"The only thing worse than someone who thinks there's nothing worth dying for is someone who thinks there's nothing worth killing for; cowards at least have their instincts as an excuse."
- Asuka Takami

Black Dragon Productions presents...
A Guardian sequel/spinoff...
Which also happens to be a Sailor Moon crossover...

All characters not created by me don't belong to me. Like, duh.
Knowledge of Guardian is required for full enjoyment of this fanfic. An unstable mind fueled by black rage and madness is NOT required, but recommended nonetheless.
Notes: Story may contain references to stuff in Guardian that haven't happened yet. What was originally intended to be a unique and fun plot lead, where I provide clues to future events in the original story, has degraded into a something of a cruel joke. It's still fun for me, though.
Other Notes: Sounds, techniques or emphasis, 'thoughts', [writing], (side comments)

Millennium
Chapter 2
Welcome to the Machine
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"Pressure in bicep holding within acceptable parameters."
"Good. Activate the hammerspace capacitor to reflux arc 2-7-3-3 and... what? Just spit it out. What is it?"
"Well... I mean... 'hammerspace capacitor'? What kind of a name is that? For that matter, what is 'hammerspace' anyway?"
"I wanted to call it a 'chip of holding', but if I recall correctly, YOU didn't like that name either."
"Of course not! It's juvenile! At least 'hammerspace capacitor' sounds complex and meaningful!"
"Well, that's its name. The patent has already been filled out and everything."
"Patent? But you didn't invent it!"
"Semantics. Besides, I would have invented it, if I hadn't found one first."

The voices continued to chatter away above her, coming in and out of focus in a haze of incoherent noise.
Usagi would have had a headache, were she conscious enough to experience pain at that moment. However, that particular sense was far from her mind's grasp as she laid atop the surgical table, her body literally torn apart, and her organs strewn about as dozens of wires and hoses fed into the gaping wound in her torso.
A dull, almost detached sense of tension came from somewhere in her body, but in her quasi-conscious state, she couldn't even make out where.

"Don't be silly! What I did technically wasn't even illegal! It's not my fault that Japan doesn't have legal solutions for salvaging alien... oh, drat. Has the bicep pressure increased again?"
"Huh? Oh... yes. It's trying to heal the nerve damage. This... healing ability, whatever it is, is truly amazing. No biological system could possibly compensate for this level of trauma."
"Yes, I know. Magic is very convenient like that. Could you hurry up and sever the nerve, please? And cut away that muscle tissue. It's growing back right in the way."

Usagi's state of mind continued to float between corporeal awareness and the subconscious, unable to attach any meaning to the words it managed to hear. Worse, what biological senses were still working and managing to get through the drug-induced haze were only confusing what limited cognitive resources were available to the girl.
Sight was out completely; her eyes had been replaced by artificial orbs that had been connected to her optic nerves, but had not been activated. Pain had been dulled down to nothing, thanks to a combination of sedatives, nerve damage, and shock. Her spatial senses were the hardest for her hazy thoughts to wrap around, due to the constant destruction of sensory nerves and her body's constant regeneration of them. On top of that, her breathing, which she was still attempting to continue as is recommended for any human not trying to die, didn't seem to be working. Yet her lungs were, more or less, continuing to pump oxygen to what parts of her body weren't directly exposed to it. Very difficult for the brain to deal with.

Snap! "Okay, it's in. Hand me the drill."
"Here... but... do you think it's wise to place a plasma converter in the same place that you've placed the flamethrower fuel?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Vrrrrrr! "They share the same quantum space; how could one react with the other?" Vrm! Vrm! Vrrrrrrrr!
"...... Why don't you tell me?"
Vrrrrrm! "Okay! Done! Anyway, yes, I suppose if the hammerspace capacitor were to spontaneously fail somehow, and attempt a reflux at all given coordinates... yes, it could happen that the converter would ignite the fuel. However, I can assure you that that would be the least of anyone's problems if such a thing were to happen."

At the same time, on a plane of awareness entirely separate from Usagi's consciousness, subconsciousness, and the current haze that stuck her in-between, lines of code were being formed by the hundred as data poured into the new silicon formations implanted in Usagi's cerebral cortex. With the greater part of her neural network in the equivalent of a "safe" mode, the new computer's influence was limited, but already it was beginning to catalog the new appendages being installed in the greater body, and directed the nervous system in attaching nerve endings in the right mechanical receptors.
Soon, she would be complete. The most powerful and sophisticated combination of human and machine ever constructed on Earth. It was only a matter of time, now...
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Ami combed a lock of hair back behind her ear as she stood in front of the large police station that the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment used as their headquarters. It was a nervous habit of hers that had followed her through her pre-teen years, and didn't show any signs of stopping as she went through young adulthood.
'I can't just barge in there and greet her like I know her! ......... Can I? 'Hey, howzit going, you arrested me and my friends the other day while we were in the middle of a youma bust, and I thought I'd drop by! Remember me? I'm actually your long-lost cousin!' Ugh! Where's Usagi when you need her?'
It was very odd that her princess hadn't shown up to join her on her way here, given that she had been so excited and insistent the day before, and Ami was rather miffed that her best friend and sometimes-leader had blown her off without a bit of notice.
She still didn't know what had happened to the ponytailed girl, but given that Minako hadn't returned to the dorm room either, it was likely that the blondes simply hit another on-campus party somewhere. The fact that Usagi hadn't shown up in the morning led Ami to believe that either her princess had finally been pushed into drinking alcohol in earnest, or someone had spiked the punch again.
'I don't know HOW many times Luna's warned her about drinking. All it takes is half a can of Asahi, and that girl can't even move in the morning.' Of course, Usagi usually had trouble moving in the morning regardless of her alcohol intake, but at least she was normally quiet about it. When Usagi had a hangover, however, she had to make sure that everybody had just as big a headache as she did.
'Okay, enough of this!' Ami decided, her features hardening as she looked up the front stairs leading to the glass double-doors of the station. 'Just go in there and talk to her! There's nothing to be afraid of!'
"Hhhheeeetk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk..." a monstrous, throaty clicking sound coming from off to her side quickly attracted her attention, and droplets of sweat began to gather over her head as Ami spotted the strange alien guard she had seen in the station before slowly sidling toward her. It let out a feral hiss as it stopped and bunched up its back legs, ready to pounce at a moment's notice.
'Well, I guess there's that...' she thought, idly clutching her purse to her chest as her body seized up in mortal terror. There was no WAY she'd have enough time to transform before that thing was on top of her. 'But in a way, this is a good thing! Who can find time to worry about awkward social mishaps when she's moments away from being ripped apart and eaten by a killer alien? Speaking of which, now would be a great time to start screaming...'
Just before she managed to take control of her lungs once more, a whistling sound came from within the station, causing the zergling to jerk his head toward the entrance.
"Hunter! Where are you, big guy? Hunter?" Asuka pushed the front door of the HQ open as she searched for the wandering pet/mascot, and then noticed a vaguely familiar blue-haired woman standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking absolutely horrified. She considered this a good sign, as it meant that Hunter was probably close by.
Her hypothesis was confirmed when she craned her neck to look over the edge of the concrete partition that set off the stairs from the parking lot. "Hunter! There you are! You know you're not supposed to be out here by yourself!"
The zergling twisted his head around to glare directly at Asuka, and snapped angrily in her direction, before staring pointedly at Ami.
"No! She's not food! Get up here!" The police captain chided sternly, doing absolutely nothing for the college girl's current state of abject fear.
Hunter growled menacingly as he slowly crept up the concrete steps of the police station, his tail whipping from side to side as he passed Asuka and the door she held open.

Once the alien was inside, Asuka let the door close, and then addressed the pale young woman below. "Sorry about that. My name is-"
"Moment please," Ami said rigidly, "life not done flashing before eyes............... okay, I'm good." She stumbled backwards a bit, leaning forward and clutching her chest. 'Somehow they seem a lot bigger in real life than they did in Starcraft...'
"Anyway, I'm Captain Asuka Takami of the DAPC. If there's something I can help you with, you should come inside."
Ami twitched. "Uhm... isn't that... thing... inside? I mean, is that a real zergling?"
The police captain shrugged. "Well, technically it's a 'devouring one', but yeah. Don't ask how we got it; we have no idea. But don't worry about Hunter. As long as you're nowhere near him, he's harmless."
The part-time super heroine didn't move, and remained silent for a long moment while looking at Asuka expectantly. "You're not going to say 'just kidding', are you?"
"No. You coming, or what?" Without waiting for a response, Asuka turned away and entered the police station, leaving Ami to dash after her.

Asuka sat down behind the main report desk, and logged into the computer as her guest timidly sat down in the office chair on the other side. "Okay... are you here to report an incident bearing investigation, to report a crime, or to file a damage complaint?"
Ami blinked. "Uhm, none of those, actually. But tell me, your mother is Kyoko Takami, correct?"
Clack! Rather than answering, Asuka drew her pistol and slammed it sidelong onto the surface of the desk she was sitting at, her finger ready to squeeze the trigger. For the second time within five minutes, Ami felt her heart nearly stop, and her face paled.
"I feel it's only fair to warn you," Asuka deadpanned, "that the majority of things you could possibly say after mentioning my relation to that name will lead to me shooting you dead right there in that seat." 'I've been working with Snake WAAAAAAAAAY too long...'
Ami's hair stuck straight out on end, and she started to tremble involuntarily. Was this woman serious? "No! Wait! Don't shoot me! My name is Ami Mizuno!" While she was quite used to being in mortal danger as a result of her Senshi duties, it had been a long time since she had done any serious fighting, and coming so close to death so frequently and so unexpectedly while in a place that most people would consider a safe haven was quickly taking its toll on her psyche.
The police captain frowned. "You say that like your name should mean something to me."
"It should!" Ami shouted desperately, holding her hands up in a placating manner. "I'm your cousin! Chisato Mizuno's daughter! Please don't kill me!"
"Chisato..." Asuka's eyes widened suddenly. "N-No way! Ami-chan? Is it really you?!"
"I have I.D. and everything!" Ami cried. "Just don't shoot!"

Quickly holstering her sidearm, Asuka rushed around her desk and happily wrapped the younger woman in a warm hug. "My God! I haven't seen you in forever! I can't believe it's really you!"
The younger woman let out a deep breath of relief while being embraced; it seemed she had at last breached whatever diabolical barrier separated those guests who were to be welcomed and protected, and those guests who were apparently expendable.
Asuka held out her cousin at arm's length to look her over. "I thought I'd seen you somewhere before! But we were literally just kids the last time we met! How's your mother?"
Ami smiled. "She's divorced now, but she's fine. She's been working as a doctor at the same hospital since I can remember." Then her smile faded. "How's... um... your family?"
Asuk'a smile also fell. "They're the same."
"What about your brothers?"
The older woman sighed, and pulled up a chair so that she could sit next to her newly discovered relative. "They... didn't turn out well."
Ami nodded sadly. "I see. But look at you! You're a police officer now! I can't believe it!"
The other bluette smirked. "Police CAPTAIN, honey. The rank's a mark of pride." Then she sighed. "I mean, I could have landed in a better department, but around here I'm the top brass."
Ami blinked. For a woman to be the ranking officer in an entire department was certainly unusual, even in this day and age, but it wasn't a bad thing. "Wait, what do you mean you could have landed in a better department?"
Asuka raised an eyebrow at her cousin. "Well... tell me, how did you find out about me being here?"
Ami started bigsweating as she tried to recall the excuse she prepared. "I... uh... oh, right! I saw an article in the paper that mentioned you!"
The police captain nodded. "I thought as much. What was the article about?"
Ami tried to recall what the title was of the article she had gotten from Rei (who had collected quite a few in her studies of occult phenomenon). "I think it was... 'Radioactive Glue-Based Life-Form the Result of Failure in Bomb Defusal'." She stopped and thought about that sentence. "Oh. I see."
"Right. It's a long story that would require divulging classified information to completely explain, but the short of it is, my subordinates are all either stupid, or crazy. Sometimes both."
The younger woman frowned. "But... you do seem to carry out your missions... well... efficiently, right?"
"Don't get me wrong; crazy can be a huge advantage in the field," Asuka admitted, "and thanks to the stupidity of my highest ranking subordinate, he was transformed into a superhuman war machine and released by an enemy that didn't know any better. My men all have their strengths, but it's always been kind of an ambition of mine to command a normal platoon of decent soldiers."
"I... see." Actually once Ami thought about it, she could sympathize a bit with her cousin's position. Her own experiences with staving off the forces of supernatural evil were often complicated by the... quirks of her teammates, and most often their leader. Which wasn't to say that she would have ever traded them for straight, hardened soldiers had she the opportunity... but it would have helped.
Asuka waved off that line of discussion as she got up, and then poured some tea from the drink station behind the main desk. "Enough about me, what have you been up to? Do you have a job yet?"
"Oh, no, not yet. I'm in my second year at Himana University. I'm studying for a doctorate in medicine."
"Ah, following in your mother's footsteps," Asuka smirked wryly. "It must be wonderful to have parents you can be proud of."
Ami sweatdropped. "It's... nice. Yes. I'm not positive I'm going to be a doctor, though."
The older woman blinked. "Really? Why wouldn't you want to be? Too much studying?"
"No, that's not it at all," Ami pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. "Well... I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger... you know, there was this whole 'allure of saving lives' thing when I was in high school. I guess it lost its glamor along the way, somehow." Of course, she knew precisely when it had lost its glamor. When one has saved the world through violence and seen people not just healed, but resurrected through a medium as ambiguous as magic, spending years of training to practice mundane medicine hardly seemed worth it, as it was sure to be nearly inconsequential compared to her secret life as a Senshi.
"I can sympathize a bit," Asuka offered, sitting back down and handing her cousin a cup of tea. "I used to think medicine was incredible... and actually, I still do. But I find it more efficient and satisfying to save people's lives by taking others' away."
Ami wanted to be shocked or horrified by that statement, she really did, but instead, she sighed and murmured, "I know what you mean."
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "You do?"
"Er, no!" Ami shouted suddenly, jerking to attention. "I mean, I can understand where you're coming from! I've never killed anyone! Honest!"
"Oh-kay..." Asuka mumbled, sweatdropping.
"Anyway, why don't you tell me more about what you do here?" Ami insisted, still trying to cover for her slip.
The police captain took a sip of her tea. "Well, we work here to investigate and contain occult phenomenon, as well as reinforce local authorities when requested to do so. The way I like to put it is: we find what shouldn't exist, and make it stop existing."
Ami nodded. "Is concealing the existence of the phenomenon a part of your job?"
"Nah." Seeing her cousin's confused look, Asuka shrugged. "The people of Tokyo have been subjected to so many strange attacks throughout history that no public official is willing to spend the resources to cover anything up anymore. Nobody cares anymore. Besides, usually my department is so intent in killing our targets, that either there isn't enough left of the enemy to observe, or enough of the battlefield left for anybody to determine what happened, or the media decides that the extent of the damage we caused was more interesting than the enemy we were fighting."
"What kinds of enemies have you fought?"
Asuka sighed. "Mostly we have to fight a terrorist group called the Freedom's Angels, which uses a number of bio-genetically engineered weapons and cybernetically altered humans. Beyond that, we've fought with aliens, clones, demi-humans, mind-controlling parasites, a retrovirus that turns people into zombies, politicians, demons, mad scientists..." she idly tapped her head as she tried to think of more examples, and didn't notice Ami's disbelieving stare. "Let's see... recently we had to destroy a youma, and arrest the vigilante wierdoes who were fighting it."
"W-Weirdoes?" Ami asked, frowning.
"Yeah. A bunch of girls in stupid-looking cheerleading outfits throwing around magic," Asuka said off-handedly, unaware that Ami's eyebrow twitched in response to the jibe. "As far as vigilantes go, I really prefer dark, brooding religious gunmen."
"You don't say," the younger woman said through clenched teeth. 'Don't get upset... there's nothing to get excited about... the outfits ARE a little silly... she's entitled to her opinion...'
"Most recently though," Asuka continued, "we've had a new kind of enemy to deal with. In fact, we're still not certain what the enemy is."
"... Say... where are the other officers?" Ami asked, suddenly realizing that the room was completely empty except for her and Asuka, and that they had been talking alone for some time.
Asuka sighed. "They're on an investigation. Some others are on patrol. It's pretty much me and the geeks upstairs until Tekai gets back."
The younger woman blinked. "On an investigation? What kind? What are they doing, exactly?"
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "Do you REALLY wanna know?"
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KWAA-BOOOM!!

Junko winced and covered her head as flame burst out the windows of the old apartment building with great force, blowing chunks of glass and concrete onto the streets below as the entire structure shook.
Standing next to her and chuckling, Snake put away his detonator and started to dust off his hands smugly, ignorant or indifferent to the shouts of surprise and panic coming from the firefighters and normal police officers around him.
"Lieutenant, was that REALLY necessary?" Junko asked wearily. She had a fair idea of how the conversation would go from here, but still felt obligated to go through the motions.
"Of course it was! How do you suggest we deal with a zombie infestation?" Snake said condescendingly, as if it should have been obvious.
The redhead massaged her head. "'Infestation'? There was only one zombie."
"And where there's one, there's a hundred!" Snake reasoned.
"We had searched the rest of the building top to bottom..."
"Well, we had to be sure we got the one we found."
"And we'd already destroyed the first one..."
"We have no guarantee that shooting the living dead until only the lower torso remains effectively neutralizes them."
"We actually had orders to take any zombies alive, or 'undead' as it were, for study..."
"As the commanding officer, I deemed capture impossible at the time. What with my opening fire right away and throwing that napalm grenade as soon as I saw it."
"And... where's Ranma?"
Snake opened his mouth to come up with an excuse for that mishap, and then remained shock-still for a moment as nothing came to mind. "Oops."
Both DA officers slowly turned toward the burning remains the building, which was starting to crumble apart from the combined effects of the bomb blasts and subsequent fire damage.
"Wow. Assuming he survived that, he is gonna be pissed."
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"It's a minor operation to capture an undamaged zombie drone, that's all." Asuka said calmly, taking a sip from her tea. "It should be simple enough for them. Meaning they'll probably screw it up."
'Minor operation to capture a zombie?' "Uh... they'll screw it up because it's simple?"
The police captain nodded. "It's a bit of a curse. Any task given to my department that a normal man with a metal stick could handle, my men will fail to accomplish while annihilating a large stretch of land in the meantime. On the other hand, they'll show incredible valor and resilience and fight their way out of impossible odds and conquer nearly invincible enemies." She looked up for a moment, then frowned. "While annihilating a large stretch of land in the meantime. That part seems pretty much unavoidable."
Ami chuckled nervously. "You don't seem to have much faith in your subordinates... don't you think it'd be better to be encouraging and support them?"
"Tried that," Asuka mumbled, pausing to drink more tea. "Once I praised Saotome and Snake for destroying only half of an orphanage which had housed a rampaging demon hound or something. They misunderstood the word 'only', apparently, and immediately destroyed the rest of the building for me."
The younger woman started to pale, and Asuka quickly added, "This was after the structure had been evacuated, of course! There was no one inside! But as you can imagine, a lot of people were very upset. Including me."
Ami calmed herself, rationalizing that her initial disgust and outrage had been a result of the initial thought of destroying an orphanage. After all, the Senshi could hardly claim to have kept damage to minimum while combating evil. "Of course. Of course it was. So, what happened? They were punished, right?" Seeing her cousin nod, she requested further details. "So what was it? Suspension from duty? Or were they terminated?"
"No, no, nothing like that," Asuka waved off the younger girl's naivette. "I just grabbed Snake's shotgun and beat them with it until it broke. By then they were crying louder than the orphans." She then took a long sip of tea.
After several moments of silence, the police captain re-established eye contact with her cousin, only to see the younger woman staring at her with shock and horror in her eyes. "What?!"
"Y-You actually beat your subordinates?" Ami blurted, extremely alarmed.
"I don't really have a choice, if I'm to maintain discipline," Asuka said defensively, nursing her tea. "We may be officially labeled as police officers, but our work is extremely militaristic in its execution. Normal cops can be cowed with things like demerits and suspensions; for the most part, these guys can't. And for me, it's far better for my peace of mind knowing that they're under my thumb than out on their own." She took a quick sip of tea. "So ultimately, sometimes I have to resort to 'drill sergeant' style discipline."
"Does it work?" Ami asked numbly.
"Of course it does. My men fear me more than they fear the undead, flesh-eating mutants, and huge, armored war machines. The only reason they destroyed the other half of that building was because they thought I wanted them to." Then she winked at her cousin. "My boys would die for me. But they don't, because they know that would piss me off."
Despite how uncomfortable she was with the topic, Ami couldn't help but chuckle at that particular expression.

Asuka finished off her tea and put the cup down on her desk. "Well, since you show an interest in our work, would you like to know a little more about our latest case? It's turning into quite the occult mystery!"
This perked Ami's interest. If nothing else, at least it would probably be a good tidbit to offer Rei. Even if the fire Senshi was still angry at the DAPC over being arrested, and had refused to come herself (which Ami considered a good thing. She didn't need her friend to be arrested in civilian form too, for lashing out at an officer commenting on the Senshi's stupid costumes), she still wanted to hear every scrap of information Ami could glean from the department and its activities in combating the paranormal.
Getting up, the older woman beckoned Ami upstairs. "The last few weeks, we've had reports of zombie infestations all around Tokyo, and had to put them down one by one. Nothing that we haven't dealt with before."
"The undead are the usual suspects to you, huh?" Ami asked, genuinely curious.
"Not true undead, no." Seeing her cousin's confused expression, Asuka smirked. "The zombies we've fought in the past have always been normal corpses contaminated by a powerful mutagen and biochemical agent called the T-virus. The T-virus reactivates primal nerve clusters in the dead brain, and feeds on decaying cells, reproducing and eventually restoring limited function to an entire nerve complex and musculature. What you get then isn't really a revived body, but a virus animating a corpse. The T-virus is, naturally, lethal to living beings, as it has a tendency to cause rapid mutation in living cells far beyond the body's capacity to survive and adapt."
Ami frowned. "Not a 'revived body, but a virus animating a corpse'? What's the difference?"
Asuka shrugged. "It didn't seem like a meaningful distinction to me, either. Until recently." The police captain led her cousin through a hallway on the second floor. "You see, T-virus zombies are carnal, instinctive, slow, and incapable of following commands. They seem to have a limited ability to tell other T-virus zombies from living creatures, but if they have no convenient victims, it's quite common for them to start gnawing on each other. They're also usually created - at least, in all the cases we've had dealing with them - from either direct injection, wounds from other infected zombies, or a classification of mutant bio-weapon we've dubbed a 'creep'." Pausing briefly in her explanation, Asuka stopped in front of a set of steel blast doors, and removed a key card from her pocket.
"Usually, it starts with the deployment of a creep. It's capable of killing dozens of humans per hour, and each one of the dead will rise as an infected zombie." After swiping the card through a nearby magnetic slot, a green light turned on above the blast doors, and they slowly began to open.
"As you can imagine, zombie infestations can become a serious problem in this way, growing exponentially and indiscriminately. Luckily, the appearance of creeps is relatively rare, as they're nearly as dangerous to the enemy that uses them as they are to us. Even terrorists recognize the use of the T-virus as reckless and extreme."
Ami shuddered. All of this talk was starting to get to her. She may have been used to fighting magical monsters, but slaying the walking dead was an experience she didn't want to have to deal with on this side of a computer monitor. "So what is it about these zombie infestations that make them different?"
Asuka led Ami into the disinfectant chamber as she talked, and the blast doors slowly closed behind them. "These new zombies, besides containing a total number of zero T-virus organisms, operate differently. For one thing, while these new hordes do appear to take in new victims and grow over time, it's at a relatively slow and careful pace. The zombies seem slightly competent, never attack each other, and act as if they're being directed into performing simple tactics, like ambushes and coordinated swarming. Some of them use weapons."
Then the police captain glanced at Ami, and fixed her eyes on her cousin's as a light mist seeped into the cell. "But most telling of all is: they're hiding. The zombies take victims only when it seems like they can get away with it. They stay in small, enclosed spaces rather than wandering about at random. They don't want to be found... or at least, whatever controls them doesn't want to be found. Every case in which we eliminated one of these new infestations, the report of its existence came from either a victim who got lucky and escaped, or a report of a police officer who had been investigating a missing persons report, and himself had gone missing. No witnesses, no lucky sightings, no rumors."
Hssssssss... The sterilizing spray finished its job as it cleansed the two women nearly to the last bacterium, and there was a sudden rumbling noise as overhead fans quickly sucked the mist out of the small, enclosed area.
"This is... fascinating," Ami admitted, completely entranced. She was also thoroughly creeped out, sure, but she just HAD to know where this was going.
"Further analysis of... well, of what was left of the zombies revealed other interesting facts, and we began to do some research into common lore and myths to try and make an educated guess at how to fight these things. So far, we're thinking-"
At that moment, the armored doors leading to the containment lab opened swiftly, and Ami's eyes widened as a figure in a bloody lab coat suddenly stumbled forward into the sterilization cell, arms clawing wildly about while groaning harshly.
"AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Asuka winced as Ami's scream pounded her eardrum, and without missing a beat, she kicked Seras firmly in the shin.
Ami, who had instinctively clamped onto her cousin's waist in fright, watched, absolutely stupefied, as the "zombie" jerked back from the attack and began to hop around on one foot, holding its injured leg in pain.
"Tuko, for the love of Buddha KNOCK IT OFF. That's the fourth time you've pulled that joke. One would think that you'd learned your lesson after Snake tried to shoot you in the head the first time!"
The perpetually drunk medical officer tenderly rubbed his shin as he chuckled nervously. "Aw, c'mon! Do you have any idea how boring it is to be locked up in this room for twelve hours with a bunch of twitching upper torsos and Yamma?"
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "Do you know how stressful it is trying to keep order in a police department full of juvenile delinquents who parade around as armed enforcers of the peace?"
Seras was silent for a long moment, then his eyes narrowed. "You win this round, Trebeck!"
By this time, Ami had finally regained control of her breathing, and stopped clutching Asuka. "What were you thinking? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"I wish I did give you a heart attack," Seras mumbled as he took a quick sip of scotch, not noticing when Ami's eyes widened in shock (whether it was because of what he said or how he produced a large bottle of liquor seemingly out of nowhere may never be known), "then I'd get to work on a living person instead of zombies."
"Just shut up and get out of the way," Asuka snapped, shoving the inebriated scientist aside. "I'm tired of your whining about having to dissect monsters!"
"I don't ask much!" Seras protested. "I'm a doctor! I'm not supposed to have to work with dead things! It's just not kosher!"
Taking a gestural cue from Asuka to ignore the man, Ami stepped into the containment lab and took a quick look around. It looked a lot like a picture she once saw of a military surgery tent; there were several beds, each of them isolated from the rest and hidden from view with a large plastic curtain that hung on rails attached to the ceiling.
The college student shuddered involuntarily as she heard some scattered groaning from around the room. Three of the beds in the room seemed to be occupied by live creatures, judging from the twitching and shifting shadows from behind the curtains.
'Well, maybe not live creatures...' She cringed a bit as she noticed the pools of blood on the floor beneath some of the metal examination beds. This reminded her way too much of Doom 3, and in the back of her mind she sorely wished that she had a computer mouse to hold on to for comfort.

As she followed Asuka to a bed in the middle of the lab, a man emerged from a split in the curtains, this time without the pretense of being a brainless flesh beast. He was tall and thin, with very dark skin and facial features that seemed to convey a sense of gloominess and dark brooding, even though the man was clearly quite satisfied at the moment. He also wore a lab coat that used to be white, but was now stained a deep brownish-red as a result of his recent work.
"Ami, this is... uh... this is Yamama... or is it Gamma?" Asuka sweatdropped as she scratched her head.
The lanky assistant twitched. "Yamma. Yamma Gordon. It's not THAT hard to remember, is it?"
"Sure, whatever," Asuka said dismissively, turning back to her cousin. "Anyway, this is Yamma Gordon, and the idiot who pounced on us in the elevator was Seras Tuko. Tuko is the chief medical officer around here, as well as our bio-genetics and metaphysical energy expert. At least, when he isn't too sloshed to understand complete sentences. Nambla London here is his assistant, and the foremost expert on dead people."
Yamma twitched again. "You were closer the first time."
"Closer to what?" the police captain asked, blinking.
Ami decided to interrupt the awkward exchange, and hopefully learn a little more about what was going on. "So, is he a forensics expert?"
"Retired undertaker," Asuka said immediately, smirking as Ami nearly fell over.
"Hmph. Experience is experience," Yamma protested grumpily. "If you don't need a PhD to bury dead bodies, I don't see why you should need one to poke at them a little first."
"And that's PRECISELY the kind of attitude that seems to prevail around here," Asuka said bitterly, snatching a bottle of rum from an adjacent table. "'We don't need brains, we have experience!' Pfeh!" Asuka took a quick swig of the drink, causing an ever-growing sense of alarm in her already-disturbed younger cousin.
"With all due respect, Captain, our guys HAVE proven time and time again that experience does count for more than good training. Well, experience and remote bombs." Seras stumbled up beside the two bluettes, confirming that his earlier lurching movements were a result of his drunken state, rather than him trying to act the part of a zombie. "Also, that's my drink."
"You have a bloody distillery upstairs, and you complain about me grabbing a bottle? Who exactly do you think is supposed to be responsible for getting rid of that stuff, and yet lets you get away with it, numbskull?" Asuka snapped.

Ami slowly distanced herself from her cousin, seeing that the older woman was becoming increasingly irritated. "So... I heard these... zombie... specimens... are special?" She asked Yamma uncertainly, hoping that Asuka hadn't irritated the quasi-scientist too badly.
Yamma smiled faintly. "Naw, most of them aren't anything special. Total lack of T-virus contamination, sure, and strangely enough, their heart seems to be beating faintly, even creating a bit of a pulse, which is obviously strange for dead people, but they're your standard zombie stock. They lie around all day, groaning and writhing about and trying to bite whatever comes close." He gestured to the two other table setups in the lab that held animate specimens. "What's left of them shows evidence of zombie bites, so it's also fairly obvious how they ended up like this."
Then the lanky man jabbed a thumb behind him at the bed he had been observing. "This guy's a little different, though. Not in how he acts, but in how he was wounded." And then, without giving nearly enough warning about what she was about to see, the former undertaker swept the curtain to the side.
Ami blanched, and suppressed a sudden disturbance in her stomach. The zombie that was firmly bound to the examination table by steel restraints was little more than an upper torso, with one arm gone at the bicep and its head cut open and held firmly for the purpose of examination. The skin was pale, and purple veins were unusually visible along the entire body. Blood and shredded flesh covered the table and the adjacent floor, and she could see the immobilized monster grasp and writhe within its bonds in a constant, grotesque bid for freedom.
Yamma missed her reaction, as he was wont to do, and walked over behind the zombie's head excitedly. "Look at this, see? See this wound?"
"W... Which one?" Ami mumbled weakly, willing herself to observe more closely. As both a Senshi and a medical student, she would not allow herself to flee before the sight of a dead body... even if that dead body happened to be moving at the time.
"Well, not the missing limbs, obviously," Yamma said condescendingly. "Though I really hope the guys get a complete specimen soon. All the animate bodies we have to study are only still moving because of Tiro's poor marksmanship. Well, except this one."
Ami blinked. "What happened to this one?"
"Snake's chainsaw ran out of fuel before he was done."
Ami stared for a moment, then shook her head wearily. 'I'm just a little dizzy from being constantly scared out of my mind,' she told herself. 'I'm hearing things. I'm getting confused. People don't really kill monsters with chainsaws. That only happens in video games. Get a grip, woman!'
"Anyway," Yamma continued. "This is the only specimen which shows a 'clean' wound, rather than having been chewed up by other zombies. Check it out." He pointed toward the neck, apparently unconcerned that the writhing corpse began to gnash its teeth and jerk its head violently as his arm neared its mouth. "Two clean puncture wounds, with smaller, rougher teeth marks all around it. See?"
Though she didn't dare get any closer to the firmly restrained zombie, Ami managed to settle her nausea well enough to focus directly on the neck wound. "You're right... I mean, assuming this is the result of a bite as you say, whatever bit him had unusually large canines." She looked up at the lab assistant. "Did a wild animal do this?"
"A wild animal didn't make this corpse rise and attack people," Asuka suddenly said from behind Ami, causing the younger girl's heart to skip a beat in surprise (her nerves didn't show any signs of settling so long as she was surrounded by the living dead).

Turning to face her cousin, Ami saw that Asuka had apparently won her argument with Seras, judging from both the fact that she was in uncontested possession of the liquor bottle, and the fact that Seras was once again massaging a bruise on his leg.
"Do you have any leads?" Ami asked, slightly surprising herself at how eager she sounded. Granted, this was a fascinating topic, and Asuka wouldn't have led her up here just to look at all the blood unless there was more to the story, but most people who knew Ami would have assumed that such a scenario would be too morbid for her maintain an interest.
"Vampires," Asuka said simply, taking another swig from the bottle.
By the time she lowered it again, Ami was staring at her with an expression half-way between excitement and disbelief. Obviously the girl was the type to be skeptical of old myths and legends, but the reality of being surrounded by zombies had significantly weakened that skepticism.
"Keep in mind that our 'investigations' often involve researching common lore and myth and checking for similarities, but these latest batches of zombies match some of the descriptions of vampires from Western legend. Specifically, they're 'ghouls'; vampiric victims that become shambling, brainless servants under the direct control of the vampire."
Ami raised an eyebrow. "I thought people bitten by vampires became vampires."
Asuka just shrugged. "There's some conflicting tales of how it works. Some stories say only strong-willed people can defy death and become a vampire with free will. Others say the vampire itself chooses which of its victims will become vampires themselves. And one of the more popular theories is that only virgins become vampires, while 'defiled' humans become ghouls. However it happens, it seems that vampires are rarer than the ghouls, which can only be a good thing."
"But you have no conclusive evidence?" The younger woman asked cautiously. "I mean, do you even know how to fight a vampire if you encounter one?"
"Well, we find that when all else fails, we can always-" Beep! Beep! Beep!
Asuka looked startled as a fairly loud beeping noise erupted from her jacket, and quickly took out the cellular phone within. "Sorry. Excuse me for a sec."

Click! "Captain? Are you there?"
"This is Takami. What's up?" Asuka asked neutrally, preparing herself for the worst. It sounded like Junko on the other end, and she doubted that Junko would be calling her simply to report a job well done. That was Snake's job as the ranking officer, and he wouldn't have called her ahead of time rather than simply reporting back at HQ.
"Oh! Good! I was trying to reach you on the main line, but nobody at HQ picked up!"
"I'm busy upstairs right now, and Tekai is on patrol with Yamazaki. What's wrong?"
"Well... uh... first off, we completed the mission! The enemy was confirmed to be a single zombie, true undead, with no vamp infestations present. The enemy was completely destroyed."
Asuka frowned. 'I hate being right all the time.' "Capturing the enemy target proved impossible?"
"...... It's a gray area."
A vein popped up on Asuka's head. "Of course. I assume there's some other reason you're calling me?"
"Uh, yes. We also have two wounded."
Asuka's eyes widened. There had only been two people assigned to the investigation other than Junko. "Ranma and Snake were BOTH hurt? What happened? How serious is it?" Besides the various indications of wounds from the undead tending to create more undead, the prospect of an enemy force that could defeat both the DA's star weapons expert and star martial arts expert was extremely unsettling.
"Well... it's hard to say how serious it is... Snake's actually not done being wounded yet. As for Ranma, it couldn't be too bad if he still had the energy left to assault Snake after surviving the explosion."
Asuka wanted to facefault. She wanted to sweatdrop. She wanted to slap her forehead. But no matter how desperately she wanted to make a comedic reference as to the irony of the situation, she had to allow that there was absolutely no excuse to not have expected this.
"I... see. Was that all?" The police captain asked despondently.
"Well... it's just-oh! Looks like Ranma's done. Um... Snake doesn't look like he's been crippled, and he's not bleeding badly. I don't think we'll need an ambulance or anything."
"Was that ALL, Chikiko?" Asuka growled, showing her impatience.
"N-No. We, and by we, I mean Snake, blew up the apartment building we were searching. And the flames sorta spread faster than we expected. So there are a few scattered fires here among the apartments, though the area was evacuated and there are no civilian injuries reported. So... yeah... just FYI!"
Beep! Asuka nearly cracked the plastic casing of her cell phone with the force with which she pressed the "End" button, and immediately scrubbed her hair with her hand. "God damn it. WHY can't they complete a simple mission without destroying a building?"
Seras, who was too drunk to identify an obviously rhetorical question, thought about it for a moment. "Well, when you think about it, it has to be your fault for promoting a violent lunatic and a complete moron to-OW!! OW!! NO! Stop hitting me!"
Ami winced at the sight of her cousin start to swat the inebriated man in the head repeatedly. "Asuka, hold on! Just calm down! What's wrong?" 'Yeesh, she's worse than Rei!'
Asuka kicked the protesting medical officer to the side, then snarled disgustedly before taking a long sip of booze. Gulp! "Ugh! It's just some damage reports and injuries. Everyday stuff around here." The police captain noticed the younger woman frowning at the bottle she held, and then held it up in offering, misinterpretting the look. "Sorry, did you want some?"
Ami's frown twitched. "No thanks... I don't drink."
"Neither did I, until I started working here," Asuka spat, swirling the liquor about in the bottle. "This stuff is great for calming nerves... you sure you don't want any? I know we gave you a good scare before."
The younger woman shook her head firmly. "No, I don't think-"
"OH MY GOD, IT'S FREE!! YAMMA!! IT GOT YAMMA!! SWEET MOTHER OF BED AND BREAKFAST, WHY?!?!"
Glomp! Asuka sweatdropped as Ami jumped onto her in terror, clinging to her cousin's waist with a grip that could have choked the life out of a lesser woman.
Over next to the examination area, Seras tried unsuccessfully to stifle a chuckle as he saw the results of his ruse. "Snort! Ha! I can't believe you Snicker! fell for that even after the zombie joke! Wa ha ha ha ha!"
Asuka remained silent for a moment, then tapped Ami's back (she still hadn't recovered from the shock, and was still clutching Asuka around her waist) with the liquor bottle. "Here. Finish this off, and I'll use the empty bottle to strike him repeatedly."
Ami twitched. "I'm... opposed to both drinking and unnecessary violence," she said somewhat mechanically.
The police captain raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound like you really mean that."
Ami looked up at her cousin. Then she looked at the bottle being dangled next to her head. Then, still trembling slightly, she let go of Asuka and slowly took the bottle up in her hands.

Seras sweatdropped as he noticed Yamma stealthily moving away to one of the other examination beds further away.
"Uh oh..."
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Chung-chung-chung-chung-CHNK!
Igov smiled lightly as he turned away from the main assembly line, pleased with the factory's smooth progress.
All around the narrow catwalk that spanned the length of the factory, giant metal claws hauled huge pieces of metal and machinery along ceiling mounted tracks, stopping every few feet to allow dozens of articulated arms to reach out with spanners and torches, making the war machines one step closer to completion in a shower of sparks and a smoky hiss.
Crawling along at a more constant pace below him, a much longer, but smaller assembly line slowly pieced together the Mark II and III battle androids, with each piece being placed among the others with great care and precision, in stark contrast to the rough, clumsy efficiency that took place above.
The entire factory boomed with the sounds of industry, a symphony of whines and hisses and shrieks that greatly pleased the largely artificial ear of the cyborg general.

"Everything is as should be," the Russian mumbled to himself. Deeming his brief inspection of his factory complete, Igov proceeded across the catwalk toward the entrance to the armor lab... and his new weapons. The heist to steal the alien technology had been quite successful, and even if Yoshi had managed to scamper in under his notice and make off with some of the loot, Igov was quite pleased with what he found among the shattered remains of a once proud and hopeful alien colonization force.
As he neared the exit to the factory, one of the few humans to be allowed in this area, a terrorist who had been designated a technician, climbed up the ladder to the catwalk and stopped in front of Igov.
"General Yuchtzky, sir! I have a report I was told to give you!" The man held out a piece of paper, looking fairly nervous. Igov recognized it as the expression of one who had to give bad news to a superior, but wasn't likely to be shot for being the messenger. Unlike several of the other characters that the Freedom's Angels tended to attract, Igov was not known for harming subordinates for informing him of critical problems and failures.
The Russian general frowned as he took the report, noting in the back of his mind that he wouldn't be given anything out of the blue like this if it was merely a status report or inquiry.
His suspicions were confirmed as he read the title. "'Report of resource acquisition'?"
A vein popped up on Igov's head as he continued reading downward, and the engineer that handed him the report sweatdropped as a sudden popping noise was followed by a burst of steam from the collar of the general's trench coat.
"Professor Konta 'acquisition' two dozen unit with no permission?! How this happen?" The general growled, crushing the report in his hand.
The engineer gulped. Even if he was in no danger of being punished, Igov was still scary when he was mad. "We... uh... we don't know, General. As you know, your cyborgs were in charge of security and normal operations, and there's no sign of tampering or damage amongst them. But today we showed up to take stock of our production, and the units were gone, with an 'I.O.U.' note left in the middle of the lab."
Igov trembled in rage, and his free hand clutched the railing of the catwalk, which promptly twisted and snapped within his grip as if it was tinfoil. "Where Konta? Take units back!"
"W-We don't know! Professor Konta only works on the most top-secret, high-level programs now! Nobody around here knows where he is! And if we crossed him, he could dispose of us without a peep from his superiors! There's nothing we can do!"
Igov's organic eye twitched, and the man shrunk back, no longer certain that he wouldn't be creamed for being the messenger.
"Understood," the general mumbled, producing a relieved sigh from the engineer. "Igov will deal with matter personally. For now, all personnel focus on research and repair alien weapon module, shield generator, and new chronosphere."
The engineer blinked. "Uh... alien weapon module? I'm guessing you didn't read the part at the bottom of the report? The part where it lists the specific units taken?"
"............" Psssht! Another burst of steam from the cyborg's collar, coupled with the railing on the other side of the catwalk being crushed like a Pixie Stik, told the engineer that he had pushed his faith in Igov's rationality quite far enough.
"Oh! Look at the time! I should be doing regularly scheduled maintenance! DON'T KILL ME!!" Without waiting for any response from the cyborg, he flung himself off the catwalk and dropped to the metal floor below, gladly accepting the temporary injuries from the fall over the completely fatal strike Igov could implement with a simple backhand.
His face still contorted in rage, Igov looked up toward the ceiling. "KOOOOOOOOOOOONTAAAAAAAAA!!!"
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As Ami slowly stumbled through the dormitory halls as she made her way back to the room she shared with Minako and Usagi, she was feeling rather unsure as to whether she wanted to share her story about meeting her cousin or not.
Her friends and fellow Senshi seemed quite interested in her meeting her long-lost family member, but the actual meeting had been nothing like Ami had imagined, and she was still feeling buzzed from the rum.
She had only tried alcohol once before, and the situation had spun out of control so fast that it was still a tale of some popularity around the college a year later. This time it had been very different though; her intake had been limited, and instead of being too inebriated to remember what had happened afterward, she simply felt pleasantly light-headed, which was a welcome feeling after having her heart leap into her throat no less than four times within an hour. It had also made the sight of a grown man being pummeled with a hunk of glass far more amusing than it would have been otherwise for the mild-mannered girl.
Shaking her head, Ami forced herself to stand straight and move more rigidly. She had lectured the others quite frequently on the dangers of drinking, and it would not do to show any indication of hypocrisy to them.

"Usagi-chan? Are you back yet?" Ami called as she entered the room, only to stop short at the sight before her.
Minako sat on her bed, her head down as she pressed a cloth over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were clouded with tears, and the deformities in her makeup indicated that she had been sobbing for some time. Ami sobered immediately, feeling her buzz vanish as an overwhelming sense of dread settled within her.
"Mina-chan! Oh my God! What's wrong?" Ami gasped and quickly dashed over to her friend, who jerked her head up in surprise at seeing the bluette enter.
"A-Ami... I..." Minako tried to speak, but suddenly began to choke on her tears once more, and lowered her head as she smothered her face with the washcloth. "Why? Sob! Why did this have to happen?"
Ami grasped the blonde by the shoulders and then got on her knees so that she could look into Minako's eyes. "Mina-chan, please, calm down! Tell me what happened!"
Mentally, Ami started running through all the things that could have left one of her most cheerful friends in such a horrible state. A cheating boyfriend, perhaps? Not likely, as Minako rarely invested her energy in actual relationships instead of short flings nowadays.
That thought opened up several new possibilities within Ami's mind. Minako frequently attended parties that encouraged moral depravity, and had a high percentage of drunk, horny men. 'Uh oh...'
Ami shuddered as Minako's crying slowed to a more coherent pace. Probably best to wait for the answer rather than jump down that line of conclusions.
"It's just... it's too late now..." Minako blubbered, turning her head away slightly so that she didn't hold eye contact with Ami. "Usagi... there's nothing I can do now..."
New alarms began going off in Ami's mind. "Usagi? Something happened to Usagi?! What is it? What's going on?"
Then, suddenly, Minako stared right into Ami's eyes, and grabbed her arms, as if afraid that the bluette would try to run away from her.
"Ami-chan... I'm pregnant with Mamoru's child!"

Despite the pregnant pause (pun intended) that followed Minako's declaration, Ami's mind was by no means stunned into inactivity like her mouth.
After the initial shock from the revelation, which was not unlike a brick being thrown through a glass window that represented the sense of order and reason of her life as she knew it, Ami pushed the entirety of her formidable brain power toward coming up with an appropriate response to encompass her confusion, disappointment, fear, outrage, and embarrassment.
"Say whaaaa?" the bluette mumbled, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy. It felt sort of like the alcohol buzz she had enjoyed earlier, but far, far less comforting.
"We were both drunk and didn't think anything of it at the time," Minako choked out between trembling breaths, "we even used a condom! But... it... it just... came off, I guess, and... I..." She let out another sob. "What am I gonna do? How can I face Usagi?"
Ami twitched. Her heart was racing again, and her entire body was feeling a bit weak. 'Damn it! Why am I the one to get slammed with this? I'm not supposed to be the friend that everyone confides in and talks to for emotional support! I'm the friend that fixes dropped laptops and hooks up new broadband routers! Where the hell is Usagi when you... oh, right...'
"All right... let's just... t-take it easy for now," Ami said placatingly, noting that Minako's pitiful expression of regret and self-loathing had been replaced by a desperate and manic one. "There's... uh... there's no need for Usagi to know, right? You're sorry it happened, and don't want anything to do with Mamoru ultimately, right?"
"Yes! Yes!" Minako cried hopefully. "He doesn't even know about it yet!"
"Th-Then we can just... pass it off as being some stranger's baby! Mamoru won't even know about it; as far as he's concerned, you used protection." Ami concluded, feeling slightly sickened by this turn of events.
Minako nodded slowly. "But won't the guilt slowly gnaw away at me until I finally confess the truth, ultimately making the damage a dozen times worse?"
Ami twitched again. "Hey, these kinds of issues are not my strong suit! Do you want my help or not?!"
Wincing, the blonde girl nodded desperately. "Thank you so much Ami! I love you!" Before the other girl could try to extract herself from the area, Minako quickly snatched her up in a hug, squeezing the blue-haired girl tightly as she sniffled.
"Aaaaaaaand... Cut!"

Ami blinked as Makoto's voice came from behind her, and whirled around to see the ponytailed girl emerge from the closet across from Minako's bed, holding a video camera.
"Nice! That was perfect!" Makoto said cheerfully, giving Minako a thumbs-up.
"Thanks," the blonde answered, letting go of Ami to rub her face thoroughly with her washcloth. "I'm really tired now, though. It's exhausting to keep up the tears for that long."
The taller woman grinned. "Hey, don't sweat it. You were great. This is sure to be a hit!"
It was about this time that Minako and Makoto noticed that Ami seemed to be unusually tense, and actually getting tenser. Her face, which had been quite pale a moment ago, was flushed red, and her hands kept clenching and unclenching at her sides.
"What. Is. This?" The bluette asked, her left eye twitching.
Minako stifled a giggle. "Oops. You totally believed all that, didn't you? I'm sorry; it was all just for a tape I'm making."
"A TAPE?!?!" Ami shouted, clenching her teeth. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! I thought you were serious! And this was all just some sick joke?!"
Minako raised an eyebrow, wondering why Ami was so enraged. Sure, what she had gone through wasn't nice in any respect, but it wasn't like her to get so angry. "No, not a joke. It's for my drama class. We would have just asked you to play the part... but... well..." Minako looked embarrassed for a moment, then just spit it out. "You really can't act worth beans. And since Mako-chan is in a different part of the video as a different character..."
Makoto smirked, and tapped the video camera. "We decided to see if we could trick you into acting realistic. And what an interesting result! 'Hide the baby, Usagi doesn't have to know,' huh?"
"GIVE ME THAT TAPE!!" The part-time Senshi of Mercury snarled, suddenly lunging at Makoto and tackling the taller girl to the ground.

Minako sweatdropped as she watched the Makoto, caught completely off-guard, try and wrestle a surprisingly determined and vicious Ami away from the camcorder, which she managed to hold just out of Ami's reach.
"Wow. I guess Uncle Tom's paying Ami-chan a visit today, huh?"
Luna poked her head out from under Minako's bed, which is where she had been hiding out of sight of the camera while they were recording. "It's 'Aunt Flo', not 'Uncle Tom'. And I think it's more likely she's just had a bad day."
"A bad day?" Minako said skeptically. "But didn't she spend the day visiting her long-lost cousin? I thought she'd be happy."
"Maybe it wasn't a joyful reunion," Luna guessed, jumping onto the blonde's lap to get a better view of the fight.

"Would you just-OW!!-calm down? What's wrong with-Oof!-you? Stop it! OW!! Keep your elbows off of my boobs!" Makoto complained, trying to push away on Ami's forehead with one arm while using the other to keep the video camera in the air just out of the smaller girl's reach.
"Give me that tape! Hand it over, or help me God, I'll give your computer a virus so bad YOU'LL be in bed for a week!" Ami really was trying to get the camcorder without touching anything "sensitive", but she had nearly been pushed to the brink of her sanity today, and just KNEW that her friends wouldn't hesitate to humiliate their high-and-mighty team genius for a few giggles. Besides, Makoto was one of the most well-endowed women she knew; and with how tall she was, it was hardly feasible for a much shorter girl like Ami to reach the end of her arm without the use of "handholds".
"OW!! OW!! Stop that! Those were NOT made for climbing! Okay! I give! Uncle!"

Minako bit her lip as she watched Ami jump up and down on her video tape repeatedly, trying to think of a relativley non-volatile topic to try and ease the resident genius into the subject of having destroyed a vital part of her studies.
"So... uh... how was your cousin? Did you have a good time?" The blonde asked cheerfully, inwardly marveling at the numerous uses for keen acting skills.
"Not really, no," Ami said irritably, kicking the remains of the cassette across the floor. "It was fascinating, exciting, surprising, and... educational. But not very enjoyable."
"Really? What happened?" Makoto asked worriedly, idly massaging her abused bosom as she squeezed Ami's shoulder with her other hand. "Did your cousin not want to talk to you or something?"
Ami shook her head, though she was hardly placated by the sudden concern. "No, Asuka and I talked a lot. And she's doing fine. She was happy to see me again. But..." she shuddered suddenly. "Let's just say that the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment is a scary place. And they deal with scary things."
Makoto raised an eyebrow. "So? We deal with scary things."
"No, not really," Ami deadpanned. "We deal with dangerous things. The only thing scary about our enemies is that they want to kill us, and they have the power to do so. The DA officers deal with SCARY things."
Minako stared at the blue-haired girl blankly. "I don't follow."
Ami sighed, then took a moment to think up a response. "Okay, it's like this: as Sailor Venus, you have enough power to blow up a small building, right?"
The blonde girl nodded.
"Right. And yet, you remember what happened when Shiori showed you her pet tarantula?"
Minako's eyes went slightly blank, and she began shivering as her entire body went stiff.
Makoto sweatdropped as she watched the blonde hug her legs to her chest, whimpering. "Ah. I see."
"It's really amazing what those people go through with only a gun and a flak vest," Ami muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Big spiders?" Luna asked skeptically, not noticing when Minako flinched.
"The living dead," Ami shot back, obviously still irritated. "And don't even tell me they were just making it up. I just want to forget everything that happened there besides drinking tea with my cousin."
"Wow," Makoto was both impressed and not a little worried about how fully Ami had been affected by her experience that day. "If YOU were that scared, I'll bet Usagi was bawling the whole time!"
Ami had been moving toward the kitchen when Makoto finished speaking, and stopped short. "Wait, what? Usagi wasn't with me."
"She wasn't? But I thought she wanted to go," Luna asked, frowning as best as cat could manage.
"She did. But I haven't seen her since yesterday morning. I had assumed Minako had taken her out or something."
Minako managed to push thoughts of large, hairy arachnids out of her mind, and looked worriedly at her friends. "I spent the night in Mako-chan's room; we were studying for that psyche test next week. The last time I saw Usagi was the same time you did."
Ami frowned deeply. "Well, then where could she have gone without telling any of us? She never goes ANYWHERE by herself."
"Did anybody try calling her?"
Luna shook her head. "Her cell is on her desk, see? Although she usually only leaves it behind when she leaves for class."
The three girls and the cat all took a moment to think in silence, each one pondering where their leader could be.
Suddenly, Makoto raised an eyebrow. "You know... there is one thing she does without any of us around..."
The others looked at her expectantly, and the brunette grinned.
Instead of speaking further, Makoto snatched up Minako's blanket and wrapped it over her shoulders, and then grabbed a red rose from the flower pot that Usagi kept on top of the book case. Then she held the rose in the air while keeping one end of the blanket clasped around her neck, like a cape.
"Fear not, Sailors!" Makoto said in a deep, masculine-sounding voice, "For I am here to shout cheesy, effeminate encouragements safely out of the line of fire after distracting the enemy with pretty flowers!"
Minako had to fight a chuckle at the taller girl's antics. It had always been a slightly sore point with Makoto that Mamoru frequently stole the spotlight in the middle of a battle while barely contributing to the fight.
Ami was less amused. "But doesn't she brag about it whenever she goes out with Mamoru? It seems unreasonable for nobody to have known about it ahead of time."
Makoto's grin actually got wider. "Ah, but if you recall, Usagi's been dating Mamoru, and for that matter planning their wedding, for years, but claims they still haven't had any... 'bedroom bonanzas' yet. If she decided that she was going to go out with him and take it all the way, do you think she'd have the nerve to tell us first?"
Minako's eyes widened. "And if she didn't come back last night... OMIGOSH!! Gimme the phone! Quick! Quick! Someone find Mamoru's number! I must hear details at once!"
Ami sweatdropped as she watched Minako start to rummage through Usagi's things, looking for her address book. "Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions here? I think she'd at least have the decency to tell me she couldn't come with me to meet my cousin."
Makoto shrugged. "Do you have a better explanation? Besides, if she had canceled any plans, then someone would have asked why. Maybe it was a distraction tactic."
"It might sound mean, but I really don't give her that much credit," Ami said bluntly.
"Hush!" Minako shouted, holding the phone up to her ear. "It's ringing!"
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Mamoru winced and clenched his teeth as he tenderly massaged his thigh, the pain causing several tears to leak out of the corners of his eyes.
"I STILL don't know what the hell happened back there... I sensed Usagi was in trouble, and then... ugh." The shots had come out of nowhere, and the masked support character of the Inner Senshi forces had not been remotely prepared for a fight, never mind dealing with a sniper. Heck, it was supposed to be the other way around!
"Stupid coward, shooting me when I was distracted," Mamoru mumbled, laying down on his bed in his relatively large apartment. He had only recently gotten home from climbing down the office building he had been stranded on, and the journey had been long and extremely painful.
Mamoru had an enhanced regenerative ability just like his allies, so while he had been completely unprepared to take a bullet, and had lain helplessly on top of a building all night, the normal risks of shock, blood loss, and infection were null. Even now the wound had completely healed, without even a scar.
The flip side was that these abilities had apparently been created without bullets in mind. Which wasn't all that unreasonable, as all the ranged hits he had taken in the past were more-or-less energy based, and didn't leave an inch-long hunk of lead lodged in one of his most valuable muscles.
The part-time masked hero, part-time intern tried to ignore the throbbing agony in his legs as he thought over his dilemma. Going to a surgeon was the most obvious answer, but he was fairly certain he'd have to explain how the bullet got into his leg without any indication of an entry wound whatsoever. It could even lead to a police query if they were overly concerned about how he got shot. Perhaps it was a minor problem compared to the bullet itself, but if there was a less conspicuous way to get the damned things removed, he would be glad to avoid the unwanted attention.
The worst part, of course, was that the sense of Usagi being in danger, that urged him frequently to don his questionable monster-fighting attire and depart so that he could lend crucial verbal support, had disappeared for only a little while before it came back full force. Continued exposure for hours on end had let him get in some valuable practice in ignoring it (seeing how he wasn't about to rush out and help in his current shape), but it was still there, buzzing in the back of his head and keeping any chance of sleep at bay.
Brrring! Brrring! Mamoru growled as his phone started ringing in his ear; yet another annoyance to keep him from finding any peace in his mangled state.
Picking up the phone, he made no attempt to mask his current frustration when he spoke. "Who is this, and what do you want?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then Minako's voice responded meekly. "It's me, Mina. Uhm... hi?"
Mamoru calmed down slightly at hearing the blonde's voice. "Hi. Did you want something? I'm kind of busy right now."
"You are? Ah ha! So I take it Usagi's there with you?"
"No, as a matter of fact, she's not," he said, feeling his irritability rise as the buzzing in the back of his mind got louder with a simple mention of that name, "I haven't seen her, or anyone for that matter, all day. Or night. Or the night before that."
"... Why not? Been pulling some long shifts at the office?"
"Long shi-LOOK HERE!" Mamoru shouted angrily, "I was stranded on the top of that office building for two days with a bullet in each leg! I just got home, and there are about a dozen messages on my machine! I still haven't eaten since I was shot! And who knows how much trouble I'm going to get into for missing work yesterday while I was up on the roof bleeding! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find a good surgeon who won't ask too many questions! Goodbye!"
Click!
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Minako blinked as she heard the line disconnect, and somberly replaced the telephone on its base.
Makoto, Ami, and Luna all waited anxiously for the verdict, both of them having only heard Minako's end of the conversation.
"Well? What's going on?" Makoto asked eagerly.
Frowning deeply, the blonde sat down cross-legged on her bed and crossed her arms over her chest, appearing to be in deep contemplation. "It would seem... corporate Japan is far more cutthroat than we could have possibly imagined."
The others sweatdropped. "And Usagi?" Luna asked.
"No craps," the blonde responded, to the absolute confusion of the others.
"I think you mean 'no dice'," Ami mumbled, "and this is getting ridiculous."
"I agree. As running gags go, it's pretty pathetic," Makoto said condescendingly while looking at Minako.
"Not THAT," Ami murmured, rubbing her head. "Where could Usagi have gone off to? Maybe she's with Rei?"
Minako shook her head. "I doubt it. Rei's been running through the library looking at DAPC articles since last night. Why would Usagi pull her away from that to do something without inviting any of us? And you KNOW Usagi wouldn't want to join her."
Makoto, smacked a fist into her upraised palm. "Ah! Maybe she's visiting Hotaru!"
"Hotaru's been on a class trip to Okinawa since yesterday," Luna said, shaking her head. "She won't be back for a week."
"Visiting Haruka and Michiru?"
The others stared at Minako. "Why would she do that?" Makoto finally asked.
"Dunno. Worth a shot, though."

Ami sighed and then started walking toward the fridge. "Well, now I'm worried. You guys call Rei and Haruka and make sure she isn't with either of them. I guess I'll run a search on the Mercury computer." Then she mumbled under her breath, "Geez, I'm starting to get a headache... crazy blondes."
As Minako got to work back in the main room, Ami opened the refrigerator and, per habit, reached for some juice. On the refrigerator door, however, she spied several tall cans of Asahi, and her hand stopped short.
She glanced at the beer, and her hand twitched. Among the inner Senshi, Makoto was the only one who was legal to drink, even if she had turned twenty only recently. But college life being the way it was, and given that alcohol was freely available for purchase from vending machines all across Tokyo, the law hadn't managed to keep quite the stranglehold on teenage life that it had hoped for. Minako regularly indulged herself, both during parties and at home, Rei considered herself a "social drinker", and the two had convinced Usagi to try a bit every so often (more often it was Rei, as she didn't have to share a dorm room with the girl and her wretched hangovers).
Certain parts of Ami's brain protested; if for no other reason, she couldn't let her friends see her drinking when she had lectured them against it so often. Another part, which seemed much more friendly and reasonable, told her that if anything, they'd be happy for her, glad that she had started to relax more, and that she'd just do a better job of fitting in amongst her beloved friends and fellow Senshi.
Her willpower vanquished, the blue-haired woman grabbed one of the tall aluminum cans and closed the fridge, popping it open as she walked toward her closet.

"Well, she's not with Rei," Minako mumbled. "And Ami, Rei says that she's going to come over so you can tell her about... uh... wait..." The blonde stared incredulously at Ami as she crossed the room toward her own desk, where the Mercury computer laid buried beneath a disorganized mound of video game controllers and PS2 disk cases. "Ami? Are you drinking beer?"
Makoto and Luna's heads snapped around, and they too stared wide-eyed as the resident hacker gave them all an annoyed glare.
"Is that a trick question, or what?" The bluette deadpanned, raising the can up to take a long gulp. 'Hmmm... not as good as the rum... but not bad.'
"But... you don't drink," Makoto mumbled. Just how bad a day did Ami HAVE?
"Until today, I didn't act, either," Ami snapped as she freed the Mercury computer from the rest of her belongings and booted it up. "Are you going to call Haruka, or what?"
"Right! Right away," Minako said nervously, starting to feel a bit disturbed by the normally mousy girl's attitude.

As Minako and Ami worked, Luna and Makoto watched the latter of the two chug the rest of the beer down. Within moments the blue-haired hacker was finished with it, and tossed the empty can toward the garbage can by the bed as she wiped her mouth with her other arm. Neither of the two spectators were surprised that she missed.
"Wow. She must have picked up that technique from Rei," Makoto whispered, both perturbed and impressed by the sight. Rei may have clung to the title "social drinker," but she certainly wasn't fooling anyone.
"Do you think we should stop her?" Luna whispered. "Or... you know, say something?"
"If it'll get her to mellow out a bit, I say let her chug herself asleep," the ponytailed woman mumbled, once again massaging her right breast.
Minako pouted as she hung up the phone, and then shrugged her shoulders. "Well, Haruka's place was a bust. I got the machine. Either they're out somewhere, or they're..." She started making strange gestures with her hands, which the others took every opportunity to ignore; they knew what she meant. "And I don't really know why Usagi would be with them. I mean, with them out somewhere! I wasn't implying that she would be... I mean, why would she be? She obviously not like that. Curious and adventurous maybe, but certainly not absolutely, definitively... why are you looking at me like that?"
Luna turned away, deciding that Minako's trail of thought was an awkward and unnecessary distraction from the matter at hand. "I swear, how could Usagi have left overnight without telling anybody? It's irresponsible!"
"Uhm... guys?"
Minako, Makoto, and Luna all turned toward Ami, who was pointing a trembling hand toward the glowing monitor screen of her computer.
"I... I don't think you're gonna like this."
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"So lemme get this straight," Ranma said irritably, his left eye twitching. "I walk in here with a bloody shoulder and second-degree burns..."
The pigtailed man pointed toward Snake, who was holding a wet cloth over one eye while using a long rifle as a crutch. "Those injuries led to Snake walking in here with four minor fractures, two dislocations, a black eye, and probably a decent bit of internal bleeding, too."
"I SAID I was sorry," the Lieutenant mumbled, earning no sympathy from anybody.
"And now that we've dragged our mangled bodies five miles from the nearest hospital to get here, we find out that Seras can't help us, because HE somehow managed to get a severe concussion?"
Asuka nodded. "That's the long and short of it. Sorry," she mumbled noncommittally. She felt bad for Ranma, and sort of felt sorry for Snake, she really did. But acknowledging that sympathy would have led to guilt, and once she started feeling guilty about severely hurting her subordinates, then her entire management style fell into question.
Junko frowned disapprovingly and crossed her arms under her breasts. "Geez! What was that man up to? Did he fall down the stairs again?"
"Fall down the stairs..." Asuka said bemusedly. "I can neither confirm nor deny that statement as fact."
As the three returning officers started grumbling about Seras' incompetence, Asuka felt that she had sufficiently deflected suspicion from herself, and decided to change the subject.
"So, the target was completely destroyed? No chance of recovering any useful remains?"
"No, Ma'am! No chance of recovery at all, Ma'am!" Snake said proudly, managing to stand up straight and salute while still leaning on his gun.
"And you have no memory at all of being told to capture any confirmed zombies relatively unharmed?"
"No, Ma'am! No chance of memory at all, Ma'am!" Snake lied proudly, still standing up straight.
Asuka sighed. "I see. Whatever." She turned slightly to face Junko. "Well, seeing how Tuko has mysteriously been injured, and Sakura no longer works here, you're the closest thing we have to a nurse. I guess you'll have to take care of them."
"She's a psychiatrist," Snake pointed out. "Both me and Ranma are trained in regular first aid. We can-MRGHFF!" His protest was silenced as a piece of cloth was suddenly wrapped around his mouth from behind.
Ranma was reasonably uncomfortable with this turn of events. Not so much with people manhandling Snake, as that would be quite hypocritical of him, but more from the fact that Junko had used her shirt as a gag. "At least she's wearing a bra this time..."
The redhead giggled, and wrapped an arm around Snake's neck before pulling him close, and squishing his head against her breasts. "Don't worry boys, I'll take REAL good care of you. Now lets find a nice, private room where we can make you feel better, hmm?"
"HMGHRPHL!" Snake said, waving one arm in the air and gesturing to Asuka for help.
"Er... actually, I think my contrived healing abilities have started kicking in now," Ranma started to back away toward the door. "So I think I'll just go back out on pa-HEY!" The martial artist cried out in surprise as Junko managed to grab his pigtail with her free hand. "Ow! No! Stop!"
Junko grinned and began to drag both men along with her as she approached the women's locker room (which was now practically a private room, with a total of two officers who could use it). "Don't be such a baby! I'm going to make you feel MUCH better..."
"I'm VERY uncomfortable about this!" Ranma shouted impotently as he was hauled inside.
"Mgrphn," Snake agreed sourly.

Outside the locker room, Asuka sweatdropped as she watched the door slam shut.
"...... I wonder if that was the right thing to do." Then she shrugged. "Oh well. Can't start doubting my decisions all the time. Now what happened to that damage report?"
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Kyle and Tiro laid back in the reclining car seats of the DAPC police cruiser as they waited out the length of their patrol, cups of flavored ice sitting in the holders between them.
While Snake and Ranma took their duty to seek out and destroy the numerous abominations that threatened Japan seriously (though in Snake's case that was just a good excuse for searching out things to kill), Tiro, to put it simply, did not. He participated in battles not because he desired to fight or even because he had a duty to fight, but because he was being paid a very good salary to fight, and because there were certain times that fleeing was infeasible.
He was a coward. He freely admitted to being a coward. And he weathered the insults and disgust of greater, braver souls with an indifference found only in those that have nothing in the way of dignity or pride.
Despite this, Asuka had even managed to make the DAPC's laziest, most lecherous member into a useful enough combat asset to justify his salary, though much to Tiro's despair, she favored him mostly as a decoy.
Balancing out this clear act of abuse on the battlefield was the fact that Tiro rarely did any work outside of battle, and always got away with it. Patrols were spent cruising college campuses looking for cute girls, or simply relaxing outside of a favored ice cream parlor. Of course, there were other tasks that Tiro could have been given that were harder to weasel out of, but they were usually important enough that Asuka wouldn't dare leave them to someone of Tiro's incompetence.
Kyle, on the other hand, did not share any of Tiro's views or flaws, but was gullible enough to be manipulated like a block of putty. The blond man may have been the second highest rank in the department, but that didn't fool anybody as to his ability to make decisions. Thus it was that he had been convinced, with nothing but Tiro's assurances, that relaxing and eating was a greater service to the public than actively doing their jobs.
Alone together, the two police officers embodied such uselessness that their sloth almost became a force unto itself. Laziness coupled with stupidity, cowardice with apathy, and lechery with childish curiosity. They were perfectly flawed.
Which isn't to say, of course, that the two didn't react at all when an unguided explosive missile stabbed into the front of a parked car, blowing it apart into flaming chunks of shrapnel and shredding the two adjacent cars. They just took their time about it.

Sluuuurp! Kyle put down his shaved ice and scratched his head as he looked out the window at the blazing wreck that used to be a blue 1998 Honda. "Wow. Didn't see that coming."
"Nope. It was pretty sudden," Tiro mumbled, craning his neck slightly to look outside while trying to ignore shouting civilians rushing past them.
Kyle frowned, and remained silent for a moment. "Should we do something? Like... I dunno... stop whatever it is that's blowing up cars?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's not be hasty here!" Tiro chided the taller man. "Too many people have died from rushing into action without a plan! First things first: are we in any immediate danger?"
The lieutenant commander shrugged. "Probably. I'd think that a guy firing missiles at cars would probably want to destroy the one with police in them."
"Or WOULD he?" Tiro said, eating a bite of his ice with a spoon. "I mean, our car is clearly marked, and it's considerably larger than those adjacent. If one had the intention of blowing up cars at all, would one not start with the vehicle likely to possess officers of the peace? Officers that would take up arms immediately to stop the miscreant if they didn't have better things to do?"
Kyle grimaced as he tried to find a way out of that logic. He failed. "I guess you're right. What's the plan?"
"Well, naturally, as you're the superior officer that's up to you," Tiro said, smirking. "However, I would recommend, Commander, that we lay low and wait to see if the problem resolves itself. That way, we increase our chances of gathering useful intel, and conserve more energy for our eventual response, should one become necessary!"
"Whoa... uh, I mean, YES! That's what we'll do! Proceed with laying low!"
Tiro grinned. "Yes, Sir!"

Atop the building it had been standing on when it fired the missile, Unit Shin-Alpha stoically awaited the response of its targets with the type of careless patience only a machine could muster.
Any human in the android's place would have assumed that the targets weren't present. After all, what kind of police officers sat cooped up in their patrol car while some lunatic was destroying motor vehicles right in front of them?
For Shin-Alpha though, the presence of the officers was not in question. Its sensors could easily pick up the two adult males lounging in the clearly marked DAPC patrol vehicle, and its more advanced sensors could even detect the unique bio-energy pattern generated from Kyle's genetically altered body.
Eventually though, even the cold, calculating battle android had to conclude that its original plan had failed. The targets had not budged from the spot, even though the civilians had long ago run screaming from the scene of the explosion, leaving only a few scattered pedestrians pointing at her from behind scattered mailboxes, benches, and other forms of inadequate cover.
Revising its intelligence on the situation, Shin-Alpha came to the only acceptable conclusion: the targets had not noticed the blast. Response: Create another blast with greater visibility.
Cha-chunk! Loading up another wrist rocket, Yoshi's personal battle android took aim.

KWA-THOOM!!
Tiro winced and shielded his eyes as the car parked two vehicles ahead of them detonated violently, causing the car directly behind it, and directly in front of the patrol car, to bounce up from the force.
Kyle frowned once again as bits of metal bounced off the windshield. "Wow. That one was pretty close. Should we do something now?"
Tiro snorted. "Hardly. Remember what I said about gathering more intel? Tell me, what can you divulge from this latest explosion?"
"Well, obviously that depends on what 'divulge' means," Kyle said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"The answer, my dull, over-muscled friend, is that we can now confirm that, with two rocket attacks and no impact against our vehicle, whoever is doing the shooting either isn't trying to hit us, or has really bad aim and will probably run out of ammo before they hit us."
Kyle looked worried about that assessment. "Are you sure we can count on them missing our car until they run out of rockets?"
Chuckling, Tiro once again picked up his flavored ice. "Lieutenant, there aren't many things in this world you can really count on, but the incompetence of others is surely one of them." He finished off his ice, then sighed as he put the cup down. "Besides, I have a sense of self-preservation like freakin' Spider Man. If anybody were to launch a missile at us, I'd be out the door and in the alleyway before you'd even see it coming."
"Ah, I see," Kyle mumbled, nodding to himself and completely missing the fact that the described scenario would have ended with him being blown up.

For a rare occasion, Tiro was partially correct. While Shin-Alpha had been missing the police vehicle quite deliberately, it only had two wrist rockets in its total inventory of munitions, given the expensive nature of the weapons, and the limited storage space on the lithe android's body.
"Mission objective in danger. Initial battle-plan subroutines overridden. Initializing subroutine 3-1-1 beta: Improvise."
Shnk! The Tesla claws on both wrists extended from their housing within the android's forearms, and Unit Shin-Alpha leapt off its perch down to the street below.

"You see, NOW I'm getting the sense that we're in trouble," Tiro murmured, glancing out the window.
"Is it another missile?"
Tiro shook his head. "No... I don't-"
C-CRACK! A thunderous crunch could be heard all along the street as a lithe, well-endowed redhead with cat-like sensor fins atop her head landed hard in the middle of the street, causing the asphalt to buckle and crack all around her.
"Oh, hell..." Tiro's eyes widened as he recognized one of the few voluptuous female bodies he had never wanted to see again.
"Hey! It's Shin... something! Tiro, what should we-" Turning around to ask his subordinate and "friend" for advice, he found that, as promised, the lecher's door was open and he was nowhere to be found. "Whoa. That was QUICK."
Frowning, the lieutenant turned to look out the driver-side window, and noted that the deadly battle android was simply standing in the crater it had made, staring at the patrol car expectantly.
"Huh. Probably for the best that he ran away. Wouldn't want him getting hurt." Gripping one hand into a fist, the relatively docile war machine that was Kyle Tekai opened his door and stepped out onto the street, prepared to do battle.

"All right, what do you want?" Kyle asked as he slowly made his way toward the robot, cracking his knuckles menacingly. "We were on patrol, you know. And if there's one thing Tiro hates, its having to stop a crime or random act of destruction when... uh..." The blonde trailed off as Shin-Alpha suddenly bolted away from him, and started sprinting down the road at top speed.
"Was it something I said?" The lieutenant asked nobody in particular, noticing that the android stopped about half a mile down the road and turned toward him, ignoring the scattering pedestrians and the fleeing cars all around.
Tiro poked his head out of the alley he had been hiding in. "Is she gone yet?"
Kyle shook his head. "No. She's running, but... not all at once. I think she wants us to follow her."
"Which we're not going to do, right?" Tiro asked, slowly emerging from the alley.
The blonde man blinked. "Well, she did come all this way, and we made her have to blow up two cars to get our attention. It'd be rude to keep ignoring her."
Tiro massaged his forehead as Kyle's stupidity started to wander into an extreme that even he would have difficulty dealing with. "No, it wouldn't. It's perfectly polite to not follow the enemy into a trap. I advise a retreat."
Kyle sighed. "Well, I guess if you're... wait... what's it doing?"
The two police officers watched curiously as Shin Alpha walked to the side of the road and picked up a parked car, lifting it high above its head.
"It's probably just going to keep smashing cars trying to get us to follow it. I firmly suggest that, er..." Tiro trailed off as the android hurled the car toward the two officers, and he quickly fell flat onto the ground.
WHAM!! CRRRRRNCH! The sounds of steel grinding against steel assaulted the officers' ears as the thrown vehicle struck their patrol car, smashing the two cars together into one bouncing wad of debris.
Kyle frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "And now I suppose you want to try and outrun her?"
Tiro sighed. It looked like there was no getting out of this one. Although he had no idea why the FA's most advanced battle android would bother to lead them into a trap when it could probably kill the both of them before any kind of backup could arrive. Kyle was strong, and ridiculously tough, but Shin-Alpha was fast, and equipped with much better weapons than either of them had on hand.
'Wait... backup. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea.' Tiro thought, pulling out his cell phone. "Okay, fine. We'll follow her, but I'm sure as hell not going after that thing with just the two of us."
"Good idea! Let's go!"
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"Damn. Are you sure?" Asuka mumbled as she quickly typed some notes into the computer, the phone mouthpiece being held against her shoulder with her head.
"... Yup, that's Shin-Alpha. You realize it's probably a trap, right? It's obviously trying to lead you somewhere."
The blue-haired woman waited as Tiro explained his feelings in that regard.
"Right. So your first thought is to get more of us down there for them to kill. Maybe it's not just trying to get rid of you two?"
Another pause followed her rhetorical question.
"Don't be stupid. Kyle and the car are the only assets down there worth anything. And the car's already gone."
This pause was much shorter.
"Why yes, I was calling you worthless. I'm glad to see you pick up on these things. That brainpower might just get you promoted one day!" Asuka said in a bright and cheerful voice. "No. I was mocking you again."
The police captain sighed. "Anyway, we'll be down there soon. Try and figure out... no, wait, never mind. Just go on and follow it. You and Kyle would probably be the most likely ones to survive whatever it is they have planned anyway. The rest of us will back you up."
There was a final pause, and Asuka smirked.
"That's why I'm the tactician, and you're the bait. Move out!" Dropping the earpiece back on the receiver, Asuka finished the notes about Shin-Alpha's latest appearance. "Limited skill in understanding human perceptions... not unexpected from an A.I. At least we can be sure this isn't one of Igov's traps." The cyborg general would have at least done it more gracefully. It probably would have still been an obvious ploy, but Igov had a way of making his ploys look masterful and intimidating, even when they failed.
Getting up from her desk, Asuka quickly walked toward the women's locker room, where she assumed the rest of her force still was. "If we do this right, we can finally nail that master android. That'd be a huge help." Despite the Freedom's Angels impressive mass-production capabilities, the rare appearance of the elusive Mark VI model android seemed to indicate that it was beyond their capacity to create in numbers. Meaning that its destruction would greatly benefit Tokyo's defenders, as the assassin bot had accounted for the deaths of dozens of Core soldiers and key military personnel.
She reached the locker room door, and pushed it open.
"Saotome! Sna-WHAUGH!" The police captain nearly fell over as she realized that Ranma and Snake had been stripped down to their boxers, each one looking thoroughly humiliated. Still, in all fairness, they each looked to have received basic first aid in the form of ointments and bandages, so at least Junko had done her job while taking advantage of the situation. "What are you doing? Get dressed already!" Asuka shouted, her face reddening.
"I thought you'd never ask," Ranma mumbled, reaching for the pile of clothing on the floor. Before he could grab anything, however, Junko slapped his hand away, and then wagged her finger at the pigtailed man.
"Oh, no you don't! You can't put your clothes on over the bandages!"
"What? Why not?" Ranma said incredulously.
"Doctor's orders!" The redhead sang, winking at him.
"You're a psychiatrist!" Ranma complained, once again reaching for his clothes.
Once again, Junko stopped him, this time grabbing his wrist. "And as a psychiatrist, I'd have to say your frustration smacks of a lack of affection and sexual release. Which can best be dealt with by-"
"CHIKIKO!!" Asuka growled. "Why are YOU in your underwear too?"
Junko glared at her superior in annoyance, as if Asuka wasn't supposed to notice that she was alone with two half-naked men wearing only a red lace brassiere and panties. "And why are you here, anyway? I would've thought explaining how three buildings were burned down to kill one zombie would have taken more time."
"Shut up! Yamazaki and Tekai ran into Shin-Alpha while on patrol. It looks like it's trying to lead them somewhere. We have to either cut it off and destroy it, or at least back them up once they stumble into a trap. So hurry up and get dressed!"
"Roger!" "Yes, Ma'am!" The two men made a grab for their clothing while Junko fumed silently.
Snake had just started to slip his pants on, when he noticed Asuka still watching them, arms crossed over her chest. "Uh, Captain... are you gonna turn around or something?"
"Are you going to hurry up and put your clothes on, or are you going to sit there and ask stupid questions?" Asuka snapped back, though the blush that appeared earlier got brighter, and she didn't look away. Snake sighed and pulled his pants up, and Junko started dressing as well.
Ranma snapped to attention, standing up straight before Asuka had even finished berating Snake (his experiences as a teenager had trained him to dress and change clothing at speeds far beyond normal). "All set!"
"Good! Now get to the armory and prepare to fight armored units! Let's move out!"
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Elswhere, on the other side of Shin-Alpha's destination, a group of four college students turned super heroines gathered outside the high fences of an industrial junk pile, planning their infiltration of this dastardly complex.
"I don't get it. I just don't get it." Venus murmured, staring up at the towers of crushed and rusted vehicles and equipment. "What's going on here?"
Mercury shook her head, her visor active as she kept scanning the premises with the Mercury Computer. "I don't know, honestly. Somehow, for some reason, Usagi... no, Sailor Moon was taken here. She is definitely transformed. And according to the scanner she's been transformed since yesterday."
"There's no way she'd come to a dump like this on her own, transformed or not," Sailor Mars said distastefully. "... No pun intended. She's been forced here somehow."
Sailor Mercury nodded in agreement. "That makes the most sense. And given that she didn't speak to any of us before she disappeared, I'd have to guess she was abducted directly yesterday morning." Then she bit her lip nervously. "The thing is, I still can't detect anything other than Sailor Moon down there."
Jupiter frowned. "Well, there has to be SOMETHING with her. She WAS kidnapped, right?"
"That's what we're assuming," Mercury admitted. "It's the only thing that makes sense. But I can't detect any Negaverse energy, daemonic energy, dark magic, or Silver Millenium magic other than Sailor Moon herself! I can't even detect any life signs down there! It's like she's been abandoned!"
"Well that can only make this easier," Sailor Venus decided, stepping forward and tearing open the old, poorly-maintained steel fence.
Mercury twitched. For some reason, hearing her fellow Senshi imply this would be easy caused a feeling of impending doom to settle in her stomach. "Yeah... let's hope so..."
"By the way," Mars began, "why isn't Tuxedo Kamen here? Isn't he supposed to like, you know, search Usagi out whenever she's in trouble?"
Venus shrugged. "Well, from what I can tell, he's been in trouble himself for the past few days. I did try calling him again once we found out where Usagi was, but he wasn't there. He did talk about seeing a doctor."
"Calling in sick on rescuing your girlfriend. Whatta guy," Jupiter said sourly. Sometimes she really did wonder what Usagi thought was so great about Mamoru anyway. There were worse guys out there, and he was attractive, sure, but if SHE were to become the ruler of the entire planet and start her own eternal kingdom, she would have aimed higher.

The four Senshi wandered further into the junk yard, looking curiously about at the numerous piles of trashed machines that had been more or less stacked into discrete spires about the filth-ridden landscape. Everything from trucks to steamshovels to computers had been deposited in the yard haphazardly, though Mercury noted that the majority of the junk was metal, and most of it was large machines.
Mars, on the other hand, noted that the disrepair and neglect given to such junk (as could very well be expected) had led to the relatively even valleys between the scrap piles being covered in rusted, jagged metal plates and shards, making the terrain rough at best, and sadistic at worst. 'Why the hell am I wearing high heels while fighting evil, anyway? They're not even high heel boots, like the others! God, this hurts!'
"So where is she, exactly?" Venus asked, rubbing her head as she scanned the twisted landscape. "Did someone just beat her up and leave her here?"
"I'm not sure," Sailor Mercury mumbled, once again doing a different scan with her computer. "Huh... according to this, she's a ways underground, actually. But there's a lot of material between her and the surface, so the reading is kind of fuzzy."
Mars' eyes widened. "Are you saying she's buried?"
"It seems likely," the blue-haired Senshi admitted, "but I can pick up her vital signs, since they resonate with her energy signature. Wherever she is, she's alive, and relatively healthy. Though obviously, we have to find her and get her out of here as quickly as possible."
As Mars and Venus mulled that over for a moment, Sailor Jupiter suddenly shouted out to her friends.
"Hey! You guys! Come look at this!"
Mars, Venus, and Mercury all turned to look at what had attracted their tallest member's attention, and blinked at the sight of an armored battle robot sitting at the base of a junk pile. Its head, one arm, and one shoulder cannon had been removed or destroyed, leaving patches of twisted and frayed wire where it seemed something should be attached. In addition, there were scores and small dents all over the main torso armor, indicating that the machine had sustained light gunfire.
"Whoa. What IS that thing?" Venus asked, immediately turning toward Mercury.
However, it was the Senshi of Mars who answered. "Wow! It's a real boomer! What's it doing here?"
Jupiter blinked. "Boomer? What's a boomer?"
"It's a type of terrorist weapon, I think. I saw a picture of one in a DAPC article. Nobody knows how the terrorists obtain the funds and materials to build them, but they've been aiding their forces for months."
"Hey! There are more over here!" Venus shouted, looking around a junked bulldozer at another scrap mound. "Some of these ones don't even look damaged!"
Sailor Mercury gulped. "Okay... this is getting just a bit creepy now. I'm starting to get Metal Arms flashbacks." 'Please don't let zombiebots burst from the walls. GOD, I hated that level...'
"This one looks like a woman!" Jupiter shouted, pointing to a very female-looking humanoid torso with burnt wires and sockets in place of the head and arms.
"This one's moving!" Venus said excitedly, pointing to a bright blue boomer as it stood up and turned toward her. Then its shoulder cannons, normally locked vertically onto its back, slid upward and then fell forward over its bulbous shoulders. "Wait... it's... moving?"
Mercury twitched. "Oh, hell..."

KWABOOM!! Sailor Venus yelped as she barely managed to avoid being blasted directly with the devastator boomer's shoulder cannons, instead getting tossed aside as the blast swept her off her feet.
"What is this?! Sailor Moon was kidnapped by robots?" Mars shouted, summoning her power to her. "Mars flame sniper!" She shouted, pointing one hand in front of her, aimed at the boomer, while the other was drawn back as if pulling a bowstring. A bright red lance of fire appeared, ready to be fired.
The boomer had already begun tactical maneuvers, but its bulk weighed down the machine's booster jets, and cost precious seconds as it struggled to take to the air.
Kashrak! Bright red fire stabbed into the torso of the war machine, and its radiator made a brief, desperate effort to control the disastrous intake of heat before the boomer's ammo and fuel reserves exploded, sending flaming pieces of metal scything out in all directions.
"Venus! Are you okay?" Sailor Jupiter yelled, noting that even a light tumble across the floor of the junk yard would be extremely painful, especially as under-dressed as they were.
The blonde Senshi groaned and started to get up. "I think I have a rusty corkscrew in my thigh, and I think I swallowed a nail, but other than that..." her eyes widened. "Jupiter! Behind you!"
Sailor Jupiter didn't even have time to turn around before she felt something smash into the back of her head, sending her flying into one of the adjacent junk piles, and teaching her precisely how Venus felt.
"Another one, eh?" Mars muttered, turning around as she prepared to perform the same technique again.
Whrrrr... ch-chunk!
Feeling very uneasy at hearing machine-like noises from above her, Mars instinctively flinched as her form was briefly eclipsed by a large shadow.
Crunch! Bits of scrap and chunks of plastic shattered as the four-legged Black Sabre boomer landed right next to Sailor Mars, slowly turning the four huge cannons on its arms around toward the battle.
Mars gulped. While the sheer size of the cannons, and the apparent difficulty in aiming them quickly, made the robot look clumsy at best, she had no illusions of being saved by magical endurance or fuku armor if one of those nailed her.
"Fire soul!" Panicking, the Senshi of fire pointed her finger like a gun and aimed it at the metal monstrosity, launching several fireballs at a range of less than two meters.
Not the smartest thing to do, but it could be forgiven. She simply wasn't use to blowing things up that were, themselves, chock full of high-grade explosives.
KWABOOOM!!

Mercury gasped as Mars disappeared in the midst of an Earth-shaking explosion, and bit her lip as she saw two more robots rise up atop the junk towers that surrounded them. Jupiter had already gotten up and was even now ripping the android that had struck her down in hand-to-hand combat, but Venus had been assaulted by another of the false humans, and wasn't doing nearly as well as the Thunder Senshi.
"This is bad. We're at a tactical disadvantage here," she murmured, dashing over toward Mars to see if she was still capable of fighting. "Jupiter! Venus! Get out of the open! They have gunners on the towers!"
Jupiter growled as she smashed her knee into the android she was fighting, causing chunks of metal and components to burst out the other side. "Mercury, now is NOT the time for your stupid video game lingo!" She tossed the broken machine away, and then turned around. "Now what do you me... oh. Robots with guns on the junk towers. Guess that makes sense." Then she dove to the side as a hail of missiles completely shattered the area she had been standing in, blowing gouts of flame and showers of hot metal in all directions.

Venus cursed as she took a left hook from the combat droid, and staggered backward. 'It just doesn't make any sense! Robots that look like women that use martial arts? Giant robots with cannons and missiles? Who the hell are we fighting? Skynet?' She growled as she charged forward and slugged the android across the face, caving in its metal skull and causing several circuits to rupture. 'I hated Terminator, too! AND the sequel! Only saw it so I could see Schwarzenegger... stupid time-travel plots... and that T-1000 thing was so friggin' cheap! Liquid metal, oh, sure!' She tried to deck the android again, but this time the assassin droid backflipped out of range, no doubt to gain distance for a charging attack.
"Want to annihilate the human race, do you? Just try it, you time-traveling hunk of bad acting!" Venus shouted, pointing at the android accusingly.
The MK. I combat android didn't have any time to respond to the verbal assault before a small rocket blasted it to smithereens, but it's safe to assume it would have had no idea what the blonde was talking about anyway.
Sailor Venus would have cheered on the sudden destruction of her opponent, except that the rocket was one of many fired in her general direction, and she had to scramble behind a huge metal canister to avoid suffering the same fate.
"What the hell is this?! Rockets and cannons? Somebody bring back fireballs and magic discs!" The Senshi of love complained as the canister shook violently behind her.
BOOM!! All at once her cover burst apart, throwing her face-first once again onto the jagged and twisted mercies of the scrap-ridden ground.
"Hate... this... place... hate... robots... wanna... fight... youma..." pulling a thresher blade out of her midriff, Venus got up painfully and started to climb around one of the junk piles, spurred on by the noise of detonations behind her.

"Shine aqua illusion!" Sailor Mercury turned away as her attack smashed into one of the devastator boomers standing atop the junk spires, freezing it solid while the drastic drop in temperature played havoc with the machine's internals. "Mars? Can you stand?"
"Just... one more minute..." the fire Senshi moaned. "My hair's not still on fire, is it?"
"A little," Mercury admitted. "But it doesn't matter that much, right? I mean, it was black to start with."
Mars spared a moment to glare at the blue-skirted Senshi, then quickly went about the business of rubbing her hair down to put out the flame.
"This isn't good. We have no way of telling how many more of them there are," Sailor Mercury admitted, holding a crouching position behind half a car chassis. "It looks like the shooters retreated down the junk piles. We probably won't be able to pick them out again until they're already firing."
Mars glared. "What the hell?! I thought you said there was nothing here except Usagi!"
Mercury glared back. "I said there was no Negaverse energy, demonic energy, or anything like that! Robots run on electricity!"
"Well, now that you know what to look for, hurry up and scan for them!" Mars shouted.
"You can't just 'scan' for electricity!" Mercury shouted back. "We live in a city! There are flows of electricity everywhere! Even in this junk yard, there are probably three dozen power lines above and below us! It's like looking for a needle in a... well... a big pile of other needles!"
A sudden shout of surprise distracted the red and blue Senshi from their argument, and both women sobered.
"Okay, fine," Mars growled, standing up slowly and dusting herself off. "Then we'll just have to slug it out the old-fashioned-" Wham!
The two Senshi whirled around as a huge object burst through the adjacent junk tower, sending large hulks of metal bouncing past them.
"Yeep!" Sailor Mars hopped out of the way as a large, generic industrial machine came crashing down upon the spot she had previously been standing on. Then she steeled herself and fell into a defensive stance as she gazed upon the new enemy.
The newest robot looked like something out of an old science fiction movie, consisting mainly of one large spherical body with a single blue visor that appeared to be its visual sensors. From the sphere extended several metal tentacle-like appendages that distinctly reminded Sailor Mercury of Doctor Octopus from Spider-Man 2. Trailing behind the sphere were several thick cables and wires that flowed in a loose, ragged bundle over the trail it had gouged in the junk pile, which Mercury quickly tagged as a likely weak point. The rest of the sphere had short, stunted appendages and rods poking out of it, along with the occasional sunken concave portion and hole that had purposes unknown.
"Feh. Not impressive. Burning mandala!" Sailor Mars did her short dance routine in order to summon the rings of flame, and smirked as circles of hot plasma flew toward the metal monstrosity.
The robot responded with surprising laxity, using a few tentacles to pick up a broken-down truck and hurl it into the way of the attack. Upon contact the truck nearly disintegrated, falling apart in midair into a shower of molten metal and burning fragments.
Mercury frowned. "Okay, try this! Aqua rhapsody!" A harp slowly appeared in her hands, and the Senshi of ice took a deep breath as she began to play.
Smash! Except she didn't get to, as the strange machine whipped out one tentacle and slammed her down into the ground, giving the genius Senshi her first taste of rusty terrain that battle.
Mars winced. At least the response to her attack had been passive. 'Looks like I may have to the return the favor for her helping me sooner than I thought.'
The new robot turned back toward the red-skirted woman. "Initial combat analysis complete. Targets: Sailor Senshi classified threat index four. Proceeding with combat response."
Mars paled as several motes of light began appearing in the pits that dotted the sphere's surface. She noted unpleasantly that most of those pits seemed to face her general direction.
Fweeem! Zzzzow! Brak-ak-ak-ak-ak!
Numerous projectile weapons poured out the strange energy projectors, and beams and bolts of red and yellow bombarded the ground as the Senshi of fire dodged and sprinted away desperately.
"AAAAAAH!! Jupiter! Venus! Anybody! Somebody-OW!-stop this thing!" Mars ducked under a disruptor bolt, and then tried to jump behind a bulldozer, only to halt in her tracks and fall backward as a bright red, continuous laser beam cut right through her path.
"Mars? Where are you?" Sailor Venus asked, circling around behind the scrap pile Mars was in front of, and looking worse for wear herself. Catching sight of the tentacled robot, she immediately went on the offensive. "Venus crescent moon beam!"
This hardly went unnoticed by the spherical battle droid, and four tentacles curled around so that their tips formed the corners of a square, the middle of which was right in the energy beam's path.
WHAM! The claw-like tips of the tentacles sparked yellow, and Venus gaped as her beam struck a yellow square plane of energy, leaving the enemy robot at large unharmed.
"Tentacles, smarts, lasers AND shields?" Mars shouted. "Oh, come on! Give us a break here!"
"Sparkling wide pressure!" Jupiter shouted suddenly, appearing from behind Mercury (who was still debating whether or not she even WANTED to get up and participate in the battle anymore).
Once again, four of the arms rose up and formed the corners of a screen to block the attack, and once again the magical projectile detonated upon the shield, long before it could strike the main body of the droid.
Kshzaack! This time, however, the entire robot started to shake, and sparks shot out from the sphere body as Jupiter's attack sent arcs of electricity trailing down its tentacles.
"What the..." Mars stared as the massive war machine suddenly jerked back into the crevice it had created amongst the scrap heaps, its metal tentacles whipping about and knocking down junk and debris around it to cover its escape.

The others stared as the whir of gears and pounding of steel upon steel faded into the distance, and then turned to look at each other.
"What was THAT all about?" Venus murmured. "And why didn't my attack scare it off like that?"
Mercury staggered to her feet, trying to ignore all the little metroids that were floating around her head in circles. "It must've been... ugh... it must have been the EMP from her attack. Jupiter's lightning shocks create powerful electromagnetic bursts, and those can be dangerous to computers."
The others stared at her wordlessly.
The Senshi of ice sighed. "Like the EMP generator on the ship from the Matrix? Lightning bolts do the same thing."
"Aaaaah," came the chorus of understanding.
"Come to think of it, that thing did look a lot like the octopus robot things from that movie, didn't it?" Venus mused. "Though at least they weren't powered by an extension cord."
Whrrrrrr... Ch-chung!
The Senshi winced as they heard the distant sound of heavy machinery, and Mars pointed toward a path through the yard that conveniently moved away from the projected path of the spherical, tentacled war machine.
"Come on! The other robots are still out there!"
Mercury gulped as she followed with the others. "You know, I hate to be the one to keep bringing up this bad news, but we're at a severe strategic disadvantage here. We don't know the lay of land here, this terrain is awful for us, and it looks like we've stumbled into a trap."
"Well, if we have Jupiter's powers, then we have an edge, right?" Sailor Venus guessed.
"Not by much. I mean, the rest of us can deal with the smaller robots just fine, right?" Mars said, jumping over a wrecked Russian tank of WWII design. "But it'll be a big help if that big one shows up again. Maybe."
Jupiter growled. "So has anyone figured out why we're under attack by killer robots? Or where, exactly, Usagi is in this mess?"
Mercury screeched to a halt as they circled around another scrap pile, and dropped her visor over her eyes. "No. But I have a feeling we're getting close."
The others nodded mutely. Standing before them, under a pile of scrapped war machines and a disturbing amount of dumped bullet casings, was a reinforced concrete bunker, complete with an open-topped pillbox and heavy blast doors that looked like they could have withstood several of the Senshis' weaker attacks.
"Yeesh. Whoever runs this place needs to lighten up on the security. I mean, seriously," Venus said sternly, "not only do we have some kind of reinforced bomb shelter disguised with piles of industrial scrap, but its guarded by a legion of battle robots. And what're those? Automated gun turrets? Oh, that's just swell, isn't it? Can you say 'PARANOID'?" She frowned as she realized exactly what she was looking at, and the others' eyes widened. "Oh, fishsticks."

Braa-ap-ap-ap-ap-ap-ap-ap!
Scattering as the automated machine guns opened fire, Jupiter cursed and charged up her attack in-between her hands. "Sparkling wide pressure!" She cursed again as the ball of lighting curved just out of the way of the leftmost turret, detonating on a pile of rusted drums.
BrrZACK! Ribbons of electricity lashed out over the drums, and the automated gun emitted a shower of sparks as the machine started to shake violently, and then proceeded to shut down.
The pony-tailed woman blinked. "Wow. This EMP thing is actually pretty cool."

Mars dove behind a junked mech as the remaining gun tried to follow her movements, and she grit her teeth as the sound of metal striking metal rang in her ears.
Actually, the gritting of teeth was just as much a result of the sharp, twisted metal beneath her digging into the bare expanses of skin that were her legs as a result of her diving, but the fire Senshi was firmly resolved in focusing on the more active danger first.
Luckily she didn't have to, as one of Venus' energy beams smashed into the emplacement and annihilated it, as the weapon was unable to track more than one target when the Senshi had scattered.
Mars breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up. "Okay, is everyone all right?" Then she stopped, and her face paled. "M-Mercury? MERCURY!!"
Jupiter and Venus turned at the shout, and their hearts leapt into their throats as they beheld their blue-skirted companion lying on the ground, curled up with her arms covering her side.
"Mercury! AMI!! SPEAK TO ME!!" Mars cried, quickly crouching down next to her fallen comrade.
"What? Ami's dead?" Venus asked, trembling as she approached slowly.
Sailor Mercury twitched. "Not... dead..."
Venus blinked, then exhaled deeply in relief, along with Jupiter and Mars. "Wow. These things must be tougher than I thought!" The Senshi of love patted the hardened white part of her suit around her waist (the only part of the Senshi outfit that could possibly be considered "armor"). "Who would have thought they were bulletproof?"
Mercury clenched her teeth against the pain. "They're... not..."
"......... Ooh..."
Mars gently picked up Ami's arm, and then slipped her hand under the wounded woman's body. "Do you think you'll be okay? Should we try and run for a hospital?"
Mercury grimaced, finding it difficult to breath in anything but short, sharp gasps. "I should be... okay. Our healing p-powers... and endurance should... keep me alive." She coughed a bit, though she was thankful to see that no blood emerged from her mouth.
"Get her behind that pillbox, quick!" Jupiter shouted, spotting one of the blue heavy support boomers climbing atop a nearby junk tower.
"Aw crap, they're here!" Venus groused, backing away slowly as more of the combat droids shuffled around the mounds of scrap metal that separated the bunker from the rest of the junk yard.
The Senshi of Jupiter crossed her arms in front of her, getting ready to summon her principle thunder attack. "Don't let them hit the pillbox! We have to protect Ami!"
"And what am I supposed to do to keep them from shooting the pillbox?" Venus asked nervously. "There are too many of them!"
The blonde swallowed as she saw one of the robots lower its shoulder cannons and aim in her general direction. This feeling of dread multiplied as she saw four other similar robots do the same thing. 'Oh well. It was a nice life, while it lasted. And I got laid a lot. That was fun. Oh, look, more of those stupid big-breasted girl-bots. They die first.' Taking aim at the androids, Venus started charging up her attack, while preparing herself for the lethal volley of retaliatory cannon fire that would follow.
BWAKOOM!!
Then she blinked as one of the bright blue boomers exploded, through no effort of her own, or any of her fellow Senshi.

BLAM!! BLAM!! The Mk. I android shuddered as its torso was ripped apart by shotgun fire, and fell forward lifelessly as metal shards and sensitive electronics blasted out its back.
Snake grinned and ducked back behind the piles of metal plates that was his cover, and then took out his pistol and fired it at the androids that were hesitating between the targets in front of them, and the new targets behind them.
Bwam! One the battle droids lingered too long, and its head was rent asunder by an armor-piercing rifle bullet, tearing apart the vital CPU components located in the head.
"Don't stop shooting now, Snake!" Asuka shouted, slowly advancing while she peered down the scope of her rifle. "If I manage to bag more kills than you, you can bet your ass a demotion is in order!" Trailing behind her, Tiro nearly crawled through the cover provided by the rough terrain, eternally glad that he and Kyle had met up with their fellow officers rather than having to deal with this by themselves.
"HA!! Keep dreaming, Captain!"
Atop one of the junk spires, a devastator boomer deactivated its shoulder cannons, as the arc of fire was deemed too difficult from its current location. Raising its arm, the blast shields over its rocket launchers opened, and the battle droid prepared to unleash its payload right on top of the three officers making their way through the main path.
Crunch! That plan of action was rendered ineffective once the boomer's rocket-launching arm was torn right off.
Whang! Using the dismembered metal limb as a club, Kyle smashed the heavy robot aside, and knocked it off the scrap pile before it could activate its booster jets, sending it tumbling down the mountain of jagged debris.
Wiping some sweat off his brow, the genetically altered cop lifted the huge heavy autocannon that he had lugged all the way up the junk tower, and opened fire on the heavy support boomers that were still changing targets.
"Well, time to earn my check!" Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
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GZSHAAAK! Ranma backflipped away as a whip of blue-white plasma lashed at him from Shin-Alpha's Tesla claw, and then launched himself forward, charging at the same time that the android lunged for him.
Wsh! Krrclk! The crackle of electricity marked the passing of the Tesla claw as Ranma dodged to the side, and he quickly launched two kicks before he was forced to duck under another swipe from the second claw.
Having landed the first two hits, Ranma tried to turn as he dodged and lash out with a stronger roundhouse, but Shin-Alpha dodged out of the way, bouncing off its hands and landing in a crouch just out of nominal lunging distance.
Shnk! Chunk! Ranma twitched as small energy projectors replaced the curved, electrified claws.
"Aw, hell..." SHEA! SHEA! SHEA!
The high-pitched scream of the android's disruptors filled the air, and as Ranma dodged he found himself wishing that he hadn't gotten separated from the other DAPC officers so effectively. At best, he would have really appreciated Asuka's impeccable aim to lend some support whenever the irritating super-droid got some space to unload its guns. Snake would have done just as well of course, if not better, but the pigtailed man certainly had no desire to expose himself to the mercy of Snake's weapons any more that day.
Leaping high overhead as the energy bolts flew under him, Ranma was surprised as he saw the android turn around in a full retreat, speeding toward a short building that he could just barely make out among the endless sea of trash and debris that made up the landscape.
Landing easily on his feet, and feeling glad that he was wearing military-issue heavy boots instead of Kung-fu slippers or high heels (he wasn't sure why women's shoes came up in his thoughts, but he accepted his satisfaction nonetheless), Ranma sprinted after the fleeing android, unwilling to let his foe escape.

Bam! Slowing himself as he approached the half-buried building, Ranma frowned as he stared at the entrance that his quarry had used.
It appeared that, among the reinforced concrete and layers of rusted metal plates and miscellaneous junk that covered it, the entrance he now stood in front of consisted of a rickety screen door. Which didn't even appear locked.
Ranma looked to the side, and noted that there was a sign hanging from the shattered exoskeleton of a trashed Black Sabre boomer. [Secret unguarded rear entrance! Authorized personnel only!]
The pigtailed man sweatdropped. "The sad thing is, it's NEVER a trap." Sighing, he stepped forward and resigned himself to the infiltration of the enemy stronghold. It was unlikely that he'd track down his original target, but there had to be SOMETHING down there worth checking out.
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"Jupiter thunder crash!"
"Venus love and beauty shock!"
BLAM!! BLAM!! "Suck 12 gauge, you metal freaks!" BLAM!!

Venus couldn't help but stop and stare as she watched the man with the bandanna blow apart two androids that were lunging for him while they were in mid-leap. His accuracy was perfect; he pulled the trigger, and the threats that were a split second from tearing him in two like a tissue turned into clouds of shrapnel and scrap.
Looking at the ease of it, the Senshi of love found herself feeling a little jealous. It had taken her a good bit of hand-to-hand fighting to rid herself of the one android she had to fight, and she had taken quite a few blows, too. This man, though... this... mere cop, annihilated such foes with a practiced twitch of his finger.
She continued to watch as he blasted a third android with the pistol he carried in his other hand as it lunged down the main path toward the two other officers bringing up the rear. Three shots to the back, and the false woman fell, its internals suffering a critical failure from the damage.
"Venus? VENUS!! Are you all right?"
Jupiter's voice snapped the blonde Senshi out of her reverie, and Sailor Venus quickly continued what she was doing, taking aim at one of the boomers atop the junk towers. "Last target is mine! Venus crescent moon beam!"

Kablam! Asuka raised an eyebrow as she watched a white beam of light obliterate the last of the heavy support boomers, and rushed forward.
'I have to admit... the names of the attacks are stupid, and they seem to do a lot of unnecessary posing, but I'll be damned if they don't get the job done.' "All right ladies, what's the situation?"
Jupiter and Venus turned toward the police captain, and they both scowled.
"Hey! You're that lady who arrested us a few days ago!" Jupiter growled.
"Yes, I am. And you're welcome for showing up," Asuka said, moving past the two Senshi in front, and heading toward the two she had spied lying in the cover next to the bunker.
Climbing over the wall of the pillbox, Asuka grimaced as she saw that one Senshi had been wounded.
Mercury looked up to see who the new arrival was, and her eyes widened. "A-Asuka!"
Though slightly perturbed that one of the Senshi remembered her first name, and apparently deemed herself familiar enough to use it, Asuka dismissed it as she took her radio off her belt. After all, they HAD met before, if not under awkward circumstances.
"Chikiko, we have wounded here. Looks like the cheerleaders from the other day got into another scrap."
A vein popped up on Mars' head from being called a cheerleader, but she managed to contain herself. After all, the situation was rather serious, and the woman was Ami's cousin.
"We need to figure out where Saotome went. What's your status?"
Pssht! "Um... I'm reloading."
The police captain frowned. "Again? I only saw one rocket."
"Er... no. Still. This thing is heavy! And I'm afraid to handle this ammo too roughly; what if it explodes? Can't you get Snake to come over here and help me with this?"
A sweatdrop rolled down Asuka's head. "Well... you know what, forget it. Just put the launcher down. You blew one up, you did good. Go look for Ranma. Tekai, I want you to continue to cover the area."
"Roger! Thanks!" Pssht! "Whatever you say, Captain." Pssht!
"Yamazaki!" Asuka then yelled out, distracting the lecher from where he was discretely admiring Sailor Venus. "Go hook up with Chikiko and find Saotome! We have to figure out where he went!"
Finally, she turned toward Snake, who was still crouched behind some cover a ways behind, looking for more targets. "Lieutenant!"
The weapons expert stood up immediately. "Ma'am!"
Asuka pointed at the bunker behind her. "Judging by the number of enemy droids around here, it would seem this is an enemy stronghold. Make it stop existing, please."
Snake smirked, and the Senshi all felt an inexplicable chill run down their spines. "Whatever you say, Cap!" Grinning, he walked over to the blast doors of the bunker while removing a box-shaped object from one of the many pockets on his pant legs.

Finally, the blue-haired woman turned to Mercury. "Okay, now let's see what we can do for you. What are we looking at?"
Mars frowned. She didn't like the way this woman had come in and seemed to be trying to take charge of things, but if there was a chance she could help Mercury, she would put her reservations aside. "She took some machine gun fire in the side here. We're tougher than normal humans, and we have healing powers, so we don't think she'll die, but she seems to be in a lot of pain."
Asuka nodded. "Enhanced toughness and healing factor. Got it." She was quite used to dealing with such qualities. Pulling up Mercury's arm, she raised an eyebrow as she saw that the white part of the outfit was complete and unscathed under the blood that had collected on it. "I assume the outfits regenerate too?"
Mars nodded mutely, and Mercury managed a grateful smile despite the pain.
"It's okay, really... I just need a little time to rest. In fact, I think the skin over the wound has almost healed by now, so there's nothing to worry about."
The police captain looked skeptical. "Really? So the bullets have completely pierced the skin? They're actually inside you?"
Mercury nodded. "Well, yeah, but......" her face lost some color as realization dawned. "Oh, dear..."
Mars blinked. "What? What is it?"
Asuka shook her head. "You do NOT want a wound healing on you while there are bullets still inside. Unless you can reassure me that your healing powers can break down huge lead concentrations in a reasonable time frame, we're going to have to get those things out of you."

KWAAA-BOOOM!!!
All the assembled women winced as the nearby blast doors were blown open, sending a wave of heat and dust into them.
Sailor Jupiter turned toward the man with the bandanna dubiously. "Hey, be careful! We have a friend in there we need to rescue!"
Snake waved off the complaint. "Don't worry about it! We do rescues all the time!" As he was about to enter, he stopped and thought about that statement. "Actually, that's not true. Not successful ones, anyway. But I maintain that it'll be fine!"
Jupiter and Venus sweatdropped, suddenly wondering about their supposed good fortune in getting the backup they did.

Mercury squeezed her eyes shut as the dust from Snake's bomb stung her eyes, and nodded as she coughed. "I... yes. We should get it done now, while the wound is still open." She was actually quite embarassed that she hadn't realized that on her own. She WAS in training to be a doctor, after all. "Where's your med kit?"
Asuka bit her lip thoughtfully. "Well, if you say that the flesh has almost sealed already, then it'll probably be completely healed by the time I get back from the patrol car. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to improvise."
"Improvi-aye-aye-aye-aye..." Sailor Mercury trailed off stuttering as Asuka withdrew her combat knife and started checking the edge of the relatively large, serrated blade. "Whoa! Hey! You can't use that! We don't have any... uh... disinfectant! Or bandages! How are you planning on stopping the bleeding?!" She started to babble, her face whitening.
The police captain showed no sign of sympathy. "If your healing is everything you've implied it is so far, then it will keep you alive while I cut out the bullets." The three non-wounded Senshi grimaced, all very glad that they had been quick enough to dodge. "If bandages are a problem, you could always stand to lose that sappy bow on your back."
"No! Wait! Maybe proper surgery is the way to go here!" Mercury cried desperately. "You know, like with anesthetic!"
Instead of responding to the ice Senshi's complaints, Asuka pointed toward the others. "You three, hold her down. Green skirt, you look like you've got some muscles; you take the legs. You two each take an arm and shoulder. Keep her down firm."
The Senshi made no move to comply, instead looking at each other pensively.
"Hey! Do I have to repeat myself?" Asuka shouted, startling the girls. "Get to it! Or does it matter to you that your friend has a dozen chunks of pointy metal lodged in her organs?"
The three Senshi in question flinched, and then scrambled to do as ordered, much to Mercury's growing alarm.
"Wait! No! You can't do this! Hold oargh!" She mumbled incoherently as Asuka grabbed her by the lower jaw and inserted a spare ammo clip part-way into her mouth. "Hraughlk?"
"To keep you from hurting yourself," Asuka explained, now starting to look slightly apologetic. "'Bite the bullet' and all that. Literally, in this case." Then she looked up at the three non-wounded Senshi. "Okay then, if you guys are even remotely squeamish, you might want to..." she trailed off as she realized that the Senshi were already looking away, their eyes squeezed shut.
"Okay then. Time for some field surgery." With that, the Captain raised her knife.
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"Yup. Completely undefended. Just like it said." Ranma sighed to himself as he walked through the glass double-doors into the main lab, his hands in his pockets.
Stepping into a large, oval room, Ranma scanned the interior from left to right, immediately noticing the object in the center, but taking the time to search the premises for anything else of interest.
Other than the metal slab in the middle of the room, there wasn't much else. A few scattered pieces of computers, scanners, and other sorts of machines that Ranma couldn't begin to identify lined the room, but overall the place looked as if it had been abandoned and looted.
Deeming the area safe to explore, Ranma focused on the object he had seen; a single examination table with something atop it, and a white sheet to cover it up.
Frowning, Ranma resigned himself to the obvious path of events and pulled the sheet off.
His frown deepened. Laying on the table was a young blonde woman, or at least in appearance. She looked to be about nineteen or twenty, had her hair done in two long ponytails that were currently drawn down under her body, and was wearing an armless black bodysuit like the one Shin-Alpha usually wore into combat.
"Well, that's just great," the pigtailed cop muttered. "Now we have blonde androids too. What is this one supposed to be? Mark seven? Eight? Feh." Ranma raised his fist, preparing to crush the thing before it got the opportunity to activate. "I think I'll take a page from Snake's book and just kill it before... wait..." he hesitated as he noticed something about the female figure's chest that had nothing to do with its two remarkably human-like breasts. It was moving slightly. As if the figure was breathing.
Ranma lowered his fist. "Aw, hell. I think she's real. Or at least, her lungs are." He frowned again. "HEY!! YOU!! Wake up! Who are you?! I said wake up! Time for school! Breakfast! Still nothing? Are your ears busted?!" He tried picking her up by the shoulders, and started to shake her. Gently at first, but with increasing intensity. "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE!! WAKE UP, ALREADY!!"

'Core preliminary tests complete. Subroutined 8-0-4 initialized.'
A strange voice echoed in Usagi's head, interrupting her dream about making ice cream men out of a vanilla-flavored landscape. She looked up curiously from her frosty and delicious work of art, and blinked as the blue sky that had been softly snowing powdered sugar slowly fragmented into green and white blocks, which themselves broke into smaller blocks, and even then into smaller ones. As the background of her dreamscape slowly spiralled into a mad geometrical nightmare, bright green strings of zeroes and ones suddenly poured across the fractured sky, tearing left and right madly in a senseless fury of information.
Usagi merely stood there blinking, unable to make any sense of what she had seen, but noted that it seemed similar to a movie she had seen a while back. She went back to making her ice cream man, idly trying to remember the name of the movie.
'Beginning startup procedures. Respiratory, vascular, and musculatory status normal. Consciousness rebooted in 10...... 9...... 8......'

Smack! Smack! Smack! Ranma sighed as the blonde woman continued to sleep softly, and let go of the front of her bodysuit.
Clang! Falling backward onto the examination table, her skull smacked solidly onto the thick steel of her bed, causing Ranma to wince. She still didn't wake up, though.
"Well, damn. Slapping her awake didn't work. Shaking her didn't work. Forcing her eyelids open did nothing. Hmmm..." he really didn't know how someone could sleep through having their eyes forced open, but this person, if she was in fact a person, had managed that.
"One thing for sure. She's definitely not normal." He could tell as much from trying to slap her awake; her bone structure and general resilience was much tougher than any normal human being, and even himself. And when she had hit her head on the table, the impact had sounded like steel against steel.
Ranma once again resigned himself to his fate. "Well, there's only one surefire way to wake a girl up, no matter what the circumstances are..." blushing a bit, and grimacing at the pain that was sure to follow, the pigtailed man slowly raised a shaky hand, and held it steadily over the woman's body. "Okay... here goes..."

'2...... 1...... reboot complete.'
All at once, Usagi's dreamscape was torn apart as she felt sensation pour into her body, and jerked her eyelids open as her entire body suddenly convulsed.
In a split second her eyes focused from blurry and muddled to perfectly sharp, a reflex that usually took at least twenty seconds. Her head felt clearer, too, without the normal weariness and confusion she normally experienced when she woke up. She could see the glare of the fluorescent lights hanging above her. She could see the individual pieces that made up the lights, since for some reason it didn't bother her at all to look directly at it. She could see the strange, disorganized pieces of machinery scattered around the room. She could see the man who was standing over her, squeezing one of her breasts...
The pigtailed man twitched. "EVERY TIME. It literally never fails."
Usagi, magical girl escapades aside, was a normal girl, and was subject to the normal reaction when found in such circumstances.
"AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEE!!! PERVERT!!" THWACK!
Ranma went flying across the room from the force of the blow to his face, and his teeth rattled inside his skull as he impacted the wall hard, leaving an imprint of his body in the metal surface.
Usagi panicked as she started looking around the room, unable find anything familiar about her surroundings. "Wh-What's going on? Where am I? What am I wearing?" She blinked. "Is this a wetsuit? Did I pass out snorkeling or something?"
Ranma frowned as he got up, rubbing his head. On the one hand, the blonde was way too strong to be a human, confirming his earlier suspicions. On the other hand, her reaction was one of a scared and confused nineteen-year-old girl, and not a robotic killing machine on its first trial run.
'DA policy says I should neutralize her, if not destroy her outright. Heroic and noble instincts say to help her and escape. Stupid heroism.' "Hey, are you alright?"
Usagi jerked her head around to look at the man she had decked. 'Wha? How did that dent behind him get there? Did I do that?' Her thoughts had been moving so fast at the moment that she had not actually seen the results of her strike, and she had been able to ignore the loud crash that had accompanied them. "Who are you? What is this place?"
"I'm Ranma Saotome. I'm with the police," Ranma explained calmly, approaching the frightened girl slowly. "You're in the middle of a bunker that was built in an old industrial scrap yard."
Usagi gulped. "H-How did I get here?"
Ranma shrugged. "I dunno. Me and the other officers just assaulted this bunker, and I got here first. What's the last thing you remember?"
Usagi frowned. "I... I remember being kidnapped! That's right! There was this redheaded girl, and she had these electric claws! And then this scientist guy and this woman were talking about me, and... well... that's it."
The pigtailed man nodded. "Uh huh. That's Shin-Alpha alright. Anyway, I'll help you get out of here... uh..." he bigsweated as the blonde narrowed her eyes at him. "S-Something the matter?"
"Why were you... touching me?" Usagi asked suspiciously, blushing as she hugged her arms over her breasts.
"Erm..." Ranma sweated more as he searched for an excuse that sounded better than "grabbing your boobs was the best way to wake you up". "Well, you see... it was... CPR?" He finished lamely.
Usagi blinked. "Oh. Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" She shouted suddenly at the confused police officer. "You were trying to help me, and I hit you! I feel horrible!"
Ranma sweatdropped. "Eh heh... don't mention it." 'Man, I can't believe she bought that.'
Usagi shifted around so that her legs were dangling off the edge of the table. "Anyway, thank you for coming to rescue me! I'm... um... wait..." she frowned. 'Hey! Am I Sailor Moon right now, or Usagi?' On the one hand, she didn't remember untransforming, and she felt, to some degree, the usual rush of power and vitality that came with the magical transformation. On the other hand, she was definitely not in her usual sailor fuku, long white dress, or anything else that she had come to know as a "proper super heroine outfit".
"I'm... er... Usagi Tsukino," she said finally, hoping that she could convince the man in front of her to keep a secret if it turned out that she was under a disguise field at the moment.
"Okay Tsukino. Can you walk?"
'Startup scanning complete. Beginning subroutine and neural update upload.'
Usagi frowned. "You're scanning what, now?"
Ranma blinked. "Huh? What're you talking about?"
"You just said you had been scanning something, and you were beginning an upload," the blonde insisted.
Ranma stared at her mutely.
'Update initialized. Installing all neural links and subroutines to core functions. Recommend closing all other programs while install is in progress. Press any key to continue.'
Usagi crossed her arms over her chest. "All right, you know what? The talking without moving your mouth thing? Yeah. A little creepy. You're a ventriloquist, fine, I get it. If this is just how you pick up chicks, you might want to rethink your approach. I mean, I already have a boyfriend, so I'm not interested, but you're cute enough that... hey, why are you backing away toward the door?"
'... Operating system has informed programming that core processes lack a keyboard interface. Proceeding with install automatically.' With that last thought ringing in her ears, Usagi's world suddenly became mush.
Her vision went murky, with lines blurring and fading into each other. Trying to move forward off the seat, Usagi's left leg stalled in its movement, sending the blonde tumbling to the floor.
"Hey! Tsukino! Are you okay?" Ranma quickly ran up to the obviously crazy lady, and held out a hand to try and help her up.
Usagi twitched and jerked helplessly as she tried to make sense of her motor functions, but to no avail. She tried to wince from the pain of landing face-first on the ground, and there was a two-second delay as the sound of her hitting the floor finally reached her brain. It was horribly confusing, and Usagi grew more panicked by the second.
"Head... dizzy... time delay... ca... n't... move..." the blonde mumbled, her mouth freezing each time she paused in a way that really creeped Ranma out.
"Okay, okay. Just hold on." The pigtailed boy gathered the unstable woman in his arms, and then slowly lifted her up, being extra careful not to touch anything he wasn't supposed to. "I'll get you out of here. Just don't... you know, start talking back to the voices in your head or anything, okay?"
Usagi would have complained about the implication that she was insane, but due to the apparently limited memory available to her, all she had heard was "... you... here. Just... start... the... head." She would have slapped him again due to the misunderstanding, but in the midst of the absolute chaos that had become her brain, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
As he started to move toward the exit, Ranma hesitated.
"Why... st-op?" Usagi asked, her reactionary blink coming after she had finished speaking.
Ranma twitched. "We'd better hurry. I just have a feeling... this place is gonna blow up soon."
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"There! That's the last one!" Asuka sighed in relief as she slipped the last of the .50 caliber bullets from the bloody tears she had cut in the flesh, and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm.
The three Senshi that had been struggling to hold Mercury down slowly turned around to see the results of the operation, and each one winced as they saw the blood-soaked chunks of lead.
"So... she's gonna be okay, right?" Venus ventured cautiously.
Asuka smirked as she took off her bloodied gloves and tossed them amongst the rest of the trash. "Yup. This gal's clean." Then she reached over to Mercury's head and gently removed the ammo pack she had placed in her patient's mouth, noting the very deep tooth marks on the clip's casing. "All done. How do you feel?"
"Uuuunggh," Sailor Mercury moaned weakly, her eyelashes fluttering.
The police captain kept smirking. "Don't worry, that was a good groan. Her head's so full of endorphins that she'll be out of it for a little bit." She patted the blue-skirted woman on the shoulder. "You're lucky! Apparently you're as tough as you say, so the bullets didn't get too deep below the skin! 'Magical healing' aside, we could have serious complications if I had to start cutting into vital organs to get the bullets out."

Boom! Boom! Boom!
The assembled women all jerked to attention as they heard the sound of a large gun firing high above them.
A quick search about the top of the scrap heaps found Kyle crouched atop one of them, firing his heavy autocannon down at something that was out of sight of Asuka and the Senshi.
"Tekai!" Asuka shouted, snatching up her radio. "Report! What are you shooting at?"
Pssht! "It's that weapon from the alien ship! It's back! It's... gwah!"
The police captain grimaced as she watched a truck smash into the tip of the junk tower, knocking Kyle and a good bit of the junk into an avalanche that tumbled down and out of sight.
The whir of gears and the shriek of metal on metal preceded the appearance of the spherical , tentacled robot from before, its metal tendrils clambering over debris and holding its main body to the ground to maximize the use of cover.
Jupiter grinned. "Well, well. Come back for more, did yo-" she jerked back in surprise and multiple tentacles all lashed out and sped toward her, claws snapping as they tried to grab her.
"Oh, no you don't!" Mars shouted, noticing that the majority of the appendages were either supporting the bulk of the war machine, or trying to catching Jupiter. If it needed four free arms to form a barrier screen... "Mars flame sniper!" She drew one hand back and released the fire arrow right at the monstrous core, which simply shifted out of the way of the projectile as it charged its own beam weapons. "Oh, fugnuts."
Fweeem! Kaz-z-zow!
Sailor Jupiter ducked under a tentacle, and then crossed her arms over her chest. "Thunder cra-OOF!" Her chant was interrupted as a clawed appendage rammed into her stomach, lifting her up in the air and then slamming her into a large, rusted wasted container, leaving a huge dent in the surface from the force.
"Unit Thunder Senshi neutralized," the alien machine droned, "threat index six. Pacification under way."
Blam! The tentacle holding Sailor Jupiter up twitched as Asuka fired a pistol round through it, and then the segment beyond the wound fell limp, dropping the coughing woman onto the ground.
"Unit identified: DAPC unit, command class. Threat index five. Annihilate!"
Venus shouted in surprise as she and Asuka took cover behind the pillbox from a hail of disruptor bolts.
"What the heck? How do you get a higher threat index than we do?" Venus complained, not really thinking about the implications.
The police captain shrugged. "Practice. I've fought this thing before."
"Good!" Mercury coughed, crawling on her hands and knees to join her cousin. "How do we kill it?"
"'We' don't," Asuka said simply, ducking lower as a laser beam stabbed through the metal outer plating of their cover between her and the blue-skirted Senshi. "We wait until my subordinate comes back, and make him do it." She frowned. "It's strange, though. It doesn't usually take him this long to blow up an enemy stronghold. I wonder what's-"
As if on cue, Snake appeared from the twisted hole in the lab bunker's front blast doors, running at full speed with a detonator in his hand.
"Ah, there he is," Asuka said almost conversationally. "Remind me to reprimand him for taking so long. Oh, and DUCK AND COVER!!!"
KRAA-KA-KOOOM!!!

The alien weapon quickly backed away from the detonation of its home base, its tentacles writhing around in front of it, and forming multiple energy screens to block any oncoming debris or cheap shots by its opponents who would take advantage of the confusion.
Once the explosion had settled, the war machine took more careful stock of the situation. Apparently all but one of the six humanoids had been swept off their feet by the explosion, and it seemed that two of them were partially buried underneath the scrap thrown by the explosion. With it priorities clear, the spherical droid focused on the only standing threat.
"Unit identified: DAPC unit, Snake. EMERGENCY!! Threat index ten! RED ALERT!! RED ALERT!!" The machine began to shake as its front opened up, revealing a light-blue set of gyroscopic rings that spun around each other at high speed. "Particle cannon activated! DESTROY!! DESTROY!!"
Snake looked up at the alien device, and raised an eyebrow. Then he snatched something from his belt, and held it up in front of him while taking hold of a ring at the top.
Asuka coughed and climbed on top of the pillbox wall to try and get her bearings. Then she saw Snake, and blinked. "Snake! What are you doing? A grenade won't... wait... that's not a grenade..."
Pft! Snake popped the tab on the can of imported Budweiser, and then started to chug it down quickly, unmindful of the large sphere of glowing blue power that was collecting right in front of him.
Jupiter growled and tried to get her arm free, but only managed to dig a sharp corner of metal further into her bicep. "Damn! I can't move! He's gonna die!"
Whrrrrrrm... The ball of energy in the robot's core grew brighter, and its tentacles began to curl back toward the body to generate energy screens next to the energy projector's mouth, no doubt intending to protect the core from the backlash.
"Ah!" Snake finished off the can of beer, and then crushed the container between his hands, smashing it into a thin metal disk. Then he took it up with one hand and reared it back, preparing to throw it at the behemoth he faced.
The women watching stared in fascinated horror at this act of madness, each one wishing the foolish man peace in the next world, and hoping the particle cannon wasn't powerful enough to get any of them, too.
Licking his lips, Snake threw the crushed can in a high arc.
Plink! The can bounced harmlessly off the robot's sensor visor, and then fell to the ground amidst the other scattered junk.
WHAM!! And then the alien robot joined it, the charge in its core fading away as the entire droid lost power and crumpled to the ground.

"........."
"........."
"........."
"........."
"........."
All the of the assembled women stared at the sight slack-jawed and eyes wide, unable to come to terms with what they just saw.
Snake took a moment to dust off his pants, and then realized that he seemed to be the center of attention. "What?"
Mars, who still hadn't completely recovered from being creamed by an energy beam before being buried by the destruction of the bunker, pointed to him and babbled incoherently. "You! It! Beer! Hurt! Not! Dead! Big! How!"
The lieutenant raised an eyebrow, then pointed to the bunker. "The power's out. I blew up the generator. Those extension cords aren't there for show; that thing has the battery life of a PSP." He turned around. "I'm gonna go find Yamazaki and Chikiko. Maybe there are more targets hiding out here. Laters." Without waiting for any response from his superior, the DA's weapon specialist took off into the winding paths of the junk yard, his shotgun resting easily over his shoulder.

Jupiter grunted, still unable to move from underneath the car frame that had landed on her. "Hey! Venus! A little help, here?"
"Huh? Oh. Okay," the blonde Senshi said, looking slightly dazed as she walked over and lifted up the key piece of scrap metal.
No longer completely pinned, Jupiter used the extra leverage to pull her lower torso from the junk that had trapped her, though the multiple sharp edges and twisted pieces of metal made it quite painful.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Geez! We SERIOUSLY have to reconsider our uniform design." Getting no response from her blonde friend, the ponytailed woman snapped her fingers in front of Venus' face. "Hey! Are you all right? You didn't get shell shocked or anything, did you?"
Sailor Venus looked right into her eyes, and smiled softly. "Jupiter... I think... I think I'm in love."
Wham! "Ow! Ow! OW!! What sadistic monster designed this terrain?" Jupiter complained, getting up from her facefault, and removing slivers of metal from her cheek. Then she addressed the issue of her best friend apparently falling for some explosives-fetish gun-crazy American. "Girlfriend, it's been a long day. Just give it a rest, would you?"
Venus nodded absently, but paid the thunder Senshi no mind. 'Such casual power... such control, such domination! A man who knows no fear! A foreign warrior with no equal, who would not be tamed! What a man! Today I, Minako Aino, Senshi of Venus, she who had thought to give up on true love and the idea of marriage, have found my first husband! By all the planets in the solar system, he WILL BE MINE!!'

On the other side of what used to be the pillbox, Asuka and Mercury helped dig Sailor Mars out of the debris, lifting up plates of rusty scrap and piling them to the side.
"Ugh! There! I'm out!" Mars, like Jupiter, immediately started to pick pieces of metal out of her exposed legs. "Mercury? Are you feeling better?"
The Senshi of ice nodded, smiling. "Much better, actually. Those bullets really were the problem." Then she smiled wider at Asuka. "You were really great back there! Have you considered being a surgeon?"
Asuka chuckled, not really used to receiving praise up-front like that. "Nah, not me. I prefer cutting up people to kill them, not save them. It's easier."
Mars and Mercury kept smiling, though their faces darkened, and sweatdrops rolled down their heads.
"OMIGOD!!" Mars shouted suddenly, startling the other women away from their own distractions. "Usagi! Where's Usagi?!" Such was her panic that she forgot to use the girl's Senshi name, apparently forgetting that Asuka wasn't part of their team.
The other Senshis' eyes widened, and they all started panicking and shouting for Mercury to run a scan for her.
At least, until they heard a tortured grunt from the direction of the wrecked bunker.
"Hrrrungh..."

Ranma groaned pitifully as he crawled through the burnt, warped remains of the blast doors, his rescued hostage latched onto his back.
While he had predicted that Snake was going to destroy the building, he had not predicted that most of the corridors in generic, non-descript laboratories look pretty much alike, and had ended up moving deeper into the lab instead of heading out the way he came. Luckily, when the blast came he had been able to shove Usagi into a corner and shield her with his own body, but that had, of course, left him looking worse for wear. Especially as it was the second time that it had happened that day. And on top of THAT, while Usagi looked like she weighed a hundred pounds, tops, whatever it was that augmented her strength and body structure had also made her more around the realm of four or five hundred pounds.
Finally feeling the soft glow of sunlight on his burnt flesh, Ranma let out a relieved grunt as he managed to push his body over the sharp, curled metal that was the remains of the blast doors. Then, as he saw Asuka rushing toward him along with four unfamiliar and strangely dressed women, he murmured a final sentence before losing consciousness.
"Tell... Snake that... I... hate him... ugh..."

"U... Usagi..." Venus said pensively as she approached. "I... what... WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!?!"
Mars winced at the volume, then scratched her head. "What's your problem? Other than that outfit, she looks fine."
"Duh, that's why I had to ask!" Sailor Venus said, rolling her eyes. "I mean, they wouldn't take her and do nothing, right?"
"Usagi? Are you okay?" Mercury said quietly, calling her by her true name like everyone else. She remembered that Usagi was supposedly transformed now, but calling her Sailor Moon at this point could only cast suspicion or confirm hunches.
Usagi twitched, looking very disturbed. "Some...thing wrong... can't... talk right." She stumbled over the words as her friends gazed at her worriedly, though to her eyes they all looked like malformed patches of color.
Then, suddenly, her senses snapped into order.
'Data install complete. Full system check complete. All programs ready. Bio-plasma generators operating at 4% capacity.'
Feeling her cognitive abilities and her senses return in full, Usagi frowned at the unconscious, charred man beneath her. "I thought I told you to knock it off with the ventriloquism!" Then she blinked upon receiving no response. "Ranma? Hey, Ranma? Are you okay?"
"Get outta the way! Get outta the way!" Asuka pushed her way past Mars and shoved Usagi off of her subordinate, before leaning down and checking Ranma's pulse. "He's okay. For now." Growling at Snake's incompetence once again, she slowly picked the pigtailed man up into a fireman's carry, and started to lug him away as fast as she could. "You guys, finish up whatever you were doing here, and evacuate! We're gonna have Core and investigative forces all over this place in a few minutes! I'll catch you guys later and we can talk about that registration!"
Not bothering to explain further, Asuka hauled Ranma's body in the general direction of where Kyle fell.

"Anyway, yeah. I'm okay. Confused, but I feel fine!" Usagi insisted, standing up and stretching.
Mars frowned as she looked her leader over. Something about the young woman just wasn't the same... 'Did her breasts get bigger? And her hips, too, I think... It looks like she even gained an inch or two in height.'
Sailor Jupiter gave Usagi a hug, overjoyed to have her back. "We're glad. We were really worried about how you just disappeared without telling anyone!"
"Yeah. Stupid fanboy stalkers and their crazy fetishes," Usagi groused, causing the others to sweatdrop. "I SAID he could have a lock of my hair. He didn't have to take my whole stupid uniform."
Then she looked up at Jupiter's face, and was alarmed to see a few green words start appearing in the space over the brunette's cheek. "Huh? Jupiter, you've got words on your face!"
The ponytailed woman blinked. "I have what on my face?" Then she squirmed as Usagi licked her finger and rubbed it against her cheek vigorously.
"It's not coming off! AH!! Now it's on my hand!" Usagi shouted in horror, watching as more lines of text started to appear in her view.
"Hey, wait a minute... what's going on here?" Mars questioned. She KNEW something wasn't right, and after all the trouble they had gone through to get here, she wasn't about to let anything slide.
All fears and speculations, however, were put on hold when Sailor Mercury gulped from where she had been working with the Mercury computer.
"Uh... guys? You're not gonna like this..."

**********************************************************************************

Androids shredded: 8
Zombies obliterated: 1 (but he's really, really, REALLY dead)
Boomers killed in the scrap heap, thus eliminating the need to send them there: 10
Enemy facilities destroyed: 1
Civilian facilities destroyed: 3
Alien robots neutralized: 1

End Chapter 2