stomach and splattered blood and intestines onto the street below.

Ranma didn't even stumble, and darted forward again as the wound immediately started to shrink and seal itself.


Br-raap! Br-raap! With tenacity, determination, and courage born primarily from being non-sentient beings, the cyborgs continued firing upon the lone officer, their targeting systems stymied by Ranma's inconsistent movement.

Snap! One cyborg stepped back as half of its rifle went flying up into the air, and then lowered the half that it had left as it gazed down at the pigtailed man who had stopped in front of it.

Ranma swayed uneasily from side to side, then ducked around the cybernetic soldier as it punched at him, stabbing his kodachi into its stomach and then dragging the knife behind him as he moved around his enemy before drawing it out in a long, thin wash of blood and oil.

The cyborg staggered backwards, and then fell over as Ranma kicked it from behind, its muscles losing strength as its fluid pressure dropped rapidly from the huge gash in its body.

The remaining cyborg fired another round, and again Ranma flinched back as the bullet ripped a hole in his arm that quickly began to seal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This is... impossible!" Yamiko declared frantically as she watched the monitors.

One screen showed a sidelong image of the scene from the perspective of the cyborg lying on the ground, and the picture started to become grainier as the unit started to lose power.

The other screen showed the other unit calmly and laboriously reloading his rifle as his target advanced on him, showing nearly the same level of carelessness.

The image shook slightly as the observers watched Ranma grab the cyborg's arm, and then it jerked backwards as Ranma impaled the cyborg in the shoulder before planting his foot against its chest and tearing the arm straight out of the socket.

"I think he's angry," Yoshi pointed out.

The image started shaking again as Ranma began smacking the severed limb against the cyborg's head, occasionally hopping to one side or ducking as the soldier did its best to counter-attack with its remaining arm.

"Well, this is just embarrassing now," Alexandra mumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts as Yamiko fumed silently.

Cracks began to appear in the camera as Ranma continued beating it, and Alex yawned as the screen began to flicker.

"Are we almost done here?" the buxom woman asked. "Today's been VERY busy, and I'd really like to get to bed eventually."

"We're far from done here," Yamiko said, her voice a near-growl.

A bizarre noise, distorted due to the damage to the receiver, came from the cracked monitor, and suddenly the image was further obscured, this time from having blood splattered all over the lens.

Yoshi made a show of rolling his eyes as Ranma appeared on another monitor that was connected to the cyborg that had chased Mizu. "Aren't we past the point where shooting him is a viable tactic? I really think we are."

"Well, what else are two semi-coherent, partially-dismembered automatons supposed to do? Wrestle him into submission?" Alex asked as a vein popped up on Yamiko's head.

The monitor representing the cyborg just joining the fray went snowy right after capturing a close-up of Ranma's fist, and then blacked out a moment later. Through the other monitors, the observers could see the pigtailed man wrench the head off of the cybernetic soldier, and then kick away the decapitated corpse.

"Yes, he's definitely angry," Yoshi said, nodding sagely.

"My, that's a lot of fluid," Alex remarked. "Is there some way of reducing the pressure? At least to keep it from spraying out like a broken fire hydrant?"

Yamiko's eyebrow twitched. "No. Not really."

Questions and commentary ceased as they watched Ranma and the damaged - but still mobile - cyborg approach each other slowly. Not that either one was being cautious of the other, as the cyborg was simply not designed to move very fast, and Ranma felt he didn't need to now that the enemy didn't have any more guns.

The cyborg attacked first, swinging its remaining arm at the pigtailed man.

Ranma simply caught the arm, and then grabbed the kodachi still stuck in the soldier with his free hand, tugging it free.

Then he slapped the cyborg's arm away and stabbed it with his blade again, though with the limited view of the battle, the observers couldn't tell where.

Of course, the precise point of penetration didn't seem important when Ranma wrenched his weapon free, and then immediately stabbed his enemy again.

And again.

And then three more times.

He took a moment to tear off the other arm to keep it from clumsily swiping at him, and then stabbed it again.


"So... why are we still watching this, again?" Alex asked.

"Well, for one thing, it's HILARIOUS," Yoshi noted, chuckling to himself.

Yamiko stared leadenly at the diagnostic screens, watching with a pained expression as the small outline of the cybernetic soldier rapidly turned red one body part at a time (save its arms, which were a solid black to indicate they had been removed).

Sigh. "You're right, of course," the Russian woman said, turning to Alex, "this test will not yield any more useful insights. The new units were not expected to win, and surely enough they did not."

The monitor belonging to the cyborg currently being assaulted began to flicker, and then went black. A glance at the only remaining feed, from the cyborg lying immobile on the ground, revealed that its companion had been knifed in the head and was even now crumpling to the street as arcs of electricity curled around its face and neck.

"Hmph. I wasn't expecting to have to deal with something like this, but since it obviously comes as no surprise to you two, I suppose the results are reasonable," Yamiko said, obviously distressed despite her words.

Alexandra was too busy staring down smugly at her to notice, but Yoshi raised an eyebrow as he watched the image through the remaining active monitor; Ranma was hunched over his recent kill and was carving into its abdomen with his blade.

'Hm? What is he doing? Searching the body for useful parts?' That explanation seemed terribly unlikely, both because Ranma was not technologically inclined, and because he was digging into the organic section of the body when the big chunks of metal and wires would have obviously been the better place to search for components. When Yoshi saw the martial artist take a big, bloody wad of carved flesh into his hands, he reflexively adjusted his glasses and squinted to try and get a better view of the poor-quality video.

"Computer, terminate all video feeds," Yamiko said, still facing Alex and not seeing the gory image right before it went black. "Log results and create a time bank. Period length thirty seconds." She lowered her voice slightly to speak to the other people in the room. "I'll add my notes and recommendations as necessary. Would you both like copies of the footage?"

"Hardly. Amusing as it was, I don't need to watch that disaster again," Alexandra scoffed, idly running a hand through her hair. "If you send me anything, send me a report on how you plan to improve future models of these units; I'll be extremely disappointed if this is the level of performance we can expect from them in the future."

The Russian woman took a calming breath to beat down her frustration. "Yes. Of course."

She then turned toward Yoshi. "Professor Konta? Do you have anything you'd like to add?"

The diminutive man didn't respond right away, and Yamiko raised an eyebrow. "Professor?"

"Uh?" Yoshi blinked in surprise as he suddenly snapped out of his daze, and then shook his head. "Oh. No, no, that's fine. Very good." He seemed disturbed for a moment, but rapidly shook it off. "Well, I should really go back to toying with the natural order of things for my own amusement. Good luck with your research," he said flippantly, turning away and walking out of the observation room. 'What the blazes was he doing back there? I think he was searching for something, or... no, no, it's probably nothing. I should get back to work.'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Morning found the officers of the DAPC pulling into the driveway in front of Kyle's house, their respective vehicles lining up neatly in front of the garage for the early-morning meeting.

It was the start of a new day, and though many of the officers were still tired from the previous day's missions, they had decided to meet after it was confirmed that Ranma was not back at home and had not contacted anyone.

When Mizu contacted Asuka and informed her of the unprovoked attack the previous night, as well as Ranma's subsequent disappearance, tensions peaked, and Mizu too was invited to come to the gathering that would hopefully shed some light on the current mystery.

Still, despite the confusion, apprehension, and general gravity of the situation, Asuka's first question was mostly unrelated to the conflict at hand.


"Why are we meeting at Tekai's house again? Shouldn't we be meeting at headquarters?"

Mizu raised an eyebrow as an uncomfortable silence descended. Surprisingly, it was Sakura who moved things along.

"Never mind that! Seras, you found something, right?" the blonde said frantically, almost sweating from the nervousness. "You wouldn't call us here unless you had some sort of news!"

Seras nodded stoically, though he said nothing as he walked to the front of the living room.

Stopping at the front, he took out a small, glimmering bottle of some foreign alcohol, and sipped it tenderly as a man none of the others remembered walked in from the garage and rapidly set up a presentation tripod and a projector.

Asuka frowned deeply, wondering how much the wretched doctor had drunk already during his research. Certainly the man was infinitely more competent when sober, but the last thing she needed when she was injured and apparently facing a personnel crisis was to try to fend off Seras' diabolical urges.

Ahem! Seras coughed into his fist, and slowly replaced the cap on his liquor bottle before dabbing at his lips elegantly with a cloth napkin.

Then he stepped to the side of the projector, raised a remote control, and pressed the button.

Click! "This... is your brain," he said bluntly as an image of the human brain - free from any unnatural coloration or other stylized distortions from its natural appearance - appeared on the screen.

"Oooooh..." went Kyle, immediately entranced.

Click! "This... is your brain on T-virus," said Seras as the image changed.

"Ewwww..." went Kyle, immediately disgusted.

He wasn't the only one. The second picture showed an organ that had been twisted and maligned in every possible way. Grotesque-looking growths bulged all about, thick, slimy tendrils emerged from strange, rotten pits of gray matter and dug horribly into other parts of the brain. Most of the frontal lobe was gone, having apparently rotted away and left the surface a repulsive carpet of bubbling sores.

Sakura went deathly pale, but hung onto consciousness and her breakfast. "That... That's not what happened to Ranma, is it?"

"WHAT?!?!" Both Mizu and Asuka whirled on her.

"What are you talking about? Why would you ask that?"

"Saotome was exposed to T-virus? When did this happen? He was fine when I left!"

Neither of the women had been told about the cockroaches or that Ranma had been bitten (or at least, Mizu made no effort to recall that Ranma had mentioned something like that the previous night), only that he had left the station feeling ill.

"Calm down," Seras mumbled, immediately silencing the two frantic women. "While it's true that Saotome was exposed to the T-virus, it's safe to say that his brain isn't anything like this." His eyes narrowed. "I just thought I'd open with a little refresher on how dangerous this organism is, since it didn't seem to get through the first few times."

"Yeah, okay, fine. We get it," Snake snapped. "Now stop sidetracking and get to the point, here!"

"In order to properly understand what's happened to Saotome, one must understand a few things about the virus, and about how it affects human beings. OTHER human beings, anyway," Seras mumbled. "Although the primary feature of the T-virus is its ability to turn the infected into zombies, as a virus, it still has to combat the body's natural immune system, primarily the body's white blood cells tasked with eliminating foreign organisms. The virus has little ability to defeat other bodily defenses, which is why the virus is only effectively transferred through direct injection to the bloodstream. To do this, its outer protein layer is composed of a unique chemical that acts as a necrotic poison to kill living cells on contact. Combined with the virus's ability to reproduce within recently dead cells instead of only living ones, this allows even a few T-virus organisms to run rampant within the body. Less than a hundred organisms can kill just about any human being on the planet." He shook his head for a moment. "Also, I estimate that the... wound inflicted upon Saotome transferred several thousand organisms directly into his bloodstream."

Asuka's expression hardened. "BUT..."

The drunk smirked. "But Saotome's hardier than all that. Observe."

Click! The image on the display changed to show a cartoon of Tiro, chibi-style, wearing a martial arts gi and stretching as if he was preparing for a match.

"Hey, it's me!" Tiro said, feeling equal parts curiosity and dread at seeing his image used in this explanation.

"Yes. I used a blood sample taken from Yamazaki to be used as the control group for this experiment," Seras explained.

The lecher frowned. "When did you get that?"

"Four months ago, when you all underwent mandatory drug testing."

Asuka looked somewhat surprised. "And you kept the samples for something like this?"

"No, I got wasted and forgot to do the testing," Seras admitted, "so I just filled out everyone's forms saying they were clean and went home early. Except for Tycho, who I claimed was on the smack. As a joke. But anyway-"

"HEY!! Why did you choose me?" The driver demanded angrily.

"I think the more important question is why they didn't bother with any disciplinary action," Asuka deadpanned.

Junko rolled her eyes. "Would you if you were in their place?" Asuka sighed wearily in response.

"People, people, we're getting sidetracked here," Seras chided. "Let's continue. This is a graphical representation of Tiro's white blood cells when attempting to combat the T-virus organism. Observe." He pushed the button on his remote.

The animation began, and the chibi-Tiro continued doing stretches until a small, spider-like creature skittered into the scene from the side.

Ah ha! Intruder detected! The animation shouted, posing heroically as tears streamed down its cheeks. Foul creature! Taste the burning justice of my-

The animation's monologue stopped as the virus crawled up and jabbed it sharply with a leg.

Then the chibi-Tiro turned deathly pale before slowly teetering over and collapsing in a heap.

Its opponent defeated, the virus clambered up onto the chibi-Tiro before clamping firmly onto his head with its legs.

"Ewwwww!"

"Wh-What the hell is it doing?! It's violating my face! Why is it doing that?"

"Tuko, your presentations are gross."

Eventually the virus completed its sordid task, and then slowly faded away, its materials spent.

A few seconds later, Chibi-Tiro began to swell horribly, and then his chest opened up to allow dozens of new viruses to scramble out, no doubt to search for new prey.

Click! Seras turned toward his audience, noting with some satisfaction that a good half of them looked sick to their stomachs.

Putting aside Kyle, anyway. He had fallen asleep when Seras had been explaining the T-virus and showed no signs of waking.

"All right, then. Now we turn to Saotome. Here's the representation of what occurred when I did the same experiment with his blood." Click!

The image changed to show a very similar picture as before, save that instead of a chibi-Tiro, it was a chibi-Ranma who was stretching in preparation for combat.

"It's common knowledge that a good physical condition enhances one's immune system. In Saotome's case, this aspect too has been taken far beyond the schema of what is considered physically possible."

As expected, the spider-like virus appeared from the side of the film, and the chibi-Ranma stared at it.

What the hell is THAT supposed to be? Who animated this thing, a third-grader?

Seras blinked. "Huh... I... don't remember adding that dialogue..."

Yamma snickered briefly from behind the tripod. "You were probably drunk."

"Ah, good point."

As before, the virus crawled up to the white blood cell, and just like before, raised a single leg and poked the defending organism.

Chibi-Ranma raised an eyebrow. And then he raised a foot.

STOMP! The audience winced as the virus was crushed into a gooey mess, and the Chibi-Ranma promptly began scraping gunk off the sole of his foot.

Click!

Junko blinked repeatedly. "So... does this mean that Ranma's more of a man than Tiro on a cellular level?"

"Hey!"

"Yes, that's pretty much the gist of it," Seras explained. "Saotome's immune system is simply too strong for the virus to take hold in his body easily."

"Whoa, wait, hold on," Mizu said angrily. "That's all? 'It's okay, he's immune, no problem'? No way it's that simple."

"Yeah. Putting aside the fact that it doesn't explain why he's disappeared and everything, if you really made us sit through this just to tell us that, we're going to have to beat you again," Snake warned.

"You are correct, of course," Seras admitted. "That's not all I have to reveal here. There's a lot more to this."


He took a deep breath. "Saotome should have been able to shrug off the T-virus from the... observed infection easily; a few thousand viruses is nothing to him. However, from the blood sample I took from his jacket, it seemed that he had absorbed a much heavier dose of T-virus toxins earlier. I can't say exactly how it happened, of course, but I would expect that it has something to do with his frequent handling of the biohazard containment unit today."

Asuka nodded sharply as the tension began to rise again.

"Needless to say, the concentration of T-virus organisms in that solution is astronomical. A little bit of fluid in the body, even if it wasn't injected directly into the bloodstream, would flood his immune system with BILLIONS of hostile organisms. Faced with such a threat, an enhanced immune system wouldn't stand a chance. So his body... adapted."

"Adapted HOW?" Asuka asked, tapping a finger against her cast impatiently.

"I'm glad you asked. Let's watch!" Smiling, Seras pushed the button on his remote again, and another animation started up.

This one featured Chibi-Ranma once more, except that this time he was panicking and running away from a swarm of viruses while firing small blue ki blasts behind him into the attacking throng.

Sweating heavily, the chibi-Ranma glanced around desperately for something to help him, and then a lightbulb suddenly appeared over his head.

Grabbing one virus out of the swarm, he then dashed to safety. Along the way he crushed the organism in his hand into paste before putting it into his mouth and swallowing.

Mizu sweatdropped. "Only a Ranma cell would think of an idea like that." Asuka nodded mutely.

The chibi-Ranma began twitching, and then fell to his knees, as if in agony.

And then, all of a sudden, he jumped to his feet, his eyes wide and small sparkles surrounding him.

Everyone but Seras sweatdropped heavily as the "invincibility star" theme music from Mario Bros. played in the background, and Chibi-Ranma suddenly ran straight into the swarm of viruses, plowing through them with ease.

Once the "1-up" sounds started, Asuka had had enough. "All right, already! We get the point! Now explain what the hell we're looking at, here!"

Click! Seras moved to the next image, which showed a rather complex, biological shape. "When Ranma's immune system was overwhelmed, his cells responded by using the T-virus itself. By consuming the DNA core of the T-virus, the white blood cells were able to tap into its mutagenic capabilities and use them to their advantage, modifying themselves appropriately. His fever was the result of this mutation and his body's attempts to contain it. Ranma's bloodstream is now populated extensively by a new form of cellular immunity defenses. I've dubbed them the 'R-virus' for obvious reasons."

Mizu raised an eyebrow. "But... aren't they modified white blood cells, and not viruses?"

"Moving on," Seras continued, "the R-virus is generations beyond common white blood cells in strength and efficiency. They reproduce by themselves without the aid of T-cells, they're much better at identifying hostile organisms, and they can eliminate threats without nearly as much physical distress to the infected tissue. If a normal immune system can be likened to a bodily militia, then these guys are commandos."

Asuka nodded slowly. "Okay... so you're effectively saying that Ranma's body created a defense against the T-virus. Is that it?"

"No, that's not it. Though it's worth noting that these cells can theoretically be transplanted. Meaning that we now have the only sure-fire cure for a T-virus infection. At least that I know about." Seras shrugged. "But on that note, either because the R-virus was made from absorbed T-virus DNA or because it mutated specifically to deal with that virus, when I observed its effects on the T-virus it reacted differently than when it attacked ordinary viruses."

Click! The next slide showed a much smaller organism that resembled the T-viruses from the animations, but had extra limbs and was slightly swollen.

"The R-virus doesn't destroy all T-virus organisms. Many of them it 'turns'. It injects a corruptive DNA code into them - similar to what viruses do to normal cells - which rewrites their physical structure and behavioral patterns. I call these altered T-viruses 'hypercells'."

"What, no 'H-virus'?" Mizu mumbled.

Seras ignored her. "Hypercells are friendly organisms. Extremely friendly, actually. While their primary purpose is to help purge the body of T-virus, after that they will expend themselves repairing, protecting, and in every way optimizing the body they inhabit. They don't even reproduce; they literally work themselves to death. During this time, the body becomes much faster, stronger, and more responsive. They help ordinary cells reproduce at a phenomenal rate, healing wounds almost instantly, and replace long-term, aging cells that cannot normally regenerate, to the point of completely replenishing entire organs."

"Okay, this almost made sense for a second there," Mizu mumbled, rubbing her head. "So Ranma's not only become immune to T-virus, but he's become some sort of superhuman?"

"Well, putting aside the fact that he was ALWAYS some sort of superhuman as far as I know, yes. I did a preliminary experiment with a few lab rats I keep in reserve for when I need to kill things in the name of science. First I injected one with the last of the R-virus samples I had, and then I injected a dose of T-virus that should have killed the rat in minutes. As rats' brains aren't sophisticated enough to be reactivated by the T-virus, it seemed like a safe test."

"And what were the results?" Asuka asked, looking rather fascinated.

"Within ten minutes, the rat had regrown its stunted tail, grown out some malformed teeth properly, and its skin and fur became thick and lustrous. Before I finally decided to get some sleep, it had run the bolts on its hamster wheel smooth and broken the damn thing."

Junko looked tense. "I know I'm not usually the pessimistic type, but all this good news is making me worried. Is there a downside to all this?"

Seras chewed on his lip for a moment. "Well... yes. Though that may depend on what you'd consider a 'downside,' really..."

"Explain," Asuka deadpanned.

"Well, there were... other changes in the rat that I used," Seras mumbled, scratching his head.

"What kind of changes? Spit it out, man!" Snake demanded. Given what he had seen of the T-virus's effects on insects, he was not at all optimistic about the matter.

"The hypercells activate a number of glands within the brain and modify their chemical content to provide what is effectively a chemical high. The effects are drug-like, and have the potential for side-effects and addiction. Besides that... well... it was a bit strange. While I was asleep, the rat ripped apart its cage and then forced its way into the other rats' cages. I did a few short tests before I got here, and apparently every female lab rat I have is now pregnant. Despite the test rat being sterilized, yet!"

"............" Stunned silence dominated the room, broken only by Kyle's snoring.

'Well... that explains a few things,' Mizu thought, flushing badly.

'Wait... so if he's out missing right now...' Asuka thought, twitching.

'Uh... this is NOT good,' Sakura thought, gulping.

'Hmmm... I might need extra protection then,' Junko thought, smiling.

"And... well, that's not all," Seras admitted. "What's even stranger is that all the male rats had been killed... and partially eaten."

"............" The silence this time was absolute as Kyle's head rolled to the side, ending his snores.

"Is... Is it... normal for rats to engage in cannibalism?" Tycho finally managed to ask.

"Well, it's not exactly rare, but no, it's not normal. Especially when the rats are healthy and well-fed, as this one was. Rats are scavengers, and don't kill for food or compete for territory or mates."

"Are you saying that Ranma's running around eating people?" Snake asked bluntly.

Seras shook his head. "Of course not. A rat doesn't benefit from human reasoning capabilities, morals, or the constraints of civilization. From what Kotetsu has told us, Ranma maintained his faculties despite the infection. What I AM saying is that the hypercells tend to supercharge parts of the brain that the T-virus activates during its normal infection cycle. And the end result seems to be a surge of testosterone and a streak of extremely basic, primal behavior."

"Okay, okay, fine. Whatever. As long as he hasn't gone completely berserk, this is okay," Asuka said, massaging her forehead. "Bottom-line it for me, Tuko. Is this all going to blow over, and if so, when?"

"I'm afraid not," Seras said, sighing deeply. "The really bad news is that the R-virus has become unstable due to its rapid rate of mutation. It won't be long before it loses its inherent genetic programming to protect Ranma's body." He looked especially grim as he stared at the increasingly nervous-looking officers. "Within four hours, the R-virus will be out of control, turning into an entirely new breed of biological superweapon. And within six hours, Saotome will die, and then rise again as the most vicious, powerful, and insatiable zombie any of you will ever have the misfortune to encounter."

As the others gaped in disbelief, their hearts still, Sakura leapt to her feet, tears already pouring down her cheeks. "NO! You're wrong! It's not true! It's not!"

Seras chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. I was just messin' with ya. He'll be fine."

THWOCK!!


Mizu nodded appreciatively as she watched blood start to pool under Seras' body, courtesy of the chair that had been shattered over his head. "That was a pretty good throw for just one arm."

Asuka flexed her good arm as she glared down at Seras. "Thanks. I've been practicing specifically for something like this."

Snake started sweating slightly, and quickly began chanting in Hebrew under his breath. 'Please God, don't let her find out about the HQ before the work crews get there. PLEASE.'

"Okay, fine, so Ranma's in tip-top shape... and possibly a cannibal," Junko said. "Great. So where IS he?"

Mizu shook her head. "I don't know... when I called over some backup we searched the area and found the remains of all four cyborgs that attacked, but we couldn't find any trace of him."

"What about the cyborgs?" Asuka asked, drumming her fingers on her cast again.

Mizu scowled as she thought of the cybernetic soldiers that had assaulted her the previous night. 'Goddamn tin men! If it weren't for them Ranma would have been all over me! Imagine! A boosted libido, extreme testosterone levels, and that endurance! Why, if we'd made it back, he would have probably lasted-'

"Kotetsu!"Asuka shouted, snapping the woman out of her thoughts.

"R-Right! Sorry!" The Core soldier said, flushing as she wiped some drool off of her chin. "We haven't studied the pieces yet, but a cursory look didn't reveal any markings that would give away where they came from. Still, it isn't that hard to make an educated guess."

Asuka nodded. "Of course. We can expect to see cobras and barbed wire etched into them next time."

"But why would they send four defective rust-buckets after Saotome?" Snake mumbled. "They know who he is. They have a decent idea of what he's capable of. If they couldn't even gun down Kotetsu before she escaped, what chance did they have?"

The police captain shook her head. "The Angels are constantly throwing resources haphazardly into battle without thinking about it. I don't think that's the issue here. We have to focus on finding Ranma for now."

"Well, where do we start?" Tiro mumbled, obviously annoyed.

Snake smirked slightly as he rubbed his chin. "Well... think about it. Saotome's been reduced to a relentless killing machine, possibly with a hunger for human flesh and a T-virus addiction. The last place he was found was fighting a bunch of FA soldiers. Ergo, his next move would most likely be to hunt down the bad guys that tried to kill him and his girl, butcher them, and then devour their bloody remains."

Tiro winced. "So... wait, I'm confused. Are we sure he's a cannibal now?"

"Not really, but given that it must be the most bizarre, unlikely thing that could possibly happen, it's a safe bet," Junko said, shrugging.

"... And... WHY don't you seem at all uncomfortable about this?" The lecher asked weakly.

The redhead smiled. "Because apparently he's an ultra-stud playboy cannibal!"

"He still eats people!"

"Well, like I said, we don't know that for sure... besides, nobody's perfect."

"I'd smack you upside the head Chikiko, but it would seem that we really don't need any more sex-crazed psychotics," Asuka deadpanned.

A light bulb suddenly appeared over Snake's head, and he began to smile.

Luckily, Asuka didn't notice, otherwise she would never have uttered the next words that came out of her mouth. "Snake, I want you to organize a search. Choose two people to maintain ordinary patrols and response duties, but finding Saotome is currently our top priority. Understood?"

Snake nodded happily.

"Good. Now I'm going back home to rest; I shouldn't have to be doing this sort of thing after what I went through yesterday."

Tycho snorted. "Oh, please. You didn't even have to deal with all the-"

Whap! Thock! Thump!

Asuka sweatdropped as she watched Snake, Tiro, and Junko jump onto the DAPC driver and start beating him into the carpet. "Ah... right. Anyway, I'll be going now."

Mizu nodded as the bluette left, and placed a bundle on the coffee table. "I have a patrol rotation today, so I can't stick around... if you find Ranma, here are his weapons that he left behind. Please... make sure he's okay."

Sakura nodded mutely as the raven-haired woman turned away and walked out, her throat tightening as she considered what must have taken place the previous night.

Still, whatever had gone on between Mizu and Ranma, the more important issue was that Ranma was missing and struggling with a strange new chemical reaction. She could work out her feelings about Ranma's social life later.


Kyle snorted as he suddenly woke up, and then shook his head to clear it.

The blond man took a moment to yawn laboriously, and then slowly turned to look at his living room.

Seras was lying in a pool of drying blood, with a tall, lanky man he didn't recognize slowly administering first aid to him. Tycho was in the middle of the room, not bleeding yet, but unconscious.

"So... did we decide on what to do about Ranma?"

Snake finished dusting off his hands as Junko gave Tiro gave Tycho one last kick in the stomach, and then grinned. "Well, while I figure that he's hunting down terrorists, it's not exactly easy for us to run out and track him that way. It's not like we have a long list of Angel strongholds to raid. So we're going to have to hunt him down another way."

Junko raised an eyebrow. "How would we do that?"

The American pointed behind her. "Turn around and you'll find out."

Junko promptly turned, and then frowned as she stared at Seras' film projector. "So, what, we're going to project a huge message on the side of a building and hope he sees it?"

"Nope," Snake said as he hoisted his chair up over his head. WHACK!

"Gah! What are you doing?" Sakura demanded, immediately backing up from the body twitching weakly on the floor.

"I'm enlisting Japan's most powerful man-hunter," Snake said matter-of-factly as he dusted his hands off.

Kyle scratched his head. "Well, that's fine, but how is she supposed to actually find him?"

Snake just shrugged. "I dunno. And we'll never find out if she won't STOP TRYING TO TAKE OFF MY PANTS ALREADY!" The American shouted, kicking Akina off of him.

The redhead pouted as she stood up, idly rubbing the bump on her head. "Man, you guys are no fun at all. Every time I wake up, it's just 'Akina, stop taking off my clothes,' 'Akina, put your panties back on,' 'No Akina, I was talking about my ACTUAL gun.'"

"Fascinating. Now shut up," Snake deadpanned. "We woke you up so that you could perform a difficult, thankless task for us, not hump my leg."

Akina's pout turned into a frown. While she found it interesting that Ranma consciously resisted her lust aura, it frustrated her that Snake didn't seem to respond to it at all. 'Ugh. Why is it only the losers around here that have a sex drive?'

The redhead crossed her arms under her breasts. "And WHY should I bother doing this 'difficult, thankless task', exactly?"

"Because it involves tracking down Ranma," Snake said simply.

Akina hesitated. "...... And... And then what?"

Snake shrugged. "That's not really any of my business, now is it?"

Akina beamed and shook her head. "I'm your girl!"

"Hey! Wait! I'm totally opposed to this!" Sakura growled, slamming her hands down on the table.

"Tekai, please, can we put the mission before your little schoolgirl crush? Just this once?" Snake asked, rubbing his head.

"Th-That's not it!" The blonde insisted, flushing badly. "Snake, you don't ever think before you act! Don't any of you see any problems with just cutting Akina loose in the city and hoping she can somehow magically track down Ranma?"

"Hmmm..." Snake frowned as he considered the question.

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(Inside Snake's head)

"Hee hee hee! This'll teach you idiots to mess with me!"

Akina giggled pleasantly as she stood over a pile of groaning men, some of whom were bleeding from rather severe cuts and abrasians.

Cough! "But... lady... urgh... what did... what did we do?" One man gasped out as he tried to push himself to his feet.

He needn't have bothered, as Akina promptly picked him up by his neck and raised him into the air, scowling.

"Moron! Just look around you!" The redhead shouted, pointing to the ground where several smoldering cigarette butts were scattered over the sidewalk. "Not only do you and your disgusting friends pollute my breathing space with your toxic paper sticks, but then you have the nerve to leave your poisonous trash on the ground?! DIE!!"

"AAAAAAAAAIEEEEEE!!!"

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"Ummmm..." Tiro rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

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(Inside Tiro's head)

"Huh..." Akina blinked as she looked down the street, looking quite unsure of herself.

"Something wrong?" Tiro asked, noting that he and the psycho/nymphomaniac had gotten conveniently separated from the rest of the active officers.

"Well, it didn't really occur to me before, but I really DON'T have any way of tracking Ranma down," Akina said, chuckling nervously.

Tiro sweatdropped. "So you're completely lost, then?"

"Yup. Not a clue, here."

The lecherous officer sighed, and then leaned against the squad car. "Oh well. Wanna go make out?"

"Sure!"

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"Huhhh..." Kyle scratched his head.

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(Inside Kyle's head)

"I like tacos!" Kyle declared, holding the tasty Mexican dish above his head as ocean waves crashed all around him dramatically.

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All three conscious men in the room turned toward Sakura. "Nope."

Akina smirked at the blonde's obvious frustration. "Girl, you have to learn to know your place around here now that I'm going to be showing up from time to time! When I'm around, Ranma belongs to me!"

"Ha! Like he'd have anything to do with a freak like you!" Sakura growled back at her, and the two women glared as a spark of electricity flashed between them.

Their heated staring contest ended when Snake suddenly put a hand on each of their shoulders, holding them tightly.

"Now girls," he began gently, "I know that this is a tense situation, and that there's a lot at stake. I get that. I also realize that it's not always easy for women to put their personal feelings aside for the sake of accomplishing something that actually matters. I mean, sure, Captain Takami seems to be able to focus past her stupid little dramas for the purposes of saving lives, but clearly it's too much to ask of the rest of you."

Akina yawned briefly as Sakura's face darkened. "Were you going somewhere with this?"

"I also realize that, because you're both girls, and not explicitly evil, it would be wrong to force you to cooperate by hitting, shooting, or otherwise harming you, even though I can - and often do - get away with doing that to men," Snake explained, nodding to himself. "So I offer you two this: you two shut up and work on finding Ranma without whining, innuendo, or fighting about what might happen afterwards, or I'll light Tycho on fire."

Sakura sweatdropped as Akina blinked.

"Wait... and that's supposed to be a deterrent?" The redhead asked, confused.

Snake crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you really want a comrade's death on your hands just so you can continue your idiotic little catfight?"

Akina frowned. "His death? You're really going to kill him? You're bluf-" her sentence trailed off as she watched Snake produce a bottle of lighter fluid from behind his back.

"What was that? I'm what, now? Bluffing? Did you claim I'm bluffing?" The American asked, popping off the cap and then holding the bottle upright over Tycho's comatose form.

"Okay! Okay! I'll stop!" Sakura cried. "Please! Put the bottle away!"

Akina scratched her head, and then glanced behind her at Kyle and Tiro.

The former was holding a household fire extinguisher in one hand, and a collection of insurance paperwork in the other. Tiro, meanwhile, was rifling through a first aid kit while mumbling about burn tonic.

She turned back toward Snake. "You know, I may be a ruthless psychotic, but you're just sick."

"All that I've done, I've done for my people!" Snake said dramatically. "And occasionally for my own amusement." He pushed the cap back into the fluid bottle. "Now, if we can put all this baseless jealousy behind us and get to the task at hand..."

The weapons expert unwrapped the bundle that Mizu had left behind and then held it up in front of Akina. "Here's some of his stuff. See if you can pick up something you can trace back to him."

Tiro sweatdropped as Akina took Ranma's pistol and observed it closely. "What is she, a bloodhound?"

"What? Of course not. That's just stupid," Kyle pointed out.

"That's what I was implying, of course," Tiro shot back, poking the blond man in the side. "She can't track his scent or anything like that, so how is she supposed to find him?"

Akina snorted and lowered the Jackal before smirking. "Well, I AM a psychic. Divination is just one of my MANY talents..."

Snake opened up the bottle of lighter fluid again. "If you turn that into a sex joke, I swear, Wattai's a goner."

The redhead pouted. "Really. No fun at all..." she sighed as she tucked the pistol under the waistband of her pants. "Just follow me. I'll track him down in no time!"

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"And new unit are complete? Ready for testing after only twenty-four hour?" Igov asked, rubbing his chin with his smaller, more human-like hand.

The technician at the control station shrugged. "We don't really have a testing procedure developed beyond a standard systems diagnostic. Doctor Nova evidently wanted to change the designs, but told us to continue production. We're slated to have eight more units ready tomorrow."

The Russian nodded pleasantly. "Is excellent rate of progress. Are implants that easy to install?"

"Not really, no. Most of the cyborgs we have currently are units that Nova built and brought with her when she arrived. She needs our technology to activate and control them, though." The technician typed away for a few more seconds before continuing. "We have a construction apparatus in the works that will help speed along the implant procedure, but it's still a rather laborious, if not surprisingly inexpensive procedure..."

Igov nodded again, and then clasped his hands together behind his back. "Prepare five unit for combat operations and then key to Igov mobile control node."

"Sir? You're going to conduct another operation so soon?" The man asked quizzically, "and with only five units?"

"Igov wish to see if there is way to compensate for weaknesses isolated in previous test," the general explained. "Is not problem?"

"Oh, no, it's not a problem, it's just that-" The technician stopped talking as a small red light started beeping. "What? Hey..."

A crackling noise heralded an emergency transmission, and both men started in surprise.

Send help! Send help fast! This is the main securi-GAH!

Igov raised an eyebrow as the technician hit a button on his console. "Hello? This is the control center, please respond! What's happening?!"

Static dominated the line, and the man at the controls went into a flurry, his fingers dancing across the keyboard.

Igov frowned as the gears turned in his head (no pun intended). He was currently checking on production in one of Wraith's larger facilities in the Tokyo industrial complex. The attacking party couldn't be a standard police force, as they would have approached unarmed with a warrant to search the facility, and it probably wasn't Core's main force, as the Freedom's Angels made a point of knowing when the city's most powerful military organization was planning a major operation.

Of course, it could have been Core's black ops branch, but why would commandos attack a laboratory with almost no fortifications right through the security gates?

Ugh... Igov and the technician snapped to attention as they heard someone speaking into the radio again. Please... hurry... got 'im in the leg or something... it's unreal... it managed to jump away, but Yakana is dead and-GWAAAAUGH!

"Hello? Security, please respond!" The tech shouted, hitting a few more keys on his console.

The display on the monitor suddenly turned snowy, and the technician cursed. "The camera's down already! Damn it!"

"Can you access recording from here?" Igov asked, clearly keeping his cool despite the commotion.

"No. The security system still uses an old VHS recorder that's stashed in the lobby maintenance closet," the man mumbled. It was perhaps unusual for a high-tech company like Wraith to use such old technology, but then, this facility had other, more lethal defenses to deal with determined infiltrators.

"Hmph. Igov will deal with this personally," the Russian said, flexing his fingers. "Activate all cyborgs and consolidate on second level."

"Right away, General!"

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Ranma massaged his head as he stared at the carnage that surrounded him, his face expressionless.

'This... is not good,' he decided to himself as he looked at the blood dripping from his sleeve.

For some reason, the pigtailed man wasn't feeling nearly as enthusiastic about this assault as he was just a few minutes ago. Since the fight with the cyborgs, he had felt as if he was floating on air; even getting shot multiple times hadn't bothered him as he gleefully ripped the cybernetic soldiers apart. And every time he had bitten off a chunk of tough, tangy cyborg flesh, the feeling got stronger, pushing him onward to find fresh enemies and butcher them.

By now, however, the feeling was fading fast, and Ranma was quickly becoming confused, exhausted, and not a little disturbed. He was not a killer by nature, much less a cannibal, and the memories of what he had done frightened him once he stopped to think about it.

'This isn't right... what the hell am I even DOING here? Where is here?' While he could remember his actions over the past twenty or so hours, it was almost as if they were the actions of another person, and couldn't fathom what he was thinking at the time.

As for where he was, he was currently in some sort of office lobby currently decorated by dozens of bloody streaks all over the floors and walls. Corpses laying in pools of blood littered the ground, still clutching the rifles that very few had gotten the chance to use before they had met their end.

Ranma gulped as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening. At the very least, he could be sure he didn't kill any innocents in his bizarre hyped-up state; all the men he had killed had been armed, which was quite illegal for individuals not working for the government, so it was all but certain that the security personnel were terrorists.

Even so, it was a small comfort. The pigtailed man shuddered and looked toward the exit.

Clunk! Clunk!

Wincing at the noise, Ranma decided to hide for now; he had already barged into a terrorist lab and massacred their defenses, so he reasoned that he might be able to destroy something valuable before he escaped. Like a mutant spawning tank, or a T-virus tank.

Oddly enough, he felt some of his energy return at the thought of finding more of the toxic retrovirus. Strange.


Vhrrrr... The reinforced security door separating the main lobby from the entrance to the research facilities opened softly, and Igov briefly glanced about at the carnage.

'Hmmm... these men weren't enhanced, but they were trained. To have such a poor showing against our attackers...' Well, it didn't bode that well for him, really. He debated waiting for his reinforcements.

There was only one group he could think of besides Core that would have both the reason and the gall to assault a Wraith facility directly, but upon first glance it didn't fit the DAPC's usual pattern. If this was a frontal assault, where were his opponents? If it was a covert infiltration, why cause all the ruckus?

Then again, not making sense was also, to some degree, part of the DAPC's pattern.

A slight, sudden noise came from his right, and he turned slowly toward a cabinet that had collapsed and was currently lying on one of the dead guards.

Activating his thermal scanners, Igov stomped toward the broken piece of furniture, seeing a small, but detectable heat source within.

"There is no escape from the Red Death," the Russian intoned, stabbing his right hand down into the back of the cabinet.

"HSSSSSS!"

Igov blinked as he pulled his hand out, clutching a strange, worm-like creature with dozens of oversized, jagged teeth. "Eh? What this?"

"SHSSS!" The thing responded by biting into his arm, which didn't do much besides tear up his coat sleeve.

Sweatdropping, Igov slowly increased the pressure in his hand as the creature started to writhe and screech even more.

Squick! He snorted as the creature's body eventually popped, spilling horrible-smelling yellow fluids on his hands that dribbled to the floor. "Hmph. This waste of Igov time."

"Mouko takabisha."

BWOOM! The cyborg's eyes widened as a tremendous force crashed into his back, and grunted savagely as he was blasted off his feet and into the steel wall of the lobby. WHAM!

Ranma winced as he felt his strength seep out of him from launching the ki blast. He was nearing his physical boundaries, and he knew it. His body had been through too much and he needed rest.

A scraping noise brought his attention back to his opponent, and he grimaced as he watched Igov push himself from the wall, his back smoldering, but intact.

"Heh heh heh heh..." the Russian chuckled as he turned around, and his right hand sizzled as arcs of electricity curled around it. "So it is you, then. Igov surprised."

"Yup. It's me. Surprise," Ranma deadpanned, already making plans in his head. He really wasn't sure how strong Igov was, but that ki blast had struck him at point-blank when he was totally unprepared, which spoke volumes about his resilience. Combined with the fact that Ranma was tired and had only a third of his normal armament, this fight was looking bad from the start.

Smirking, the cyborg general shifted his head from side to side, eliciting a dull grinding noise from the parts involved in the motion. "Last time we face off, we were... interrupted. Igov look forward to seeing what you are capable of."

GZAK! With that, his hand suddenly exploded in a maelstrom of electricity, the glove burning off in seconds to reveal smooth, gleaming metal laden with circuits and blue energy nodes.

Then, suddenly, the Russian looked uncertain. "...... On that note... is other man here? One that lay bombs?"

"Who, Snake?" Ranma asked, blinking. "Nope. He's not here."

"Ah. Is good," Igov mumbled uneasily.

Ranma nodded. "Actually, yeah, I agree with you. It's good for both of us," he agreed. "Oh! Speaking of which: Bye!"

Turning around, Ranma was quite dismayed to see a pair of blast doors closing even as he dashed toward the exit.

Clang! "Dammit!" The pigtailed man cursed, slamming a fist on the thick, reinforced armor as he reached it. "Armored doors? You're kidding me!"

Igov smirked as he slowly advanced through the lobby. "Wraith security is not best, but has strong points."

Ranma started bigsweating as he searched for a way out. "But... why didn't you close them BEFORE I got in and killed everybody?"

"Time for conversation has passed!" Igov snapped, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of that earlier. "Now you die!"

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Cyborgs taken off-line: 4
Terrorists killed: 16
Terrorists killed and THEN eaten: 3
Major rebuilding contracts negotiated with local construction companies: 1

End Chapter 26