"War is the most noble and honorable form of murder there is. And it pays better than serial killing, too."
- Ken "Snake" Yakata

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

Before the disclaimer, I'd like to respond to a reviewer who inconveniently forgot to leave an E-mail address or sign their review, prompting me to address the issue directly through the fic: Why do I bash Mamoru? Well, because I think it's funny. I don't actually hate Mamoru or anything, although I don't think much of him. I simply thought it would be funny to interject some comedy relief and chose him, based primarily on my need to create pretext for certain future plot points. Additionally, people LIKE Mamoru-bashing. It might be cliche, it might be overdone, it might be cheap, but it's enjoyable. I can't help that. I'm a slave to the audience. If enough people write reviews complaining about the treatment, I'll find a more gentle way to screw him over.

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. To answer any and all inquiries to this effect, YES, that stuff will eventually happen.
Other Notes: Sounds, techniques or emphasis, 'thoughts', (side comments)
It would seem ff.net is slowly moving to eliminate every punctuation mark in their attempts to foil any possible literary achievement by its patrons. Brackets no longer show up. Henceforth, written signs as well as Usagi's internal computer will be read with +like this+, at least until they outlaw plus signs.

Millennium
Chapter 5
Contact
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Sailor Saturn groaned as she cracked an eye open, having slowly been brought back to consciousness.
She grimaced when opening her eyes failed to have any effect on her vision. Right. Dark cavern. Pitch black. Peachy.
Her hand moved to the spot where she he had hit her head after falling, but found no bump or wound. Senshi healing at work, no doubt.
Staggering to her feet, the Senshi of destruction considered her options. Most of her powers wouldn't help in her current situation; a silence wall wouldn't do anything but keep her feet drier. A silence glaive surprise could easily carve out an exit for her... and probably bring the rest of the mountain right down on top of her. With a more powerful blast she could probably vaporize the entire mountain, but it was still quite dangerous... especially to all the people inhabiting the mountain and making use of its hot springs. A part of her mind that reveled in the Silence and remained detached from humanity, the part of her that carried the memories of a Sailor Saturn long dead, argued that her survival was infinitely more important than that of the ignorant nobodies currently scattered all over the mountain, and pushed for the overwhelming force option. Hotaru's rational mind recoiled at the thought and quashed that idea. She WOULD find a different way to get out, no matter how slow or cumbersome.
The sailor teleport was a possibility. She had enough power to simply warp out of the place, and she knew of no complications that could arise in her using it from deep within a mountain.
Nodding her head, she chose her home back in Tokyo as her destination. She had no desire to go back to her class trip, and certainly didn't want to see the girls who had ditched her again. There might be some problems with her sudden disappearance, but for all she could tell she had been gone at least a full day already, so that issue was unavoidable. As long as her adoptive parents and fellow Senshi knew she was safe, that was all that really mattered.
Invoking the teleportation, and remembering to close her eyes during the sudden, bright flash of light, Sailor Saturn vanished.

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Saturn spent several moments blinking her eyes repeatedly trying to adjust her vision after reaching her destination. Not because of the teleport, as she had remembered to shut her eyes as she rode that out, but rather because once she had arrived, her eyes had spent hours accustomed to complete darkness, and wherever she had ended up was well lit.
Not very problematic, in and of itself. Once her vision recovered, however, a much bigger problem dawned on the Senshi of Silence.
She was not in her room. She was not in her house. In fact, she was guessing she was no longer on planet Earth, though she supposed that given her recent surroundings, this location COULD feasibly be located underground somewhere, perhaps even in the very same mountain she had fallen into (this was correct, though she wouldn't know for quite some time).
On the plus side, she wasn't sitting in an uncomfortably warm and completely dark underground stream. Still, being teleported into an even warmer and well-lit cavern boasting a huge, earthen, dark-invader-type fortress wasn't a huge improvement.
She spent a moment gaping at the castle jutting out of the cavern wall as she stood at its gates. It looked as if it had been crudely carved out of the rock by hand, or more likely hundreds of hands, but had large plates of gleaming metal bolted onto the walls to protect the ramparts and a pristine pair of massive metal doors that belied its "ancient and primitive" look. Upon closer observation, metal shielding was actually one of the least interesting examples of technology mounted on the castle, as she spotted several small devices mounted at strategic places along the outer perimeter. Two such gadgets were mounted on the sides of the gate: little circles with dull red lenses that were clearly manufactured in the age of plastics, if not later. Both of these devices seemed to be in the midst of falling apart, however, and though she couldn't tell if they were still functional, on account of not knowing what their function was, she could tell that they had been here for quite some time without maintenance.
Turning around, she regarded the space in front of the castle. She was standing before the edge of a vast canyon that stretched across most of the cavern, with several metal causeways bridging the gap. These structures had apparently been made of extremely sturdy metals, as they had been thickly encrusted by dirt and rock, but showed no sign of breakage or rust anywhere. Still, she would be cautious if she ended up having to walk across them.
Especially seeing how the light in the cavern was actually originating from the gap. Timidly stepping over to the edge, Sailor Saturn looked down.
She had fully expected, given the stereotypical bent of this place so far, to see a river of lava, acid, or even some overly creepy substance such as blood, bile, liquid darkness, or something like that. Instead she saw a seemingly endless array of small metal, trapezoidal pyramids rising up from about twenty meters below the canyon edge. They were positioned base-to-base, such that Saturn couldn't tell what was below them, if there was in fact anything but rock. The strange machines, which didn't remind her of any kind of Earth or Silver Millennium technology she remembered (not that she clearly remembered much Silver Millennium tech at all), glowed brightly as they endlessly expelled waves of blistering heat upward into the bowels of the cavern.
There was more to her surroundings, but she dismissed them in favor of observing the fortress, as well as wondering how she had come to be here. There seemed to be nobody to greet/attack her, so it either was not done by some conscious will, or whoever had done it was lounging back in their throne room, waiting for her to come to them, like a typical villain.
Sailor Saturn considered the situation, and sorely wished she knew a bit more about the mechanics of the Senshi magic. She had no clue how the teleport, or for that matter, any of her powers worked; she just said the words, waved her hands in the appropriate motions, and the desired effects occurred. Which was fine most of the time, but it appeared that something had interfered in her attempt to get from point A to point B while completely bypassing mass deposit C, and she had no clue how that was possible or how to get around it.
That left three options.
1: Try to teleport again and again until it worked. This struck her as a bad idea, since it was clear that she no longer had complete control over where she ended up. She had warped into a warm cavern over solid ground this time, but what would happen if she materialized in a rock wall, or over the Sea of Japan, or in space? No, from here on out she would travel strictly on foot.
2: Try to walk out. There were only two directions to go: into the castle or across the crevasse into the tunnels beyond. However, she could tell that no light was coming from the tunnels and had no desire to go back to stumbling through complete darkness. Not only was it hard, slow, and potentially dangerous, but if there was some foe around here then they could attack her easily in the dark. The dark tunnels were out.
That left option 3: Barge into the castle, vanquish whatever evil was cooped up within, if any, and hope to either find an exit or find a clearly labeled "teleport inhibitor" type device and smash it. She didn't much like this plan either, as she didn't like the idea of facing a mysterious new enemy all alone if there was one, but it didn't look like she had much of a choice.

Walking up to the gate, she stabbed the main doors with her glaive before shifting it into a clean circle, slicing a hole in the metal doors big enough for her to step through. Withdrawing her glaive, she flipped it around in her hands before smashing the butt of the weapon into the severed circle of metal, knocking that section out of the barrier and onto the floor.
Thunk!
Peeking through the hole, Saturn could see only dusty stone hallways with strange-looking engravings on the walls. No enemies to speak of.
"You didn't have to slice up the doors, you know," came a voice from behind her.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!"

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Usagi skipped happily up the stairs of the DAPC headquarters, her long blonde ponytails fluttering behind her as she moved. She was here! After the previous day's attempt to get to the police station had been delayed due to evil, she had spent the rest of the evening convincing her friends that, no, she was NOT dating the hunky young police officer that had now rescued her twice from the steel clutches of a cybernetic menace.
Despite Mamoru practically leaving her, Usagi had decided to remain loyal to him. He hadn't actually ended their relationship this time after all; he had just implied that he didn't think of her in her cyborg persona as the same person that he had fallen in love with. That didn't mean they were through. Heck, he had even come to the rescue in the last battle just like always.
So Usagi simply considered this a "break" in their relationship like before that would eventually end with Mamoru running back into her arms like all the times previous. It would just take a little time until he either got used to the idea of her being a cyborg, or until she could find out whether or not she could reverse the process.
She had to admit though, the idea of turning back into a human - albeit a superpowered, near-immortal human - wasn't as simple as it was at first anymore. Every time she thought about the topic recently, she couldn't help but consider the possibility seriously and rationally, weighing the advantages of her new strengths and conveniences against the advantages of her Senshi form. That fact kind of frightened her; was she losing sight of her humanity? She was never given the choice to exchange her former life and powers for a cyborg body, and was converted as part of a kidnapping. Wasn't that reason enough to want a reversal?
Usagi shook her head once she realized she was thinking seriously about that issue again, and as a consequence staring into space right in front of the HQ doors.

"Hello! Anybody here?"
Asuka looked up from her desk and nearly choked. "S-Sakura?! What are you doing back?"
Usagi turned to look at the blue-haired woman, clearly confused.
Asuka shook her head. "Oh, s-sorry. It's just... Sorry." She tried to compose herself as she looked the girl over, trying to reconcile the momentary confusion. This new girl didn't really look all that much like Sakura, despite the same hair color. It was just a sudden feeling that Asuka got when she had first glanced at the girl. She just seemed to exude... incompetence. Cheerful, bouncy, impenetrable incompetence. Over her career the police captain had become quite sensitive to it.
Clearing her throat, Asuka rose from her desk. "My name is Asuka Takami, Captain of the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment. And you are?"
"Usagi Tsukino," she said, bowing deeply. "Nice to meet you. You're Ami-chan's cousin, right?"
Asuka blinked. "Yes. How do you..." then she frowned. "Hold on a sec." Turning to the computer on her left, the police captain quickly clicked through several files, and her eyebrow rose when she found the correct one. "Thought that name sounded familiar. So you're the famous Sailor Moon."
Usagi blanched, her face reddening. "Uh-oh... is my cover totally blown now?"
"Nah," Asuka mumbled, turning away from her PC and waving her hand dismissively. "The classified archive is encrypted, and nobody peruses our files anyway. They're too much like a Saturday morning cartoon lineup. And the press is more interested in the damage we do to the city than the forces we're sent to investigate. Jerks," she muttered irritably.
"So I'm not going to be kidnapped and taken apart like some lab experiment?"
"Of course not," Asuka said, waving off the comment. Then she stopped to consider Ranma's report on the girl. "... At least, not by the government. What exactly brings you here, Tsukino-san?"
Usagi composed herself and then sat down in front of Asuka's desk. "Well, I was wondering if you had any information on a terrorist group known as the Freedom's Angels."
"More information than any decent person should have to know," the bluette assured her. "What's the topic?"
Usagi blinked, surprised that it was so easy. "Well, it's a bit complicated. You see, I think they may have been involved in turning me into a cyborg." A small part of her mind marveled at how easy it was all of a sudden to talk about such a bizarre issue. It was like she had fallen into the Twilight Zone, only to decide it felt it like home.
The blue-haired woman raised an eyebrow at her. "You 'think'? You're not sure?"
Usagi blushed slightly. "Well... no. I've never dealt with this sort of thing before."
"Fair enough," Asuka allowed. "Anyway, I can assure you that in all likelihood, yes, the Freedom's Angels were responsible for your conversion. Exhibit A:" She turned around her computer screen, showing the image of a robot with a huge, charred hole in its chest. "The opposition. Most of what we faced back at that scrap yard was an older generation of FA cybernetic soldiers. This here is probably the toughest of the lot, such that it's still used alongside newer models. It's a Devastator-class boomer." She hit a key on her keyboard, and the image shifted to the four-legged behemoth that had blown up next to Sailor Mars. "Black Sabre-class artillery boomer." Click! "Mk. I combat androids."
Then she hit another key. "Exhibit B: The presence of not one, but TWO Angel cybernetic superweapons. First is the defense drone from an alien ship. Since encountering it in the scrap yard, it's obvious that the Angels retrofitted it and managed to reactivate it after they stole it. Second is Shin-Alpha."
Usagi gasped as she recognized the redheaded android now being displayed on the screen. "Hey! She's that girl who kidnapped me!"
Asuka nodded. "It figures. This is a Freedom's Angels special forces android, code-named Shin-Alpha. It boasts roughly ten times the combat prowess and energy output as a Mk. III, along with an array of gadgets to aid in surgical strikes, assassinations, and apparently the kidnapping of prominent superheroines."
The blonde girl fumed as she glared at the picture on the monitor. 'Well, she'll get hers the next time we meet! I'll make sure of that!'
"As you can see," Asuka continued, "given the evidence, either the Freedom's Angels kidnapped you, or someone who mysteriously has access to most of their resources did." Then she pursed her lips. "The problem, of course, is that we're a bit suspicious of why they went through all that trouble to make you, and then left you behind. When we got to that lab within the bunker, it had been evacuated."
Usagi blinked. "What? They left without me?"
Asuka nodded as she leaned back and crossed her legs. "Yes. And that presents us with two unfortunate and uncomfortable conclusions. A: Through sheer ineptitude or luck, you slipped through their fingers, and they'll probably make a powerful effort to recover you so that they can use you as a soldier like Shin-Alpha. Or B: There's a program or system within your mind waiting for some sort of trigger, and upon receiving it you'll be under complete enemy control."
The cyborg's eyes widened. "But... But I don't wanna work for terrorists!"
"And we don't want you working for terrorists either," Asuka deadpanned. "We're giving you the benefit of the doubt in allowing you to run around without a restriction code, but make no mistake; if you go rogue, we'll put you down. Got it?"
Usagi winced. "G-Got it..."
The tension in the room quickly dropped once Asuka got past that point. "So that's the story from our end. As far as we know, you're an escaped terrorist weapon."
The blonde cyborg mulled over that idea for a few moments, finding it rather humbling and uncomfortable. She was supposed to be the reincarnation of an ancient queen, destined ruler of the planet Earth, and wielder of an exceptionally powerful magic artifact. She decided that the job title "terrorist weapon" was pretty poor by comparison.
"Well... we were hoping we could track down the people who did this and see if they could reverse the process. Do you think you could help?" Usagi asked with a little more determination than before. Dealing with the DAPC was a little scary, but at the end of the day they were both on the same side. Why be timid about it?
Asuka rubbed her chin. "Well, my area of expertise is in breaking cyborgs, not building them. So I can't really judge if what you're trying to do is possible, but it sure SOUNDS like a longshot." Leaning back, she lowered her head, deep in thought. "Unfortunately, we only have one useful lead on the source of the Angels' technology. Then again, his specialty is robotics and cybernetics, so it's a decent bet." She looked up. "Judging from Saotome's combat report, you've met General Igov Yuchtzky, haven't you?"
Usagi winced, and then nodded. "Yeah... he's pretty tough."
"'Pretty tough,' is a fairly insulting appraisal of his abilities," Asuka deadpanned. "The man's a juggernaut. A smart one, too. He's also a cyborg, though his augmentations are more obvious. You're clearly different from the normal cyborg fare he works with, but it was probably his technology that made you."
The blonde nodded. "Where can I find him?"
"Well, that IS the million-dollar question," Asuka mused. "No one in the Freedom's Angels worth hunting down remains in one place for long, or makes their base public." Then she frowned. "Well, except for that bitch Tokima. But she barely knows a socket wrench from a screwdriver, and so far she's proven legally bulletproof."
Usagi began to sigh in depression before the last part of Asuka's statement penetrated. "Wait a minute... the Senshi don't need a warrant or anything to attack a bad guy, right?"
To any "normal" police officer, this question would have been alarming at best, and outrageous at worst. Asuka, however, was used to violations of law and procedure by her own officers that made vigilantism seem perfectly timid and reasonable, and had no illusions about the certainty of Alexandra's guilt.
"No, you don't, but I still wouldn't recommend an attack on her," the police captain drawled. "Alexandra isn't a near-invincible cyborg or anything of the sort, but she's rather crafty in her own way, and twice as cruel and ruthless as Yuchtzky can ever hope to be." She sighed. "In addition, she commands a good segment of the Angels' forces, and you don't even know if she has any useful information, much less if she'd tell you anything even on death's door."
Usagi looked a bit unsure of herself, but nodded anyway. "We have to try. Please, tell me where I can find her."
The blue-haired woman shrugged and turned her computer monitor back around. "We don't know where her permanent address is, or if she has one anymore, but she's the President of Wraith Laboratories, an organization that funds and supplies at least SOME of the Angels' operations here in Japan. They're nearly impossible to break down due to extensive international business support that lets them get their claws deep into the central government. As an organization it's far beyond the power of a mere police force to exert significant pressure to threaten their power structure. However, if a few buildings suddenly fell down and some executives went missing, they're more likely to just pick themselves up and rebuild rather than seek any governmental intervention."
Usagi blinked. "Even if their president vanished?"
"Tokima may be a brilliant economist, businesswoman, and at times a decent tactician," Asuka deadpanned, "but she's still just one of a thousand sadistic loons chafing for power. If she goes up in smoke, the Freedom's Angels will waste no time in sweeping up the dust and setting up a new puppet. That's how they operate."
Then she scratched her chin. "Come to think of it, it would be acceptable to assign someone to help you."
"It would?"
Asuka nodded. "Sure. As an escaped superweapon, our primary concern is keeping you out of terrorist hands. That may be difficult to do, what with you running right into their arms like this." Ignoring the cyborg's embarrassed flush, she continued. "We're a bit strapped for manpower because we're investigating some kind of undead threat right now, but I can spare one man and call him back when we need him for a major operation." She shrugged. "So I can give you a bodyguard. Whoever you want."
Usagi nodded happily. Not only had this trip turned out to be quite productive, but they were even getting help! "Can I meet your officers before I decide?" Naturally, she already had an officer in mind, but thought it would be best to at least meet the others before deciding.
"No problem," the police captain said, walking out from behind her desk and leading Usagi across the lobby. "They're in the tactical room right now having a meeti-"

BAM! The women jumped in surprise as the door to the meeting room suddenly burst open, and Snake stepped out before spreading his arms magnificently.
"Hear ye, hear ye!" The American shouted, "It is the decision of this council that in the instance of case 512: Negi Springfield versus Harry Potter in Deadly Combat, Negi would totally kick Potter's ass!"
Usagi stared, a large sweatdrop rolling down her head. Asuka merely hung her head as the image of professionalism and sensibility she had maintained so far completely shattered.
"Is... THAT... what you're all doing in there?" Asuka said quietly, her shoulders shaking as she ruthlessly suppressed violent urges.
"Yes," Snake said simply, idly wondering who the blonde was but not caring enough to ask. "The council shall now reconvene to - once and for all! - determine the sexual orientation of the characters from Naruto!" Without another word, Snake turned back around, slamming the door behind him.
Usagi's sweatdrop grew bigger.
Asuka turned toward her. "If you want to flee now, I'll understand."
"Er... no, that's okay," Usagi reassured her. "Actually, I've been wondering about Sasuke and Naruto for a while now."
"That's... great," the bluette mumbled as she trudged back to her desk. "I'm so glad you find this helpful. I'm just going to go back to my little pit of sanity and cry, now."
"Have fun!" The cyborg said far too cheerfully for the captain's liking. Then she opened up the door to the tactical room and slipped inside.

"And so it is the FINAL decision of this court," Snake shouted imperiously from the podium at the head of the room, "that Naruto, given his constant and frequent attention to the female gender, his hideous fashion sense, as well as being surprisingly pudgy given his career as a fighter, is clearly, obviously, and completely straight."
Wham! Junko slammed her hand onto the table as she stood up. "Objection!"
"Overruled!" The weapons expert said immediately, glaring down at the redhead. "The yaoi fangirl section of the council will have to be content with Sasuke and maybe the tongue guy."
"Damn!" Junko cursed, planting a fist knuckle-down on the table. "Then my section calls for the additional pairing of Kakashi and Iruka!"
"Hey! I like Kakashi!" Tiro complained.
"Noted," Snake said. "The council is called upon to judge Kakashi's desire for women! First, does anybody important care about this character?"
"HEY!" Tiro shouted. He was ignored as Ranma, Kyle, and Seras all shook their heads.
"Very well! The floor accepts the Kakashi/Iruka pairing, but only on the grounds that the yaoi fangirls keep their dirty claws off of Shino!" Snake demanded, pointing a gavel at Junko.
"The yaoi fangirl sector accepts these terms!" Junko said happily. Then she held up a stack of papers. "At least HALF my fanart is still valid. Who wants to see?"
The men all immediately averted their eyes, causing the promiscuous woman to pout and slump into her chair. "Philistines..."
Then she jumped slightly as an unfamiliar blonde woman seemed to nearly materialize next to her. "Can I see them? Can I? Please?"
"The council does not recognize the newcomer!" Snake said suddenly, pointing his gavel at her. "Guards! Seize her!"
"Oh, would you calm down? We don't have any guards." Ranma mumbled. "Usagi-chan, what're you doing here?"
The blonde cyborg blushed heavily and looked up from Junko's drawings. The redhead wasn't the best artist in the world, but seemed to have quite a bit of talent for erotic images. "Oh! Ranma-kun! Hi!" She hesitantly looked around at all the officers who were staring at her. "So... is this what you guys do all day?"
"Well, on Wednesdays, sure," the pigtailed man admitted. "Something wrong? What brings you by?"
"Saotome!" Snake said irritably, banging his gavel a few times. "Who is this?"
"Just chill, wouldja?" Ranma snapped. "This is Usagi Tsukino, the cyborg girl from that Senshi op the other day."
Junko raised an eyebrow. "Cyborg girl?" Looking the blonde over, she did little to hide her skepticism. All the cyborgs she had seen before came complete with chunky, obviously mechanical parts poking out of their bodies. This girl didn't look any different from your everyday college student. Well, other than her hairstyle.
Snake, despite Ranma's protests, wasn't about to relinquish the (mostly imaginary) power as chairman of the Council (as they really didn't focus on any one subject or do anything productive, they had merely named this particular activity "The Council"). He pounded the gavel a few more times. "The council demands proof of the newcomer's cybernetic nature!"
Usagi blinked, and flushed as she rubbed the back of her head. "Uh, well... okay..." She frowned as she tried to think of something to do. Of course, she could always just pop out her sensor fins or turn her index finger into a lighter, but she wanted to make a special impression here...
She brightened as she thought of something, and began to lift up her shirt.
"Whoo! Take it off!" Tiro suddenly shouted. Ranma immediately grabbed the back of his head and slammed his forehead into the table surface.
"Sorry about that. Go ahead," he said encouragingly.
Still blushing a bit, Usagi patted her stomach.
Pssshoot! Cold air burst out of the girl's abdomen as a square section of her stomach opened up to reveal a mini-fridge. "Here! Who wants a..." She blinked as she looked down at one of the bottles withdrawn from inside her. "A beer?" That was odd. She had stocked herself with soda. Where had this come from?

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Luna raised an eyebrow as she saw Ami gathering up her things in preparation to go out, mumbling the whole time about inconsiderate friends running off with her stash or somesuch nonsense. "Ami? Is there something wrong?"
"No, no," the blue-haired girl said, though anyone who knew her could immediately tell that she was uncharacteristically agitated. "I just have to go to the store for a while."
"Didn't you just go yesterday?" Luna asked worriedly. The dorm roommates had learned to accommodate Usagi's appetite, so the only reason that she would devour their entire grocery supply would be a breakup-induced eating binge.
"Yeah. I'll be back in a bit," Ami mumbled as her eye twitched. 'Of course, I'm SUPPOSED to be tutoring Usagi right now so that she doesn't get thrown out of college. "What the heck?" I figured, "If we're going to be together all day, might as well stock her shelves for her, right?"' That the stocking replaced other beverages, and that it happened at night when Usagi was unaware hardly seemed important. 'Just where IS Usagi, anyway?'

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Shrugging, the blonde cyborg started placing bottles of beer on the table. "Sorry, I guess this is all I have."
Bang! Bang! Went Snake's gavel. "It is the unanimous decision of this court that Tsukino-san is obviously the best cyborg ever. All rise for pointless enthusiastic cheering!"
"Yahoo!" The other officers whooped before grabbing the beers greedily (except Ranma, who gave the required shout before moving over next to Usagi).
"So what is it you're here for?" Ranma asked, genuinely curious.
"Oh! Uh..." Usagi shook her head suddenly - she had been wondering about what exactly it meant to be the "best cyborg ever." Who was her competition, exactly? - before she responded. "Well, it's sort of complicated, but someone here is supposed to help me and the Sailor Senshi capture a terrorist leader called Alexandra Tokima and interrogate her."
Everybody stopped drinking and turned to stare at her.
Well, except for Tiro, who dashed over and slid to a stop on his knees as he pressed his hands together. "PLEASE! Please pick me! I wanna work with the Senshi! I'll do anything!"
Usagi looked surprised by the request, while Ranma snorted. "Right. And what're you gonna do to help 'em out? You'll be so busy staring up their skirts you won't even notice when the shooting starts."
Before Tiro could offer any denial of the frankly undeniably likely prediction, Junko spoke up. "You know, that's actually not such a bad idea. Tiro could definitely find Tokima more easily than any of us, and may be able to negotiate the information out of her without having to resort to an interrogation."
Kyle nodded as he rubbed his chin. "Yeah... but he's still useless in a fight."
"So? As I understand it the Senshi have plenty of fighting power," Junko explained.
"Oh really? So much that you managed to arrest them after a single warning shot?" Snake drawled.
Tiro frowned. "Hey now, that's unfair. It's not like they wanted to fight the police."
"Yeah!" Usagi huffed, standing up tall and glaring at the American. "Plus, you know, you had a tank."
"Point taken," Snake said. "So what's it gonna be?" He pointed his gavel at Tiro. "Connections?" He then pointed his gavel at Kyle. "Power?" He gestured to himself. "Explosives?" Junko was next. "Homicidal, nymphomaniacal frenzy?"
Junko groaned and massaged her head as Usagi gave her a suddenly wary look.
Finally, Snake pointed the gavel at Ranma. "Or will you take the obvious choice: stealth, skill, and cunning?"
The blonde looked around the table, eventually meeting eyes with Ranma. 'Hmmm... let's see here.' Activating her scanners, her eyes made another circuit around the table.
+Target: Yamazaki, Tiro.
Rank: Cadet.
Species: human.
Class: decoy grade B.
Weapon specialization: sniper rifles, anti-tank rifles, any other weapons that can be fired from extremely long range or from hiding.
Special abilities: unusually sensitive to the presence of women. Has an almost precognitive sense of self-preservation that allows him to evade threats to his life.
Weakness: breasts.+
+Target: Tekai, Kyle.
Rank: Lieutenant Commander.
Species: human modified.
Class: assault soldier grade B.
Weapon specialization: heavy weapons of all types; carries his own mobile armory into battle.
Special abilities: genetic enhancements allow Kyle to lift an estimated twenty metric tons, as well as withstand multiple powerful impacts with minimal damage. He is also able to regenerate damage at a superhuman rate, including replacement and regeneration of normally irreplaceable cells. He is also known for his intellect, or rather lack thereof.
Weakness: math.+
+Target: Yakata, Ken.
Codename: Snake.
Rank: Lieutenant.
Species: human.
Class: commando grade S.
Weapons specialization: all modern ballistic, missile, and explosive weapons.
Special abilities: none, if one doesn't consider his uncanny ability to place explosives without anyone ever noticing superhuman. Snake's finely honed skills, extensive experience, and expert marksmanship doesn't seem to surpass anything considered strictly "human," yet the man continues to emerge from engagements unscathed where entire squads of other men would have swiftly perished.
Weakness: hippies, peace.+
+Target: Tuko, Seras.
Rank: N/A.
Species: human modified (scans suggest clone with minor splicing).
Class: mad doctor grade S.
Specialization: robotics.
Special abilities: as all "mad doc" classes, Seras possesses knowledge of technologies that not only far outstrip those commonly available to the world in general, but have somehow been developed and perfected without any obvious extensive documentation or really any respect for the scientific method. Seras' talents, unlike those of his peers, are frequently buried under his constant haze of inebriation.
Weakness: alcohol.+
+Target: Chikiko, Junko.
Rank: Cadet.
Species: human.
Class: psychic grade A.
Weapons specialization: knives.
Special abilities: when suffering significant cranial trauma, Junko's normally locked psychic potential surfaces in the form of alternate personality Akina. In this state she is capable of projecting powerful short-range kinetic bursts as well as empathetic projections that are devastating to living opponents, particularly humans. In contrast, her skills are remarkably ineffective against machines.
Weakness: lesbians.+
+Target: Saotome, Ranma.
Rank: Cadet.
Species: human.
Class: adept grade S.
Weapons: 13 mm. Jackal, monomolecular-edged kodachi.
Special abilities: a respectable library of exotic martial arts techniques, including a cloaking field and energy blasts. Has precision and speed to evade and even catch bullets, and the strength to break mechanical soldiers with bare hands. Also known for incredible adaptability in the face of overwhelming force.
Weakness: crying girls, cats.+
"Well... Ranma-kun? Would you help us?" She was a bit worried about him having cats as a weakness, but she was sure they could work around it. Surely he wouldn't freak out if he was just AROUND a cat, right?
The pigtailed man didn't say anything, but smirked and gave her a salute.
"Wow. I totally didn't see that coming," Snake deadpanned. Then he banged his gavel on the desk. "This session of the council has been concluded. As the final order of business, Lieutenant Tekai shall be tasked with dragging away Officer Yamazaki somewhere where he can finish crying like a little girl without the rest of us having to hear him."
Kyle stood up and saluted, obviously forgetting that he was Snake's superior. "Sir!" Then he grabbed Tiro, who had curled up in the fetal position, and lifted him up like a box of packing peanuts before hauling him out the door.
"Why? Sob! Why is it always Ranma?"

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A minute later Seras had left for his lab, and Junko had left saying that she was going "hunting." Usagi remained with Ranma and Snake.
"So even if we sort of know where the enemy is, we don't really know where to start," the blonde murmured, rubbing her chin. "We're not used to attacking ordinary people, you know?"
"Yeah, I can see that," Ranma murmured. "Well, the best idea here would be to decide on the most simple and safe strategy right away before Snake gets the chance to come up with his own plan."
The American, who had been staring up at the ceiling deep in thought, suddenly snapped his fingers.
"Too late," Ranma sighed regretfully. "And here I was hoping to get through this mission without getting set on fire..."
"No, no, no! Hear me out!" Snake insisted. "In this plan you get to stay outside the fire!" Then he turned to Usagi. "Look, it's really simple. We choose a Wraith facility at random, and you infiltrate it. All you have to do is make yourself look more... cyborgy. You'll bring in one of the ghouls we have upstairs into the entrance where they take in all the spooky bioweapon crap they're always shipping around. As you'll be clearly identifiable as a cyborg, and you'll have a twitching, moaning corpse with you, nobody will be inclined to think you're anything but an Angel weapon that they haven't seen before. Just take the ghoul into the subject storage area and tell them that you need to present the specimen to General Tokima. We can get her location then and there."
"Wait a minute," Ranma said suddenly. "There's something very wrong with this plan, considering it came from you." He frowned as he went over the idea as it was presented. "There's no bomb involved!" He said suddenly.
"Of course there's a bomb involved," Snake said condescendingly. "I'm going to plant it in the zombie."
"And when were you planning on mentioning that?" Ranma deadpanned.
"After it exploded, of course. When planning a mission, confidentiality is key! We can't divulge any facts unless it's absolutely necessary," Snake said, rolling his eyes.
Usagi frowned as she rubbed her head. "Huh... I think he has a point."
"No he doesn't," Ranma assured her. "He's always pulling stuff like this."
"What do you care? Like I said, you won't be anywhere near the bomb."
Ranma glared at the American. "And what about Usagi?"
"I'm sure a cyborg of her quality is able to handle a little inconvenience like being in the blast zone of a high-yield thermite explosive," Snake insisted.
As would be expected, Usagi was quite doubtful. "What's thermite?" She whispered in Ranma's ear.
"It's kind of like lava, except that instead of coming from the ground, it comes from Snake," he responded.
Snake saw the blonde woman quail at that and rolled his eyes. "Fine, be a big sissy about it," he muttered irritably, going back to his podium and opening up a manga.

"Maybe we should come up with something else. It's going to be dangerous enough without bombs," Usagi ventured.
"Yeah I think I'll run this by Asuka later. She comes up with all the really good plans." Ranma didn't like to admit it, but he knew he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, at least when it didn't come to one-on-one martial arts battles. That Usagi seemed a bit dimmer than himself might've been a comfort, except that she was apparently the leader of the Senshi and he was supposed to help them attack one of the most dangerous terrorist forces in the world. "Was there anything else you needed?"
"No, I guess not," the cyborg said reluctantly. "So I guess now I have to go back to school and study."
"Yeah, college is a pain in the ass," Snake said from his podium, "That's why I joined the army out of high school. The stuff you learn is just as useful, and THEY pay YOU."
Ranma cocked his head to one side. "So what are you studying?"
"Hmm... history and English," she mumbled in annoyance. "And then there's my P.E. grade too, though I won't really be 'studying' in that case."
"Sure ya can," Ranma said suddenly, patting her on the back. "I can help ya study for gym."
"What? How? We're not taking a written test or anything, we're just playing soccer," Usagi explained.
"Martial arts soccer, got it," Ranma murmured. Usagi was about to correct him in that martial arts wasn't a part of it, but Ranma continued before she could. "You can do plenty to study for that. Well, we don't really call it studying, of course. We call it training. But the concept is the same. I can turn ya into a soccer star in just a coupla days."
The cyborg cocked her head to one side. "Really? Soccer training?"
"Sure, why not?" Snake said, putting down his manga. "For that matter, I could teach you history, no problem."
Ranma made a face. "What do YOU know about history?"
"What're you, kidding me?" The American boasted, jabbing a thumb at himself. "Nobody knows history like I do!"
"... Does that mean the same thing as 'nobody knows history better than I do?'" Ranma wondered, only to be completely ignored by both Usagi and Snake.
Usagi clasped her hands together in front of her, eyes shining brightly as she stared up at the lieutenant. "You mean it? You'd really tutor me?"
"Sure. Not like I have anything better to do between firefights," the American said as he leaned back. "Besides, it's about damn time today's youth got a decent history lesson rather than the nationalistic drivel taught in Japanese public schools!"
"Uh huh. Usagi-chan, you sure you want to do this?" Ranma asked doubtfully, giving Snake a suspicious stare.
"I have to take all the help I can get," the cyborg insisted, gripping her hand into a fist and looking determined. "Ranma-san, Snake-san, please! Help me study!"

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Makoto sweatdropped as she glanced up at the arcade. "I'm not sure if this is really the time for this... shouldn't we go find Usagi?" She asked the shorter blue-haired woman next to her.
Ami shrugged. "Why bother? She told Luna she'd be at the DAPC headquarters, possibly all day. Unless we get an emergency signal from her, we have no reason to assume anything went wrong."
The brunette frowned. "From your description of the place, I'm not sure it's safe to leave her there alone. At the very least Luna should have gone with her."
"Meh. She'll be fine. As long as she doesn't piss off the big man-eating alien, anyway," the bluette insisted as she moved through the arcade entrance, stumbling slightly when the door offered more resistance than she'd guessed.
Makoto's eyes narrowed. "Are you drunk?"
"Of couse not! No! No... Nah. Not that much. Maybe a little." Successfully making it past the front door, Ami scanned the interior of the gaming complex, searching for an open console. "Oh! They have the new Time Crisis!" She said happily, walking toward the machine while swaying back and forth unsteadily.
"Oh, for goodness sake..." Makoto mumbled, rubbing her forehead. Inwardly, she seriously considered what she could and should be doing to help Usagi through her latest troubles and get back on track, but honestly she wasn't sure exactly what the "track" was anymore. Being cybernetically converted and accosted by alien/demon slayers just seemed to change all the rules, and while she didn't like it, she doubted that stalking into the belly of the beast would prevent more trouble than it would cause.
'If there's one thing Usagi is good at, it's making friends. I'm sure the cops wouldn't hurt her,' she thought to herself as she too scanned the arcade interior.
When she caught her gaze lingering on the bar, she had to admit that she wasn't even fooling herself. 'Screw it. Ami has the right idea.' Fishing out her wallet, she found a stool and settled in.

Ami gave a polite smile to the man playing the game at the right side of the two-man platform, and inserted her money. As the screen displayed the option for single or linked play, she snuck a glance at the fellow next to her, sizing him up.
He was rather tall for a Japanese man, though his long blonde hair indicated that he might not be totally Japanese. Then again, Usagi and Minako were both Japanese and blonde, so maybe it wasn't nearly so uncommon nowadays as most would guess.
Watching him for a moment, she couldn't help but notice the expertise with which he handled the gun, firing in a very precise, deliberate manner that she had never seen from a gamer.
After a few more seconds, she realized what was so different in his firing style: he was unconsciously adjusting his hands for recoil, despite there not being any. This man was no gamer; he was an actual gunman!
Being curious, she selected linked play and began, taking control of her character and joining the fight.

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Sailor Saturn backed away frantically as she hugged her glaive to her chest, almost stumbling over the rocky, uneven ground. "Wh-Wh-What are y-you?" She shouted, leveling her glaive at it.
Standing between the Senshi of Silence and the expansive chasm was a glowing, semi-transparent figure with its hands clasped behind its back. Upon further inspection, it appeared to be an old man with short, swept-back hair and a neatly trimmed beard standing before her in a plain gray tunic. "What am I? Do you mean what am I now, or what was I in life?"
"Gh-Ghost!" Saturn squeaked, stepping forward and swinging her glaive through the figure's chest. Predictably, the blade passed right through the image without apparent effect, although the apparition flinched from the attack.
"Hey now, stop that! That stings!" The spectre snapped. "Stupid aura weapons... put that damn thing away before you hurt somebody!"
Sailor Saturn recoiled as the spirit lectured her, sorely wishing she had some way of contacting the other Senshi. Rei probably had experience banishing ghosts, but she didn't know the first thing about fighting spirits. "Wh-What do you w-want? Go away!"
The spectre snorted. "What I want... is YOU!" He shouted suddenly, his eyes glowing a bright, bloody red as his voice boomed.
Saturn jumped back at the exclamation, scrambling for the door she had cut a hole into.
"Kidding! Just kidding!" The man said, chuckling as he suddenly appeared in front of her.
Saturn recoiled again and fell down on her bottom, clutching her glaive desperately. "D-Don't do that!"
The apparition shrugged. "Why not? Just a harmless bit of fun. I don't get many visitors, so I have to take advantage of it when I get some."
"No, you don't!" Saturn growled, standing up. "Now seriously! What do you want?"
"Well, I want to talk to you, obviously," the spectre drawled. "Like I said, I have to take advantage. Conversation is hard to come by when you're dead."
Saturn looked at the spirit distrustfully. "You just want to talk?"
"Well, I can't very well do much MORE, now can I?" The spectre said irritably. "So yes, I want to talk. For the first topic, I suggest my home. Which reminds me: please don't cut holes into it."
"What does it matter to you, if you're dead?" Saturn asked dubiously.
The spirit glared at her. "It just does! Aren't you Japanese supposed to respect and honor the dead?"
The Senshi of Destruction shrugged. "After I found out that some of the dead actually reincarnate thousands of years into the future and bring wars that were over eons ago with them, it didn't seem nearly as important."
"I see..." the spectre calmed considerably at this statement. "Reincarnate thousands of years into the future, you say? That sounds interesting. Let's talk about that." Then he gestured toward the hole she had carved in the front door of the fortress. "Come inside, please. The furniture is a bit dusty after several hundred years, but it's more comfortable than standing out here."
Saturn looked at the door suspiciously, then glanced at the caves on the other side of the cavern. Taking her eyes off the spectre, she didn't notice his eyes narrow in irritation at her indecision.
"Well... I guess I can spend a little bit of time here. And it would be best to have a guide around the fortress."
"A guide. Sure. Now move it. Hurry!"

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Ami put down the plastic gun as the final boss went down, prompting the usual comparison of points for both players. The results were... unfavorable. For her. Her partner was a VERY good shot.
Glancing to the side, she saw that the blonde man wasn't paying attention to the scoreboard at all, but was staring at a point on the floor for some reason.
Deciding to take the initiative and start a conversation, she coughed gently into her hand before speaking. "You're pretty good at this game. Do you practice using actual firearms?" She had already deduced the answer, of course, but it was an interesting enough conversation-starter.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I do," he answered distractedly, barely glancing away from the spot on the carpet. "I'm a cop. So I get a lot of practice shooting terrorists."
"Really? You see a lot of actual combat?" Ami asked.
He nodded, still staring away from her. "All the time. Though fighting actual terrorists is a little harder than this."
Ami chuckled slightly. "I imagine so... uh..." she cleared her throat gently. "What are you staring at?"
The blonde man pointed toward the point on the carpet that held his attention. "There's this patch of light that keeps appearing and disappearing right here! I think it might be some sort of code!"
Ami took one glance at what he was talking about and laughed out loud. "Th-That's so silly!" She said, chuckling and holding a hand over her mouth. "That's the light from the high windows filtering through the ceiling fan!"
The man looked up. Then he looked back down. "Ah. I see. I knew that." Then he turned around finally, taking a good look at the short-haired woman speaking to him.
Ami smiled and bowed. "I'm Mizuno Ami. Nice to meet you."
"My name's Tekai Kyle, Lieutenant Commander of the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment. Nice to meet you too."
Seeing the bluette's tension rise instantly, Kyle sweatdropped. "Ah. I see you've heard of us."
"Oh, well... you know... a little," Ami squeaked, desperately trying to calm herself down. "It's strange, though. I've run into their officers a few times, but I've never seen you before."
"Really? Why would you run into our officers?" The blond man asked. "You're not a mutant or a cultist or anything, are you?"
Technically, she fit neatly into the "anything" category, but obviously she couldn't tell him that straight out of the blue.
"No, no. My cousin actually works there as a police captain," Ami explained, chuckling nervously.
Kyle recoiled as if slapped. "Y-You're Captain Takami's cousin? Seriously?"
"Uh... yes. Why do you find that so surprising?" the bluette asked, sweatdropping.
"Oh! Well, whenever we ask the captain about her family, she always freaks out and changes the subject. I always figured all her relatives were dead or something," Kyle said bluntly, scratching his head.
Another sweatdrop joined the first. "Ah. Well... I'm sure she has her reasons..." Ami couldn't say that she knew what it was like having criminals for parents, as her own were both quite respectably employed, but she could easily imagine that Asuka would want to be associated with them as little as possible, especially around other police officers.
"Huh... Asuka's cousin..." Kyle rolled that thought around in his head for a moment.
Ami frowned and glanced from side to side. 'What's that noise? It sounds like someone bouncing a pebble inside an empty trash can.'
"Wow, you must be really smart!" He finally said, looking Ami over appraisingly.
She blinked. "Well, yes. I mean, that's what people tell me, anyway," she stuttered slightly, her natural shyness provoking her modesty. "Why did that occur to you, of all things?"
The blonde man smiled as he moved over to a nearby table and took a seat. "I guess it's just what I think of when I think of the captain. She's always berating us for acting like idiots and coming up with actual workable plans... I guess that's why she's in charge, really. She's way smarter than anyone else I work with."
Ami took the seat across from him. "Well, there must be SOMEONE else in your department of noteworthy intelligence."
"Not a one," the blonde man said somberly. "It makes me feel bad sometimes, you know? But what am I gonna do about it? I'm just an idiot."
"Hey now, don't say that," Ami chided, a bit alarmed by the way Kyle had said it so casually, as if it was an obvious truth.
"No, really, I totally am," Kyle assured her. "Once, an evil scientist knocked me out cold by asking me a word problem."
Ami's face darkened at that. "Huh. You don't say?"
"Yeah. It was kind of embarrassing," the blond man mumbled. "I didn't even remember that I wasn't taking a test until later. If I'd known that, I probably wouldn't have fainted."
Her face darkened further. "R-Really?" 'Wow. Maybe he IS an idiot,' she thought to herself. Having Usagi and Minako for friends had forced her to lower her standards significantly toward what she considered to be truly "stupid," but if this fellow wasn't exaggerating, he may just fit the bill.
She was mulling the idea over in her head (with a lot less noise than her companion), when something about Kyle's story came to the forefront of her mind. "Wait. An 'evil scientist' knocked you out?"
"Well, he's actually our medical officer, but he was sober at the time," Kyle explained.
"Medical officer... Seras Tuko?" Ami asked. "That drunk who was experimenting on the zombies in your lab? He's an evil scientist?"
"Only when he's sober," Kyle reiterated. "Which isn't often."
Ami frowned and scratched her head. "I... uh..." Then she leaned forward. "So, can you expand on that a little? It sounds interesting."
"Oh, sure!" The blond said brightly. "It all started a few months ago when I was suffering from chemical-based sublimy... sublinan... well, I had voices in my head. And Seras was supposed to fix it. Asuka didn't want him doing brain surgery drunk though, and cut off his access to alcohol before he started."
Ami was silent for a few long moments. "Wait... you were schitzophrenic and your medical officer was supposed to repair it via surgery? Is that even possible?"
"Hold on, lemme check," Kyle said seriously, sitting back suddenly. Then he poked himself in the side of the head. "Yo! Anybody in there? Got any evil missions for me today? Want me to assassinate my boss or plant explosives in my friends' cars? Anything? Helloooo?" As Ami blinked repeatedly, he shrugged. "I got nothing. So I guess the answer is yes."
The blonde man grew slightly concerned as his new acquaintance closed her eyes and shook slightly. The concern vanished once he realized that she wasn't holding back violent rage or some sudden pain, but was in fact trying to hold back laughter behind a wide smile.
"You're so funny!" Ami said finally when she felt that she could speak again without bursting into full-blown laughter. Whether it was the alcohol from earlier kicking in or the sudden tension from learning Kyle's profession wearing off, at some recent point her brain had decided to stop trying to process Kyle's actions logically and instead revel in the absurdity of the man.
"I... I am?" Kyle asked, scratching the back of his head. That was odd. While he certainly thought of himself as a man of good humor, it was quite rare that someone else remarked upon it.
Actually, it was rare anybody said ANYTHING about him that wasn't either a criticism of his intelligence or a commentary on him being able to lift really heavy things and crush them in his hands. So he appreciated the compliment.
"So tell me more about 'evil scientist' persona of Tuko's," Ami said as she leaned forward again, feeling herself relax. Now that she had decided not to take the tale seriously, she found herself eagerly awaiting the story, no doubt full of ridiculous twists and turns and silly cliches like...
"Well, after he sobered up and fixed my brain, he decided to try for world domination by creating robot copies of all us DAPC officers."
Well, just like that. "Robot copies, you say?" Ami asked, snickering lightly.
"Oh, yeah. They weren't that bad, though. He gave them all our memories and abilities and made sure that he could control them, but didn't make them evil or anything. In fact, one of them runs the Vatican right now!"
The snickers got louder. "Really? A robot as the Pope?"
Kyle nodded somberly. "A JEWISH robot as the Pope."
"Ha ha ha!" Ami laughed openly, suddenly feeling even more at ease with the blonde man at the opposite side of the table. The way he threw out one ridiculous comment after another with that serious, slightly grave expression was just too much. And for a self-proclaimed idiot, he seemed to be coming up with these very creative stories at a good pace, throwing out ideas in sequence as if he was speaking from honest experience.
She started a bit when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked over to see Makoto squeezing her gently while staring at the man across from her.
Ami frowned at her expression, not because it had a slightly glazed quality that clearly indicated the taller girl had just come from the bar, but because she was staring at Kyle critically and deliberately, as if she was judging an animal at a harvest fair.
The genius Senshi sighed, slightly annoyed. She had hoped to hear a few more stories and then get him into another round of Time Crisis, but it seemed like Makoto was getting ready to snatch him away. She didn't really mind her friend taking him for a date or even a "quick ride" (as Minako shamelessly put it), but it would be nice if Makoto hadn't interrupted their conversation to do it.
"What is it, Mako-chan? Does he remind you of somebody?" Ami said sarcastically.
Makoto cocked her head to one side. "No. No, he doesn't."

Ignoring Ami's startled expression, the ponytailed girl leaned forward over the table. "Hi. I'm Kino Makoto."
"Tekai Kyle," Kyle said automatically, nodding, and trying very hard not to notice the spectacular view of her breasts he was offered.
"Well, if you two are gonna be a while, then I'll hit the road," Makoto said, fanning herself as she straightened again. Ami's startled expression got worse. "What? You're leaving? But we just got here!"
"Yeah, and I'm ready to call it quits," the ponytailed girl said bluntly. "I don't have much money on me, and unlike some people, I actually have to study to pass my tests."
While the shorter girl was busy wondering about whether she should feel ashamed by that statement or not, Makoto started walking past them, only to somehow trip over her own feet - an action Ami had only seen from Usagi, and NEVER would have expected from Makoto - and fall forward next to Kyle.
Unsurprisingly, he reacted in plenty of time, reaching out suddenly across Makoto's stomach to stop her fall and hold her up. "Hey, are you all right?"
"Oh! Sorry! I'm fine!" the ponytailed girl said with an embarrassed flush as she grabbed onto Kyle's shoulders to steady herself. 'Mmmm, nice and thickly muscled. Ami had better appreciate this.' Then she moved her head closer so that she could whisper in the man's ear. "Mention quantum theory. You'll be at second base before dinner."
She had no idea if that was actually true, but it was certainly worth a shot, and she was of the personal opinion that Ami could really stand to get laid once in a while.
Of course, she felt that about all her friends except Minako, but that was beside the point.

Kyle blinked repeatedly as the tall brunette scampered off, smiling brightly.
Ami frowned, her calculating mind quickly kicking back into gear to analyze what had just happened.
Makoto hadn't actually tripped. She had better balance drunk than Ami did sober. She had deliberately fallen on Kyle like that, but why?
Just to feel him up? That didn't make sense. Makoto Kino knew how to play the game. If she wanted Kyle, then she could have gotten much more than a quick squeeze; all she'd have to do is wait until he and Ami were done talking, and then she could have been all over him without issue. Even if she wasn't quite a romantic anymore, Makoto wasn't into copping quick feels. She tended to either ignore a man or go all the way with him.
New data filtered in as Ami glanced at Kyle and saw his expression. Maybe she had said something to him? But what sort of thing would she-?
A blush spread across Ami's face as her mind calculated the correct answer. 'God damn it. Not again.'
Her friends were ALWAYS trying to get her to date more often. She suspected it was more for their entertainment than consideration for her social life, actually; her chronic shyness was such that she had felt completely humiliated whenever she tried going out with a man, and she had long since taken to ignoring the whole idea of a romantic relationship. She felt that she got along just fine without one, and frankly couldn't handle the dating process itself; the awkward moments, the self-consciousness, the constant rush of blood to her head leaving her dizzy... it was far more trouble than she was guessing a boyfriend was worth, and it also took up a lot of time that could have been better spent playing King of Fighters.
"Hey, wanna go play King of Fighters?" Kyle asked suddenly.
Ami felt the blush slowly fade from her cheeks as she blinked. "Uh... sure. I'd like that."

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Sitting alone in his cell, back facing the door, Garo fumed to himself.
It wasn't hard to imagine the source of his discontent. Here he had been brutally captured, imprisoned under inhumane conditions, and even used for TARGET PRACTICE by his captors, all without any offer or promise of being fed at any point in the future.
That was the worst of it. Oh, sure, the other grievances were bad, but he felt he could have weathered them easily enough if he wasn't being starved the whole time.
The vampire sighed miserably. It had never occurred to him before his capture, but as a non-human he really had no reason to expect any sort of equitable treatment as a prisoner.
Then again, as a non-human, he really had no reason to expect to be captured.
'I must plot for my escape. That's my only chance. The worst they can do is destroy me, which would be better than being stuck in this cell for-
His ears perked up as he heard the telltale beeping noise of his vault's electronic keypad.

'My, what timing,' Garo thought as he turned slightly, spying the entrance as the massive vault door slowly rolled open.
Once the door was mostly open, Garo raised an eyebrow when he saw the DAPC's medical officer standing outside the grate of silver bars, hands clasped behind his back.
The midian scowled. He had spent little time in the man's presence, but the way the man had prodded and all but dissected him on an examination table only to announce, after he was finished, "Huh, I guess you're not really any different from humans biologically, huh?" had quickly moved the drunk into Garo's ten least favorite people in the world.
Actually, this whole damn department was starting to monopolize that particular list.
'Okay, so I need a plan to get past the gate somehow. This man is obviously drunk, but I can't afford to underestimate his intelligence.'
At that point the vampire noticed that the man was still pressing keys in the electronic keypad. After a few more moments he apparently finished, and with a fairly loud humming noise the silver gate began to slide open.
'Huh. Perhaps I should be more worried about overestimating his intelligence,' Garo decided. Glancing behind the scientist, he could see only one other officer: the attractive redheaded woman who had been using him for "target practice." He recalled clearly that she seemed to be in dire need of such training. Perfect.
Despite his anger at that particular incident, he found himself disappointed that she was apparently not a virgin - if the one known as "Snake" were to be believed, anyway - she would have made a wonderful servant vampiress. Oh well. She'd do just fine as a quick snack.
"Hello there!" Seras said amiably, raising one hand to wave at the blood-stained ponytailed man. "I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time!"
Garo slowly stood up, making sure to look particularly unsteady as he did so. "You've already taken all the time I have in the foreseeable future. Feel free to make use of it."
"Ah, yes! First of all, I'd like to apologize for some of the living arrangements around here. I know it's... well... less than ideal."
Garo frowned. "You refer to your fellows who fired upon me while I was contained?"
"No, not really," Seras said bluntly. "I was referring to the fact that we haven't given you anything to eat. I mean, using you for training is one thing, but we hardly benefit from your starvation." Then the hand he was waving with earlier rose up to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. "It's a bit of a funny story, actually. We had requisitioned some blood bags earlier to feed you with, but I found them before anybody told me what they were for, and tried to play a little practical joke on my assistant." He chuckled lamely. "So, I'm afraid that the blood was wasted. Well, unless you're willing to lick it off the floor or suck it out of my other lab coat."
The vampire twitched, still facing away from the drunkard. "That is... quite unfortunate."
"You're telling me! The worst part is, Yamma wasn't even fooled!" Seras complained. "Anyway, we were going to get more, but Saotome pointed out that there are actual humans who might need that blood, and we shouldn't waste any more than necessary on keeping filthy monsters like you alive."
Garo twitched again. "I see. And so you've come to feed me yourself. You've got far too much alcohol in your blood for my liking, but I'm in no position to be choosy, am I? I thank you for your kindness."
Seras blinked. "What? No, actually I-" he had barely begun explaining his presence when the midian suddenly bolted toward him at speeds far too fast for an ordinary human to possibly dodge.
Whether or not Seras was an ordinary human, he certainly wasn't much faster than one, and his reflexes were in an almost perpetual state of impairment. Panicking, the scientist tried to protect his neck with one arm while at the same time raising the arm that had been held behind his back since entering the cell. In that hand was a small cylinder with a button on top that Junko had earlier commented look like breath spray.
Suffice to say, it wasn't breath spray.

Pssht! Pain slammed into Garo like a speeding truck as he felt something wet spray onto his face, and instantly his charge turned from a vicious lunge to a clumsy collapse. Screaming at the sudden agony, the vampire landed his face on the drunkard's chest, and then slowly slumped to the ground into the fetal position, clawing at his face the whole time as it was inflicted with a maddening burning sensation.
"Tuko! Are you all right?" Junko asked in a panic, jumping into the cell with her pulse rifle at the ready.
Seras spent a few moments panting and clutching his chest, then shook his head. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Ha! He caught me by surprise, there!"
Junko frowned as she watched the vampire writhing around on the floor, hissing painfully through clenched teeth. "Not quite as bad as you did him. What IS that stuff?"
"Well, effectively, it's the equivalent of vampiric pepper spray," Seras explained. "It combines a mixture of acidic compounds, a touch of holy water, and liquefied garlic."
"Garlic?" Junko asked, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, the acid and holy water I understand, but what is garlic supposed to do to vampires?"
"According to common myth, it acts as a mild vampire repellent; supposedly, vampires find the smell of garlic particularly intolerable. In a few quick experiments, I noted that garlic, and to a lesser extent scallions and onions, actually react dangerously with the strange chemicals in a vampire's tissue that appear to be preventing normal necrotic decay. This reaction seems to manifest in the form of rashes, hives, muscle spasms, swelling, and apparently significant pain."
Junko raised an eyebrow as she repeated those symptoms to herself in her head. "So... vampires are... allergic to garlic?"
"Very much so, it would seem," Seras mumbled. "This mixture would only cause significant pain to a human if sprayed directly in the eyes, due to the acid content. When used on a vampire, however, the garlic concentration is so powerful that it can stop one dead in mid-charge and render them senseless, as we've just witnessed."
Garo groaned as he pushed himself up, his eyes still squeezed shut. "So... this is what you wanted to see me for? More abuse?"
"No, no, not at all," Seras insisted, shaking his head. "This was a proper experiment! I couldn't send out our officers with these items without being sure that it works!" He said condescendingly.
Then he raised the cylinder to the vampire's face and sprayed him again.
"GYAAAAAAH!! WHY?!?!" Garo screamed as he once again fell to the floor, clutching his face. At this point even his arms and hands were starting to sweat and turn red just from wiping the offending juices off of himself.
"NOW I'm just abusing you," the drunkard said unapologetically. "What, you didn't really think you could try and attack one of us and get away with it, did you? Ha! Silly walking corpse! Here, have some more!" Giving the canister a good shake, he started walking after the vampire, who had started scrambling away on his hands and knees.
"NO! Stay away, you monster! Get back! Back, I say! There will be a reckoning for this! I SWEAR IT!!"

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Glug! Glug! Glug! Gulp! "Aaah!" Snake slammed the empty beer bottle onto the table as he polished it off, pausing to wipe his mouth with his sleeve.
Usagi blinked, and hesitantly grabbed the hem of her shirt. "Uh, do you want another one?"
"No, not right now, thanks," the American said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. "Back to studying."
"Okay then." Usagi opened a note book in front of her on the table, and then tapped her index finger on the table surface, causing a small, ballpoint pen tip to emerge.
"It's important to know about scope when you discuss world history. As you might imagine, there's a lot to know," Snake began. "But because you apparently don't pay enough attention to know what the test is actually ON, we'll just try to cover all the important bases."
Usagi sweatdropped and nodded shamefully. "Okay. Thank you again for your help."
"To start off, it's important to know that all relevant world history occurred after the colonization of the Americas. Even then, nothing really important happened until the United States successfully became an independent nation."
Usagi finished writing that down, and then frowned. "Wait, there was no world history before America was founded?"
Snake shrugged. "Well, there WAS... but sort of in the way there were computers before the desktop PC. That is to say, it was there, but it was stupid and nobody cares." Then he raised his index finger into the air. "All relevant world history revolves around the United States of America. Everybody knows that."
Usagi's frown deepened. "That doesn't sound right, though."
Snake rolled his eyes. "Tell me Usagi-kun, can you name the current governor of California?"
"Arnold Schwarzeneggar," the cyborg said without hesitation.
"Uh huh. So you, a Japanese citizen who doesn't generally keep up with current events, can name one of fifty minor U.S. elected officials off the top of your head," he drawled.
Usagi flushed. "Well, that recall election thing was all over the news..."
"I'm sure it was. So, can you tell me the name of Japan's current prime minister?"
Usagi flushed harder, and let out a nervous chuckle.
"That's what I thought. Can I continue?" The American asked condescendingly. Usagi nodded mutely.
"Good. Getting back to the U.S. After kicking Britain's ass back across the Pacific, the American people decided that they kind of liked the continent, except for the parts way up North which were too cold, and the parts way down South that were full of illegal immigrants - a problem that still haunts the U.S. to this very day - so they set out to claim all the land between the two areas using the standard colonial doctrines of the era."
"Huh? What's that?"
"Basically, the problem that European colonists faced when settling new lands is that native people already owned the land. Luckily, a seemingly irrelevant bylaw existed in the legal networks of most colonial powers that provided an expedient solution," Snake explained.
Usagi looked up from her notes. "Really? What law was that?"
"That dead people can't own property."
She was silent for several seconds before mumbling "Oh..." in a small voice.
"That isn't to say that the colonists killed off ALL of them," the American continued. "Some were enslaved or hired. Others were armed and then sent off to kill other natives. Some of them were assimilated into our culture. A bunch of them were simply screwed out of their land by colonial contract lawyers. And giant swaths of them were killed by disease because apparently Europeans aren't real big on hygiene - yet another problem that persists to this day."
Usagi nodded, though she looked distinctly uncomfortable. "So when do we get to the stuff that affects the rest of the world? Maybe Japan in particular? There's probably going to be a lot of that, you know."
"Fine, fine. Next we'll discuss the modernization of Japanese warfare thanks to the introduction of guns to Japan, all thanks to the U.S. of A!" The weapons expert said proudly.
"America invented guns?" Usagi asked.
"Sure, for all you know. We also invented airplanes, the internet, and freedom!"
"Wow..." The ponytailed girl breathed. "America is great!"
Snake grinned and pointed at her. "And THAT, little lady, is the most important thing you'll ever need to know about world affairs."
Usagi began nodding emphatically before she suddenly paused. "Wait... didn't we fight a war or something against the U.S. a while ago?"
"Yes! It's kind of a long skip from the colonial era, but it's probably more important anyway," Snake reasoned, leaning back as he rubbed his chin. "Anyway, let me tell you all about World War II... and the gleaming champion of world peace known in modern times as the 'nuclear bomb'..."

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Ami hummed pleasantly to herself as she walked down the street from the arcade, thinking back on the interesting man she had spent her evening playing games with.
When she thought about it, she was amazed how relaxed she felt around Kyle. Putting aside the fact that he was a member of the DAPC, an organization she had a healthy amount of respect/fear for, he was also a man, and Ami had never been at all comfortable holding even extended conversations with men.
Kyle, however, was quite pleasant to talk to. He was kind of goofy and very casual, and it even seemed he was a skilled gamer, which Ami found quite odd.
Really, the man was a police officer. It wasn't as if he didn't have better things to do than sit around on a sofa and play games, right?

"Ami-chan!"
The bluette turned around as she heard Rei's voice behind her, and smiled at her friend as she approached. "Hi Rei-chan! What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, just a little research," Rei said noncommittally as she approached. Then she cocked her head to the side. "Wow, you're in a good mood."
"Am I?" Ami asked, blinking.
"Seems like it. Not that that's a bad thing, but you've seemed a little stressed out lately. I don't blame you, given all that's happened, but..." she frowned. "You're not drunk, are you?"
Ami sweatdropped. "I only had one drink!"
Rei said nothing.
"...... In the past hour," Ami amended quietly. "Like you're one to talk..."
The former priestess ignored the accusation as she sidled closer to the genius Senshi. "Actually, I'm glad I ran into you. I think I have a lead on the cyborg guy we fought the other day."
"Really? You think we can find him?"
Rei nodded. "Once I started digging up files on the domestic terrorists in Japan, one thing led right to another and soon things started to add up. Everything points toward the Freedom's Angels. It seems they've been toying with exotic technologies for years, and they've even gone around turning corpses into cyborg soldiers." She slipped her friend a folded batch of papers, which Ami opened hesitantly.
After skimming the body of an article below a photo of an impaled soldier, the genius Senshi's brow furrowed. "Rei-chan, where did you get this? And how come I've never heard of anything like this? Somebody's reviving cadavers by implanting cerebral stimulators and false organs into them? This is unbelievable!"
Rei nodded. "I'm meeting with someone right now who's been investigating the Central Organized Response Echelon. Apparently the government's been holding a more-or-less secret war against these guys for a few years. A year ago though, things started to get serious. We're talking advanced biological weapons, robotics, and even the undead!"
Ami's frown deepened. "The war is hardly a secret. Everybody knows about the terrorists."
"Most people know that terrorists occasionally attack Tokyo," Rei corrected, raising her index finger. "But very few people realize just how organized and deeply entrenched these guys really are. The government knows that if anything weird pops up and blows up a stretch of Tokyo, people will just get right back up, rebuild, and go on with their lives. But what if they knew that these attacks weren't random monster appearances, freak alien attacks, or just some lunatic with a gun and a tattoo? These goons have an ACTUAL ARMY right here in the city, complete with freaks of nature that most people - like you, for example - wouldn't believe came from a bunch of paramilitary psychos. So nobody bothers to hide the actual attacks, but not many people realize that the attacks are actually highly organized efforts funded through major Japanese corporations. Nor do they realize that these terrorists have huge, cutting-edge labs to create new weapons in."
"This... This is..." Ami felt the last of her good cheer start to evaporate as she continued reading. "I can't believe this! And all this was going on right under our noses? Where were the Sailor Senshi when people were being turned into cybernetic weapons and killer zombies?"
Rei shrugged. "I don't know what to say; this isn't a Negaverse threat or some troublemakers from the future, here. These are just mentally disturbed people making dangerous toys."
"Who is it that you're speaking to about this? We have to stop these people!" Ami said anxiously.
"Calm down. I can't tell you who she is," the fire Senshi said. "She made me promise that if I had to tell someone this, I couldn't reveal the source. And I had to work HARD to get her to allow me that much."
Ami briefly considered the idea that Rei could have promised whatever the hell she wanted and just told them anyway, seeing how they were magical superheroes charged with the defense of humankind, but decided against voicing it.
"Anyway, I'm meeting with her now to discuss these rashes of disappearances that have been occurring all around Tokyo recently. Given what happened to Usagi, we may have dozens of new cyborgs popping up all over the place," the raven-haired girl gave a leaden sigh. "Anyway, we'll work on fighting organized crime later. First we have to work on finding out what happened to Usagi and who can fix it. And this Igov sap seems as good a start as any. We won't let him catch us by surprise next time."
Ami nodded. "Find out what you can, Rei-chan. Do you need these back?"
"No, you can keep them. I'll see you later. Keep an eye on meatball-head for me, would you?" Rei asked wryly.
Ami couldn't help but smile as her friend tried to lighten her mood a bit. "Given all that's happened, wouldn't it be more appropriate to refer to her as 'titanium head'?"
"Hmmm... needs work," Rei decided as she scurried off.

Ami immediately found a park bench and started to read the files she had been given in earnest.
'This is horrifying...' she thought to herself as she scanned one of the articles. 'I remember when there were those smoke clouds and explosions in Tokyo. Or at least I heard about it on the news the day after... did anyone even bother to ask WHY there were tremendous mecha stomping through the streets or where they came from? When did Tokyo become so apathetic?'
She rolled that question around in her head briefly. 'Probably when teenage girls in glorified cheerleader outfits started keeping the peace better than the authorities,' she thought to herself, sighing. 'It really is a wonder anybody's still willing to live in Tokyo at all.'
Folding the papers back up and slipping them into her purse, Ami turned in the direction of her dorms and started looking for a bus stop. 'For now though, Rei is right. We have to give all our support to Usagi.' Then she frowned. 'I hope she's back by now. I'm not entirely sure what she hopes to accomplish at the DAPC headquarters, but I doubt she's studying.'

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"Are you sure this is how you're supposed to play soccer?" Usagi asked in confusion. "I always thought you were supposed to avoid hurting other people."
Ranma snorted as he bounced the checkered ball on one foot. "That only applies to sissy non-sports, like marathon racing and golf. And in golf a lot of people still end up getting beaten to death by their opponents." He kicked the ball up into his hand. "When I throw the ball, I want you to kick it straight back at me, got it? Aim for the head."
The blonde cyborg gulped, nodding uncertainly as she stepped back with one foot, as instructed previously. 'Aim for the head, aim for the head, aim for the head...' To her surprise, a red targeting reticule suddenly appeared around Ranma's face in her field of vision, and it rotated briefly before stopping and beeping.
"You ready?" Ranma asked.
"I think so..." Usagi mumbled, clearly uncomfortable with the stated objective.
Ranma rolled his eyes at her timid tone of voice, but lobbed the ball toward her feet, readying himself to shield his face.
In Usagi's field of vision, a blue reticule immediately locked onto the soccer ball, and she felt a strange sensation in her thigh as certain joints tightened and quickly built up pressure.
WHACK! "Gwah!" Usagi cried out as her kick tilted her off-balance, and she flailed her arms uselessly before falling onto her back.
Falling didn't hurt nearly as much as a cyborg as it did as a human (and she had plenty of experience for comparison), so instead of lying there groaning, she immediately sat up to see if Ranma was okay.
Ranma was, in fact, completely unharmed, and was staring down at her with an unreadable expression.
Plap! Something soft and floppy fell on top of Usagi's head, and she quickly shook it off before seeing that it was a ripped patch of rubbery material with a checkered hexagon pattern on it.
"Yeah... your accuracy is good," Ranma began, rubbing his chin while trying very hard not to laugh, "but you might want to key down the force. Not only will it keep you from destroying the ball, but you also won't fall down so easily." He paused. "Also, I guess you could kill someone hitting the ball that hard. That would be bad, too."
"R-Right," the cyborg said, flushing as she stood up unsteadily. "I'll try it again!"
"Uh... or not," Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "That's actually the only soccer ball we have. Most of the time our department sports games are all paintball gunfights."
"Oh. Sorry..."
"Forget about it," Ranma said, waving her off. "It's getting late anyway. I'll just get a new ball tomorrow."
"Okay then..." Usagi glanced toward the exit. "Uh... so, are you going home with me, or what? I'm kind of new to this 'bodyguard' stuff."
Ranma shook his head. "Not tonight. We're making a raid on a vampire lair tonight, so I'll be busy."
The blonde looked appropriately alarmed at the statement. "What? A vampire lair?!"
"Yeah. He won't tell me how he found out without the captain knowing, but Snake found this nightclub which tailors to singles, particularly out-of-touch or socially inept teenagers. Apparently the entire point is to draw in virgins for them to turn into vampires."
"Luring pure, innocent children in to turn them into monsters?" Usagi gasped, suddenly looking grim and gripping her hands into fists. "This sounds like a job for Sailor Moon!"
"It's not," Ranma said, "We've got it covered."
"......" Usagi pouted slightly as her dramatic high waned quickly. "Are you sure? It REALLY sounds like a job for Sailor Moon."
"Don't worry, we do this sort of thing all the time," Ranma explained as he headed for the armory. "Though I guess if you REALLY want to, you can come along with us and help out. You ARE registered."
Usagi stopped and thought hard about this as Ranma stepped into the locker room, leaving her in the hall.

When one got right down to it, no, she DIDN'T really want to come along. Usagi was not a fighter by nature, and hated combat, even if it was for a good cause (as this certainly was). She had simply gotten so used to fighting supernatural injustice that when she'd heard Ranma's explanation of what was happening, she had naturally assumed that it would fall to her and her fellow Senshi to set things right.
But the fact was, the Senshi were not alone. This didn't have to be her fight. Yes, there were horrible, twisted, man-eating abominations prowling about in the shadows, but she had the entirely reasonable option of going home and studying for exams and leaving the conflict to government agents trained and paid to provide security for Tokyo's citizens. In fact, Setsuna had advised precisely that before she had disappeared. Yet the idea was more than just foreign to her; it was downright bizarre.
Usagi bit her lip. Even if she didn't want to fight, and perhaps didn't have to fight, she was still worried about the officers who were apparently charging into this den of evil, no matter how confident they were. Did she want to return to the station tomorrow only to find that her history tutor had been overwhelmed by bloodsucking monsters because they had been led into a trap?
The choice was clear. Usagi walked up to the door to the locker room and prepared to knock on it.
Then she stopped again, not because she had changed her mind, but because she realized that Ranma was probably changing and there was really no point in bothering him now instead of waiting.
Whether it was her nervousness about the situation or some subconscious urge on her part, after a few seconds of waiting, Usagi's vision suddenly blanked out before returning a split-second later.
It happened quickly enough that she didn't even have time to shout in surprise. One moment, she was staring at the door to the men's locker room, and the next, she was staring through a mysterious new hole in the door to the men's locker room.
This was understandably confusing, and she instinctively reached out with her hand toward the large circle that was suddenly missing. She was only more confused when her fingers hit a flat, solid surface where the door should have been.
'Wait a minute...' her eyes slowly widened in growing wonder as she continued feeling the door in front of her while looking through it at the same time. 'I... I have X-ray vision?' Usagi gaped at the thought. 'I can see through WALLS! This is SO COOL!!'
After adjusting to the idea, she started paying attention to what was actually beyond the door that she could now see.
"Oh... wow..." she mumbled, a pink flush appearing over her cheeks. "Ranma has a really toned body..."
"Why are you staring at the men's locker room?" Snake asked from behind her, not having caught her mumbling.
Usagi immediately whirled around, her light embarrassed flush having turned a full, bright red, and prepared to explain herself.
"AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!! A SKELETON!!" Seemingly on reflex, Usagi's left forearm split open, and a screaming bolt of green plasma erupted from above her wrist, sailing straight for Snake's torso.
The DAPC's weapons expert was not one to be caught by surprise by rampaging cyborgs, and rolled out the way while simultaneously readying his own weapon as the powerful energy blast melted a dripping, scorched hole in the wall.
Blam! Blam!
Scraps of metal and glass burst from her arm as the pistol slug ripped through the energy weapon, but before she could even register the damage to her arm, the second bullet struck her straight in the forehead, knocking her clean off her feet and onto her back.
Thud!

Snake frowned as he slowly stood up from his crouch, his Desert Eagle trained on the twitching blonde in front of him.
A moment later, the locker room door burst open, and Ranma looked around frantically for the source of the disturbance. Needless to say, he was less than pleased by the situation.
"Dammit, Snake! Why'd you kill Usagi?" Ranma growled, watching as sparks and arcs of electricity shot up around the blonde's damaged forearm.
"She started it!" Snake replied defensively.
"Ow..." the cyborg in question groaned pitifully as she sat up, and raised her left arm to massage her head.
She gasped upon seeing the condition that the limb was in, and then gasped again as she finally realized what had just occurred. "Oh my God! Snake-san, I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to shoot at you! Honest!" Her eyes started tearing up as she clapped her hands together and shifted her legs so that she could start bowing as she begged for forgiveness.
Snake mostly ignored this, instead walking up to the cyborg and tilting her chin up while staring into her eyes.
Or, at least, that's what Usagi assumed he was staring at, at first. "You're kidding me! I didn't get penetration even with a .50 cal? What the hell is your skull MADE out of?" A tiny patch of skin had been torn away on the cyborg's forehead, revealing silvery metal underneath.
"Uhm... excuse me?" Usagi asked nervously, wondering why Snake seemed to be more upset that he didn't kill her than he was that she had nearly killed him. "Are you okay? I almost shot you."
The Texan clicked his tongue as he watched the false skin spread and seal over the exposed metal. "That's okay. No harm, no foul." Then he shrugged. "At least, that seems like the best policy now that I know that shooting you in the head only slows you down."
Usagi blinked repeatedly. "Oh. Uh... well, I'm still really sorry." She stood up shakily and then bowed low.
Pzsht! A brief shower of sparks erupted from her arm, and she stared at the mangled weapon/appendage worriedly.
Ranma scratched the back of his head. "So, should I get a first aid kit, or... uh... a wrench, maybe?"
"No, wait, I think-" before she could complete the sentence, her blouse bulged slightly around the shoulders, and both officers were treated to the sight of small, spider-like robots emerging from under her collar and swiftly scrambling down her arm.
"Oh. Okay, you've got it covered." To Usagi's surprise, Ranma immediately let the subject drop, forcing herself to once again consider just what the standard for "weird" was around these people. "Snake, are we set to go?"
"I guess. Looks like Chikiko's coming too," Snake said, pulling back the slide on his sidearm and checking it for problems.
"What? Why would she come along?"
Sighing, the Lieutenant re-holstered his weapon. "I assume it's because she misunderstood the phrase 'We're raiding a single's club.' But hey, whatever. The more the merrier."
"Uhm, if you don't mind," Usagi said suddenly, interrupting the two, "I'll come along too."
"Not with that aim, you won't," Snake said immediately, his eyes narrowing as he crossed his arms over his chest. "If you can't hit me at two meters with no cover, how the hell are you going to kill a raging midian before it rips your head off?"
"Aw, lay off 'er Snake," Ranma protested. "She's not exactly new to this sort of thing. I'm sure she'll do fine." Then he turned toward the girl in question. "That said, you sure you wanna go through with this? It's gonna be pretty dangerous."
"I know," Usagi said, looking determined, and still inwardly wondering why Snake didn't seem in the least bothered by his recent brush with death, "but I want to help. Even if I don't have to do this, I won't stand by while there are innocent people being corrupted by monsters! I'm sure the other Senshi will help too!"
"Yeah, actually, I have a much better idea," Snake deadpanned, "let's NOT bring them along. I'd rather not having a bunch of loud, obnoxious women in bright, ridiculous-looking outfits tagging along on our infiltration mission, thanks."
"Hey! That's... uh... a good point, but still mean," Usagi protested half-heartedly, flinching slightly as one of her repair drones dug deeper into her arm to remove Snake's bullet. "So wait, how many people are we doing this with?"
"With you, that makes four. Snake's the ranking officer, so he's in charge," Ranma explained as he put on a jacket and slipped his kodachi into the inside pocket.
"Four people? Against how many vampires?" The blonde asked anxiously.
"Not enough," Snake replied as he started loading shells into a shotgun. "If you're scared, go home. If you're not, grab a weapon and follow us."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Grab a weapon? She IS a weapon, remember?" Taking out the normal clip in his Jackal, he then inserted a magazine with an engraved cross on the side.
"Whatever. Here." Snake reached into his pocket and produced two small silver cylinders. "New from the DA geek department. It's like vampire pepper spray or something."
Ranma and Usagi stared at the cylinders suspiciously.
Snake rolled his eyes. "NO, it doesn't explode."
"I was wondering why you sounded so disappointed," Ranma remarked as he pocketed the item.
"What can I say; I prefer weapons that make my enemies bleed, not cry."

Usagi took the second cylinder wordlessly in her right hand, trying to ignore Snake's increasingly aggressive statements, and inwardly wondering just what she was actually going to do when it came time to fight. Though it was obvious she had quite an array of useful weapons, she wasn't proficient with any of them, and had no idea how one fought vampires. Shoujo manga was annoyingly quiet on the subject.
She was startled out of her thoughts when one of her little robot spiders crawled down her right arm and snagged the cylinder right out of her hand. It then jumped onto her other arm, and immediately began fitting the spray capsule into her forearm.
Ranma noticed this, and pointed to the machine. "It DOES know that's not a mechanical part or anything, right?"
"Uh... I guess. Or, at least, I hope so," Usagi mumbled. "I'm kinda still getting used to this body." The repair drone fixed its legs into an opening between the wires and tubes in her wrist, and then the opening suddenly shifted outward to allow enough room for the capsule.
"I don't see why; you've got all that you need," Snake said, casually walking up to the cyborg and lifting up her shirt.
Ignoring Usagi's initial cry of surprise, he tapped her stomach and then opened up her abdominal panel before withdrawing a beer.
The blonde quickly closed her stomach up and pulled down her shirt, her face flushed. "S-Snake-san... please ASK if you want something to drink."
"Sure, I'll do that," Snake said nonchalantly as he popped the top on the bottle. "All right; the captain's out, my shotgun's loaded, and I have my beer! Let's go conduct a criminal investigation!"

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Rei frowned deeply as she sipped her tea, staring at the girl across from her who seemed to be trying to break a record in how long one could rant hysterically without taking a breath.
Tsuna Nagase, while being a very intelligent and inquisitive young woman, was like a lot of far-left conspiracy theorists who accused the government of corruption, lying, secrecy, and all the things that everyone knew governments did at least SOME of, but reasoned were probably best ignored so long as they didn't reach too far.
Tsuna believed that the Freedom's Angels were actually a branch of the government funded to slowly turn private industry, typically an opponent of the government, into a vast war factory to eventually build a titanic army by converting all private citizens into zombies and robots for use in a zionist plot for world domination.
She wasn't entirely sure whether the armies would join with the Evil American Empire in crushing and subverting the rest of the world, or go for a World War II rematch that would doubtlessly leave the planet in ruins, but she was investigating that angle diligently.
Needless to say, Rei had learned to take Tsuna's ideas with a grain of salt early on.
However, the rather plump bespectacled girl was no idiot, and when some of her theories about terrorist attacks and zombie uprisings started to hold water, she had latched on to them and taken to gathering good evidence like any proper journalism student instead of hanging out on street corners and waving cardboard signs. Now she was convinced she was on to something, and Rei, who shared at least her interest in the supernatural aspects of her reports, had become her outlet.
"Vampires, Hino-san. All over the place, yet! Doesn't it seem strange that in the past two months, the number of missing persons has TRIPLED from its usual average, and yet it doesn't deserve more than a fifth-page article with no explanation?!"
Rei didn't think it seemed strange; if someone was missing, then the authorities had no explanation to give until the case was resolved. She didn't say that, though. "And you think... VAMPIRES are responsible... because...?"
Tsuna snorted and produced a few documents before discreetly sliding them across the cafe table they were seated at.
Wordlessly, the raven-haired girl picked them up and observed the labels. "These are all battle reports. I suppose it would be useless to ask how you got these."
The bespectacled girl nodded sharply. "Note the one on top. An armed police encounter when they received a report of a teenager killing his family. It apparently took SIXTY-TWO bullets to stop him - hits, mind you, not the final ammo expenditure - and he managed to kill four officers by tearing through them with his bare hands and biting one in the neck." Her eyes narrowed. "And here's the kicker: the officer he bit? About the time when the ambulances get there, he stumbles to his feet and starts advancing on the others, moaning like a zombie. It only took a single shotgun blast to stop him when they realized he hadn't miraculously come back to life, but I'm sure you can make the connection."
Rei said nothing, but admitted that the other girl had a very convincing case, especially once she got to the next file.
Seeing her companion moving on, Tsuna continued her narration. "A week ago there was some kind of riot going on uptown at three A.M., and Core moved in, thinking it was another terrorist engagement. They didn't encounter any 'vampires' reportedly, but the violent crowd they were sent in to subdue consisted of some thirty-something dead civilians, all of them stumbling around and eating other civilians. Needless to say, the tear gas proved thoroughly useless, and they immediately started handing out the big guns."
Tsuna couldn't help a snort of contempt at this point, at which Rei fiercely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. From the junior journalist's point of view, officers shouldn't be allowed or enabled to perform acts of violence, and the entire police force should consist of licensed therapists. "You can see the observations on the mortician's report: two of the zombies had a pair of clean, evenly-spaced holes in their jugulars, while the others had obviously been chewed on extensively by other zombies. We can see that-"
She stopped suddenly as the waiter stepped within earshot, and her lips pressed into a pleasant smile as the young man carried their appetizers to them.

The waiter smiled broadly as the girls at the far table noted his approach and stopped talking, though much to his chagrin the hot one barely glanced at him before poring over some kind of article in front of her.
He had been trying his best moves ever since the pair had come in, and they had worked... on the raven-haired beauty's less desirable friend. She smiled widely at him, waved to him when he was walking away, passed a few lines of small talk whenever he came close... all obvious signs of attraction.
But he wasn't really interested. Not that the girl was exactly hideous... she just had a lot of little physical imperfections and obviously didn't take the greatest pride in her appearance. Her hair was frayed and mussy, her glasses were decidedly unfashionable, her face was plagued by acne, and she had enough fat on her to hide any feminine curves.
It didn't help that she was sitting across from a total fox, either. Long, shining black hair, a slim figure with long, rich legs and a respectable bustline, Rei had worked hard to maintain the beauty she had enjoyed all through high school (Minako often wondered aloud why she bothered when she didn't have a boyfriend and never went out prowling for one, but such speculation was usually silenced with a harsh glare).
The waiter resisted the urge to sigh as he put down the girls' appetizers, seeing the girl of his dreams thoroughly engrossed in some boring document while her unattractive friend asked for a refill through fluttering eyelashes.
Shallow and lecherous as he was, the young man wasn't a complete jerk, and smiled pleasantly at Tsuna before taking her empty glass. "Will you be ordering a main course, ladies?"
"No, we won't be here for long," Rei answered absently, expertly ignoring the man's smoky eyes. She had shrugged off more charming individuals than this sap.
"Well, don't leave too soon; this place could use a bit of class," the waiter said, smiling at both college students but winking only at Rei... who was reading the articles and wasn't paying attention.
Tsuna giggled inanely and watched the young man walk off.

Rei sighed. "Nagase-kun, you really shouldn't encourage that guy."
She pouted. "Why not? I think he's cute!"
Rei put down the documents as she prepared to lecture her fellow student. "Sure he's cute, but that kid's a waiter; he jumps from girl to girl the same way he goes from table to table." She frowned deeply. "Besides, you can do better than a waiter; you know some people, get a date with someone with a future!"
Tsuna frowned back, her brief elation at the man's flirting evaporated. "Easy for you to say... you could have a date with whoever you want..."
"This isn't about me," Rei said sharply, moving into the tone of voice that she and Luna used to lecture the other Senshi, "you're too smart to be having stupid flings with guys who won't appreciate you. Don't let creeps like that sucker you out of your panties."
"Hmph. I could live with a fling," the bespectacled girl grumped. "I'm finally out of high school, I'd like to actually try this whole 'dating' thing that some girls' entire lives revolve around."
Rei rolled her eyes and decided to drop the subject, pausing when the waiter came back with Tsuna's drink.
"Getting back to the vampire thing..."
"Right, right," Tsuna sighed and let thoughts of her barren love life evaporate. "The vampires are clearly a new weapon of the government to destroy other nations by slowly converting the native populace into undead. With terror and chaos tearing apart domestic society, the government can more easily invade innocent nations and steal their oil," she said in a quick, hushed voice, not noticing as multiple sweatdrops appeared on Rei's head.
"The government... okay..." the part-time Senshi murmured. "So then why does every bit of evidence you have of these creature's existence show the government fighting to destroy them?"
Tsuna frowned. "Well, some vampires probably went rogue when they found out that they would be expected to kill and corrupt innocent civilians-"
"And made their displeasure known by killing and corrupting innocent civilians?" Rei interrupted, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Okay, well, maybe they were set loose specifically so that the police could look like heroes by destroying them!" The junior journalist guessed.
"And you have evidence that they're not actual heroes destroying a bunch of monsters?"
Tsuna scowled. "All right, fine, you made your point. I don't really have much more than theory and hunches on the government's involvement. But I KNOW that there are vampires on the rampage."
Rei nodded curtly. This was why she went to Tsuna: when you cut through the paranoia and nutty "everyone rich and powerful is evil" mindset, the girl actually had some useful ideas and discoveries and the proof to back it up. Of course, they still SOUNDED crazy, but there was a huge gulf between crazy conspiracy theories and crazy conspiracy evidence.
Looking at the last file in the stack of documents, Rei raised an eyebrow at the source. "So this report is from the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment?"
"Yeah, it is," Tsuna managed to put an impressive amount of venom into the simple affirmation. She despised government agencies who oppressed people and committed violence, and there were few government agencies as corrupt and violent as the DAPC, and NONE that were as blatant about it. In her opinion, destroying something because you thought it was "abnormal" was the height of human ignorance and fearful hatred.
For once, Rei could empathize with the sentiment. "This is pretty detailed. It looks like those psychos do this a lot."
"No doubt," Tsuna spat. "Even now they admit to capturing a vampire for observation and dissection. Or at least they claim; as a government agency, they probably know all there is to know about the vampires that they created." She glanced across the table and noticed Rei's half-lidded stare. "Maybe," she amended. "And, well, if the government had nothing to do with it before, then they will now that they have a vampire to replicate and release on the public at whim."
"That would seem to be at odds with the DA's well-known 'destroy, annihilate, kill' policy of investigating anything out of the ordinary," Rei reminded her. While Rei would never take on the gargantuan task of convincing Tsuna that the government did NOT exist to destroy and torture its citizens, she found that it helped to keep the junior journalist honest by at least pointing out when her conspiracy theories contradicted each other.
"Hmph. Right," the bespectacled girl said as she took a bite of the shrimp appetizer. "Whatever. For all the DAPC's corrupt, wanton warmongering, they seem to keep some very good records. Nearly half of my data comes from their public archives." Then she leaned in close. "Did you know? It seems they even arrested the SAILOR SENSHI! Can you believe that?"
Rei's eyebrow twitched. "Yeah, I can believe that."
"Imagine, locking up a group of heroes just for being magical girls!" Tsuna snarled. "The DAPC are the real crooks!"
Rei nodded smugly.
"Those girls saved so many lives! And they're willing to arrest them just because their form of justice doesn't conform to their fascist ideals?"
Rei chuckled. "Believe me, you're preaching to the choir."
"I'll bet even now, those poor girls are being tortured, brainwashed, and dissected to serve the government as 'registered' keepers of the peace!"
Rei sweatdropped. "Um... well, I doubt that, actually."
"Why do you always take the government's side?"
"Look, do you have anything else on the vampires?" Rei asked, starting to get a bit frustrated with the other girl.
Tsuna clicked her tongue. "No. Well... no, not really," she said uncertainly.
"Nagase-kun?"
The bespectacled girl looked across the table uncertainly for a moment. "Hino-san, just how far can I trust you?"
Rei winced. "Probably not far enough to actually ask me that question."
"Hmmmm..." the junior journalist didn't seem at all put off by her answer. "There's a place I want to investigate... but it could be risky, and I'm not sure I want to go alone."
Rei frowned. "What kind of place? A cemetery?"
"No, nothing so cliche as that," Tsuna deadpanned. "It's just a night club. It might be nothing... or..."

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"And then, when the Dark Kingdom had nearly overrun the Silver Moon Palace, Queen Serenity used the ginzuisho to banish the enemy to a pocket dimension, and send the Senshi's souls forward to be reincarnated... well, recently," Sailor Saturn said as she relaxed on the surprisingly soft cushions laid out in the antechamber of the ancient fortress.
The glowing, semi-transparent individual had given her a brief introduction as Nal'Shek, a lord from somewhere in deep space. Although Saturn was understandably curious and wished to know more, the poltergeist deflected all her inquiries, instead being intensely interested in the stories about a dead empire that used to rule the immediate solar system.
She found the spirit's increasingly passionate lust for information a bit disconcerting - not so much more as the very act of holding an extended conversation with a dead person, however - but found no harm in telling the (former) man the secret history of the Silver Millennium. It was only a secret in the first place because few people would believe it, after all.

Nal'Shek paced a four-meter space of the castle antechamber, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Saturn guessed that he might have dug a rut in the floor if he had been substantial.
"Why 'banish' the enemy?" he said suddenly. "Why not destroy them outright?"
Sailor Saturn shrugged. "Maybe it wasn't powerful enough?"
"It seems unusual to me that a device that can bend time and space and construct suitable barriers to prevent dimensional breech is incapable of simply rending apart flesh or annihilating a stubborn soul," the spirit answered. "But the idea has merit. What became of this 'Dark Kingdom'?"
Saturn frowned. "Well, some of the other Senshi defeated the main force that originally destroyed the Moon Kingdom, but the rest of them are still there, I guess. Every once in a while something breaks free and we have to go kill it, but it's been years since we had to face an organized plot."
"And so you heroes of this dead era stand ready to protect Earth from these creatures, then? That's all you do with your powers?"
Saturn blinked at that. "Well, that's not ALL... eventually we hope to resurrect the Moon Kingdom, and purge all evil from Earth to create an eternally harmonious society."
Nal'Shek stopped pacing. "Create a WHAT?"
"Well, Sets-er, Sailor Pluto called it a 'utopia.' A land without war or suffering or strife where all humans could live peacefully and happily," Saturn explained to the increasingly alarmed spirit.
"I... I see," Nal'Shek said, returning to his pacing.
He was about to ask another question when Saturn beat him to the punch.
"Now could you explain what's going on here? I really shouldn't stay too long," the Senshi of Destruction pleaded.
The poltergeist frowned. "I really don't know what to tell you about 'what's going on.' You arrived here, I walked out to meet you, and here we are."
Sailor Saturn crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, can you at least tell me where I am?"
"You're in my fortress," Nal'Shek explained unhelpfully. He sighed when the purple-haired girl glared at him. "I really doubt I could explain your location in a manner that would be of any help to you. You're on planet Earth, and you're underground."
"Underground WHERE? Am I in Japan? Are we in a mountain, or under the ocean, or what?" Saturn pressed.
"I haven't the slightest," the spirit admitted. "I'm not sure if humanity had even been properly organized into recognizable tribes when I arrived here, much less nations. Even so, I'm more used to recognizing planets as the most common example of a sovereign entity. I really couldn't care less what particular patch of dirt is sitting on top of this place."
"Well, it's kind of important to me," the purple-skirted Senshi groused. "Speaking of which: how do I get out of here?"
Nal'Shek shrugged.
"You're kidding me," Saturn said, massaging her head. "PLEASE tell me you're kidding me."
"I had forsaken the surface for this fortress long before I died here; as I said, the surface was a place of rampant barbarians without a hint of civilization. I much preferred sitting down here by myself without anyone with which to hold an intelligent conversation to trying to hold an intelligent conversation with inbred apes while they threw things and tried to make off with the shinier pieces of technology I brought with me."
Saturn sweatdropped. "Well... still... you must have left SOME way to the surface, just in case..."
"It's entirely possible I did," the spirit admitted, "but if so, I've long forgotten it. As you can imagine, an emergency exit is of very little use to you once you're dead."
"Well, than what am I supposed to do?" Saturn said sharply, her voice slowly rising toward a growl. "I'm sure you found this a very nice place to spend half your life, but I have things to do."
Nal'Shek nodded his head. "Indeed. Indeed. Since that's the case, I suppose I should help. It'll take a bit of searching, but given time, I'm sure I can find a way out for you." Then he turned toward her. "You look rather tired, though. Why don't you get some sleep, and I'll start checking the eastern passageways for openings to the surface?"
Sailor Saturn was about to nod, but caught herself as she considered something. "Actually... I was wondering if you'd tell me a bit about yourself."
"Hm?" The spirit looked mildly surprised at the request.
"Well, I've been telling you all about the Moon Kingdom, but what about you?" Saturn pressed. "You're an alien, right? Where are you from, and how did you get here?"
Nal'Shek looked uncertain for a moment, as if debating the question internally. Then he nodded solemnly and sat down next to the purple-skirted girl (entirely as a gesture, of course; as he possessed no mass, there was nothing for the seat to support).
"Well now... that story begins a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

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The Dark Hearts singles' club wasn't an overly unique little establishment on the surface.
There were some things about the club that were different from the norm... again, on the surface. They tended to target and advertise to teenagers in high school and college, which, while objectionable to some parents, wasn't anything to warrant an investigation over. That there seemed to be an unusual number of missing persons that were last known to be heading to the club one night was more worrisome, but few considered the club itself responsible. Disappearing for days on end was part of the swingers and reckless youth's lifestyle, and where could some back-alley dance joint possibly profit from harming them?
Like any other singles' club, the message they tried to get across was "come to us and you'll get laid." Common claims were that the club was constantly filled to the brim with sexy, fun-loving individuals of every gender and persuasion who would gladly hook up with any average Joe who walked through the front door instead of each other.
The slight difference is that the Dark Hearts club seemed to deliberately appeal to the types who wouldn't normally be caught dead in a club: nerds, workaholics, social recluses, traditional women, devout Catholics, and just plain ugly people.
Although none of the people who prowled around the schools handing out fliers said so explicitly, there were many rumors that suggested that the club deliberately drew in and tailored to virgins. And whether those people were virgins by choice or circumstance, it was said that they never left that way.
Of course, there were other changes in those individuals besides their sexual experience, but no one other than their now-isolated families and close friends noticed when they started playing hooky all the time, and only appeared on sunny days wearing hats, large overcoats, and large shades.
There were some who got a vague sense that something was wrong with the place. Mostly, these people were non-virgins who had gone to the club and found that, for some reason, the pale, well-built patrons seemed to fawn over the stumbling, pimply nerds rather than slick, experienced individuals who often left the club early and alone. Others could simply feel a sense of... "wrongness" in the club. An almost imperceptible chill in the air that intensified every time they made eye contact with certain people in the club... as if they were a piece of cattle being judged for market. And still others could swear that they'd heard brief screams of terror coming from some of the private rooms upstairs...
Snake didn't know any of this, as he didn't have the attention span to conduct a proper investigation. He had ascertained the club's name and purpose from shooting a captured vampire and then kicking him repeatedly until he was convinced that it was giving him a real location instead of just making up a name to get Snake to stop.
Still, one couldn't start bombing a night club because a single captured undead monster confessed it was a well-disguised vampire factory. It just wasn't proper.

Pchnk!
The man at the front door jerked back as a bullet tore through his shoulder, and he blinked repeatedly. "Wh-What the hell?"
Snake shook his head as he lowered the silenced P99. "Look at that. Barely even flinched. Guy's a bloodsucker, all right." Behind him, Ranma stepped forward while Junko and Usagi watched in anxious silence.
The doorman's eyes widened at the accusation, and he leapt into action, tearing toward Snake with one hand ready to rip the American's throat out.
Snake stood calmly in wait as Ranma dashed in front of the midian, grabbed his outstretched arm, and then twisted around to slam the undead man face-up into the ground. Then Snake silently took aim at the doorman's chest.
Pchnk! Pchnk! Pchnk!
Ranma growled as the vampire tried to claw at his throat with his free hand, jerking and spasming each time a bullet stabbed into his heart.
Eventually, after Snake started cursing and reaching to his belt for another clip, the vampire let out an especially sickening gurgling noise, and his skin began to harden and turn an ashen gray.
Ranma gave a disgusted noise as the creature turned to dust underneath him, and stood up before wiping off his pants.

"Stupid nine mils couldn't put down a damn kitten," Snake spat, slipping the silenced pistol into his jacket. "Now the Israelis know how to make a REAL gun! .50 AE would've blasted his heart right outta his chest!"
Usagi looked confused. "Then why didn't you use that?"
"Because we're still being all stealthy-like, and nothing can silence a Desert Eagle," the weapons expert confided. "All right, now it's time for the battle plan. We lucked out in arriving when nobody else is here, but we have to act fast." He removed a small block from his other jacket pocket. "I'll start arming the place. You three go in and mark your targets, but be careful not to blow your cover before the time is right."
Ranma frowned at the block in Snake's hand. "Wait a minute. You're going to blow up the building with us and all the non-vampires still inside?"
"Of course not!" The American said, sounding affronted. "What do you take me for, some kind of maniac?"
The ensuing silence spoke volumes.
Snake fumed. "These are GARLIC bombs."
The others sweatdropped.
"Garlic bombs? Did Tuko make those?" Junko asked, eyeing the explosive suspiciously.
"Yeah, he did. It's like he thinks we're running riot control on these freaks or something. It's mostly a concussion charge which blasts stock garlic powder all over the place. It's supposed to be like vampire tear gas, but I wouldn't count on it stopping a bloodsucker for long." He stared down at it. "If it does work, though, it should be a lot easier to tell between the humans and the vamps, and it'll give you a head start on killing them."
"Uh... problem..." Junko said suddenly, shuffling her feet as she raised her hand. "You know, all things considered, I really shouldn't have volunteered to go on this mission. I mean, how helpful do you really think I can be once things start getting violent?"
Snake mulled that over as he pulled out his shotgun and cocked it. "Huh... yeah, that's a good point."
Then he slammed the butt of the weapon into Junko's forehead.
"Snake?! What are you doing?" Usagi shrieked as the redhead collapsed backward on the ground.
"I'm awakening her deeply disturbed, psychotic alternate personality to help us on this mission. Why?"
"You just HIT her in the head! That's horrible!" The blonde complained angrily.
Snake shrugged. "Well, whaddya want me to do? That's how it's done! Not my fault she can't be awakened by some sort of stupid, mundane thing like a keyword or a favorite smell or something."
"You've got a point," the redhead said suddenly as she staggered to her feet. "We really should find a more skull-friendly way to do this."
Usagi turned to her immediately. "Junko-chan, are you all right? Does it hurt bad?"
The older woman blinked repeatedly. "Hmm? Oh, I'm fine. This sort of thing happens a lot." Then she smiled broadly. "I'm Akina! Who're you?"
It was Usagi's turn to blink. "Huh?" She idly noticed that Ranma had been slowly edging to the side ever since Snake had struck the redhead, until the point that Usagi was standing between him and the girl in question.
Snake sighed and stepped up next to Akina, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Usagi-kun, this Akina, Junko's second personality. She's a violent, nymphomaniacal killer with psychic powers."
"Hello!" Akina said cheerfully, waving at the blonde with one hand while the other slipped behind her to grope Snake's butt.
"Oh. H-Hi," the cyborg said uncertainly, waving back. "You seem kind of... well... nice, for a... everything he said."
"I get that a lot!" Akina said, giggling as Snake slapped her hand away.
"I'm not sure how much you remember from when you were sane, so let me recap the mission quickly before we move out: Try not to kill anybody until the explosions start. Only kill the vampires. Clear?"
Akina looked confused. "Vampires? You're kidding, right?"
"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Saotome, you're in charge here. Good luck!" Without further instruction, Snake dashed around the corner to go plant his bombs.

"Vampires, huh?" Akina mumbled as she stared at the building in front of them. "This looks like a dance club."
"Well, it is," Ranma explained cautiously, making sure to keep Usagi between him and the redhead at all times. He was currently dressed in his nicest casual clothes, and he'd really prefer not to have them torn off his body this mission. "They take in gullible teenage kids and bite them to turn them into new vampires."
Akina sighed. "Man, what a gyp. How come everybody calls me in when they need something eviscerated? Why doesn't anyone ever need me to infiltrate a strip club or glean information from a studly terrorist mastermind or something?"
"Well, I think Junko could probably cover those things by herself," Ranma guessed. "But she usually has trouble cutting people's heads off. That's where you come in."
"C-Cutting people's heads off? We need to cut their heads off?" Usagi squeaked, having decided to ignore the whole issue of Junko being crazy for now.
Ranma sighed and scrubbed the back of his head. "Look, to kill a vampire, you have to destroy the heart or the head. It's not gonna be pretty in there, so stick close to me."
Glomp! Before he could begin to regret that statement, Akina had latched onto his side, clamping her legs around his.
"Whatever you say, boss," she purred into his ear.
Usagi sweatdropped as Ranma started struggling to pry the redhead off himself.
"Akina, cut it out! We're supposed to be acting like singles!" He growled.
"I AM single, and I AM acting like it!"
"Dammit, Akina!"

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It had taken some time, but eventually things had settled down to the point where the trio could actually enter the club without Akina clinging to Ranma's arm, and they tried to enter as inconspicuously as they could.
The inside of the place, Akina noted, looked fairly low-key for a club, though in respect to its presumed "hidden agenda," things seemed about right.
Instead of loud music with lots of dancing and mingling, nearly everyone in the place was seated with someone of the opposite gender, chatting amicably while relatively soft music played in the background. Had she merely glanced at the interior, she might have guessed that Dark Hearts was a popular dating spot rather than a singles' club.
Such results were, in all likelihood, due to the efforts of the vampires running the establishment to match newcomers up with an alluring partner and eventually move them to nice, isolated places where the nosferatu could "reproduce" in their own special way.
'Well, I hope they at least get SOME of the other kind of reproduction; there are some serious hotties here,' Akina thought as her eyes swept the room.
"How do we tell the vampires from the normal people?" Usagi asked nervously in a hushed whisper. Truth be told, it seemed fairly obvious that the pale, trim, and beautiful people were the vampires while the squat, unpleasant-looking individuals they were with were the prospective victims, but she wasn't going to decapitate anybody on just a likely guess.
Ranma frowned. "Well, I can tell 'cause vampires have these really weird auras... don't you have a scanner or something that can help?"
"I dunno. Maybe." Frowning, the cyborg tried squinting at a group of three individuals who were talking amongst themselves while stealing glances at the newcomers.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Almost immediately, targeting reticules came up around each one.
+Heart rate = 0. Targets maintain normal respiratory and nervous functions despite cessation of circulatory systems. Unit scan file complete. Units designated as enemy targets. Expanding search...+
"Oh... okay, I think I've got it," the blonde mumbled as she scanned the rest of the room, watching as red reticules appeared over some individuals while the others were ignored.
"Good. We'll split up but stay in sight of one another, okay?" Ranma said quietly.
Akina raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be better to let them lure us into an isolated room, and then kill them there?"
"No, because if we wait for Snake we can get them all at once, and it doesn't run the risk of us getting caught in a bad situation where no-one else can help," he hissed back.
"But it's boring," the redhead protested. Ranma just glared back at her. "Look, there's no way I'm going to stand around and make small-talk for half an hour or however long this takes. Either I start killing dead people, or you take me into a shadowy corner and make out with me until I go off."
Usagi blinked, suddenly distracted from her reconnaissance. "Don't you mean until the bombs go off?"
"Whichever comes first, I suppose."
Ranma finally threw his hands up in defeat. "Fine, FINE. Do whatever you want. Just PLEASE be careful, all right?"
Akina smiled and pinched the martial artist's cheek playfully. "Awww, are you worried about little ol' me? You're so sweet!"
"Whu yuh jush gho ahrery?" Ranma deadpanned best he could with his cheek stretched out.

Across from the club, three midians stared intently at the trio opposite.
Amongst them, one may have recognized Ranma, at least, as a member of a famously destructive police force, but Ranma had unbraided his hair and worn sunglasses to discourage identification by anyone who hadn't actually met him before. Junko had taken similar measures by wearing a pair of stylish, fake glasses and putting her hair in a bun, but needn't really bothered.
"Whaddya think, Toro?" The sole woman of the three grinned while staring across the room at the man in shades. "They don't look like the typical fare around here." Her canines seemed to elongate slightly as she stared at him before she drew her lips together.
Toro, a shorter vampire with silvery blue hair, had been sniffing the air gently with his eyes closed. "The guy... not a virgin."
The woman pouted, but wasn't really surprised, and didn't bother to argue against the diagnosis. Toro's sense of smell was amazing and unique even among vampires, and he had never been wrong before.
Sniff. "The redhead... not even close," he deadpanned. Then his nose wrinkled. "The blonde is, though... well... I THINK..."
The taller man jerked his head around. "You THINK? You're not sure?"
Toro frowned. "Well... no, I'm sure she's a virgin... it's just..." His frown deepened. "I don't really know what it is. I'm getting a lot of weird scents off of her."
"What, she doesn't bathe?" The woman asked.
"She does. Her shampoo is strawberry-scented," the shorter midian replied. "Like I said, I don't know what it is."
"Well, why don't you find a private room and find out for yourself," the other man replied, drawing himself up as he watched the trio of humans split up. "I'm going for the redhead."
"Oh? Hitting the spoiled meat, Sai?" The woman asked slyly. "Well, just make sure to take the ghoul out and dispose of it properly. We don't want a repeat of last week."
Sai smiled, revealing his own dagger-like fangs for a moment. "Who said I was gonna bite 'er? Humans have more uses than just food and raw materials, Konoke. I wouldn't ruin a body like that so easily. Besides, it's been too long since I was with a chick who actually knew what she was doing."
Konoke nodded solemnly, being able to appreciate the sentiment. In order to better transition the new vampires into their "unlives" and calm them down after technically being killed and reawakening, it was traditional for the Dark Hearts staff to finish seducing their victims immediately after biting them, and the fact that only virgins could be turned was a common complaint, particularly for the female nosferatu.
It also didn't help that most of them were ugly as sin, either; while shaping one's body to get rid of imperfections and imitate a higher standard of beauty was a simple skill that even the lowest vampires could perform, it was a bit much to ask from someone whose primary concern was that they'd just been stripped of their very humanity.
Toro turned toward her. "Are you going after the male?"
She sighed. "No, I'd better not. There's some Goth loser in the corner who turned down Miika. I should probably go give it a shot."
The blue-haired vampire chuckled softly. "Reproductive quota is a bitch, isn't it?"
"Mm. Enjoy your meal."

Akina glanced around the club as she approached the bar, analyzing the scene and comparing it to everything she knew about real dating clubs.
'Look at these kids. Most of them would never have the nerve to give a pretty girl a friendly greeting. And all they have to do is walk in here and gorgeous women just start fawning all over them.'
She stopped and stared at one particular boy in a booth across the barren dance floor who seemed to be paralyzed as two voluptuous girls fondled him and kissed at his ears and neck.
Her hackles rose. 'Poor, attention-starved little bastard...' She continued on, taking a seat at the bar. A quick glance around at the other people at the bar, and she immediately guessed that it was a congregation point for the non-virgin humans. These people looked to be more the type that would actually go to night clubs, and those who were not busy talking to other people at the bar mostly had confused/bitter expressions as they snuck glances at their social inferiors being seduced by the club's more attractive patrons.
Of course it didn't make sense to them why their ugly, reclusive friends were practically dragged into the back rooms to get laid while they were mostly ignored. Despite understanding, though, Akina couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for these people; they were the lucky ones, after all. They were only spared to keep the operation from looking too suspicious. If every individual who walked through the door either became a sunlight-hating sociopath or was never heard from again, the club would be investigated in short order.
"Hey studly, gimme a single scotch, on the rocks," the redhead said to the bartender, noting that he seemed much bigger and well-muscled than the other people she assumed to be vampires... or the others, for that matter.
The pale, muscular man turned, and she met his dull red eyes unflinchingly. He turned away uninterestingly, dry-washing a glass as all bartenders seemed to do when not actively serving alcohol. "You got some I.D., babe?" he asked through the side of his mouth.
Akina blinked, astonished. "You kill people for food, and yet you card them for drinks?"
The bartender froze. "Wh-What did you just say?"
"Here you go," Akina slapped Junko's driver's license onto the counter while glancing around for eligible targets. Of course, she was old enough to drink alcohol, though some bartenders and cashiers (usually the smoother ones) still asked her for identification; she had just been honestly surprised that a den of vile, undead monsters would care.
The bartender looked down at the card, and then looked up at Akina dubiously. "Okay. But... seriously, what did you say just now?"
"Hm? Oh, I just said that I would kill for some food. Can I use my card to pay for drinks?" The redhead asked brightly.
"Oh! Uh, sure..." the bartender gave her an uneasy look, and then moved to fulfill her order.
"Don't worry about your card; a lady like you shouldn't have to pay for drinks," a rough, confident voice said behind her.
Akina turned and grinned at the tall, devilishly handsome man who sat down next to her. "Oh? You gonna pick up my tab, big boy?"
"I'm hoping to pick up more than that. Name's Sai," he said smoothly, amazed at how receptive the woman was. 'Toro was on the spot, all right. Definitely no virgin.'
Akina giggled and turned to face him, gently raising her hand up and tracing a finger down his cheek. "Well then, I'll have to find a way to thank you, won't I?"
Sai didn't seem to notice when her finger continued down his neck, stopping briefly at the point where one would normally feel for somebody's pulse. Even if he had, it's open to speculation whether he would have made anything of it, but at that moment his hands were busy running up Akina's thighs and occupied his full concentration.
Sai grinned like a predator standing above a fresh kill.
Akina grinned back in the exact same way.

Usagi, for her part, had no clue what she was doing. She possessed neither Akina/Junko's experience, nor Ranma's mind for strategy. While Minako and Makoto frequented clubs like this often and occasionally even managed to drag along Ami and Rei, Usagi had never gone with them. There were only two things to do at night clubs: drink and flirt with strangers. Usagi's experiences with alcohol had taught her to stay away from it (and taught the others to help her in this endeavor), and she had been the only inner Senshi with any sort of meaningful, long-term relationship. So she was completely new to clubs.
Luckily for her, or unluckily depending how one looked at it, this particular haven tailored specifically to naive young women without a whole lot of experience in dating. The sight of a clearly confused girl glancing from gathering to gathering and wondering what she should do and who she should talk to was a common and welcome sight to the stalkers of the Dark Hearts club.
Toro, incensed by the blonde's unusual array of scents and odors, approached the ponytailed girl from behind, silently gesturing to other interested nosferatu that he intended to take care of her.
Most of them looked none too happy at being denied; the blonde was a looker, especially compared to most of the other eligible victims.
"Pardon me, Miss, are you looking for somebody?" Toro asked, his voice pleasant and polite.
Usagi jumped slightly and turned around quickly, startled. "Huh? Well, no. I mean, yes, I am, but not somebody in particular. Uh..."
Mistaking the girl's fear from being surrounded by vampires for simple shyness, Toro smiled at her. "Well, then you've found somebody, then. Why don't you have a seat with me?" He took her arm gently, and gave her a soft smile that would have had her melting into his arms under much different circumstances.
The current circumstances, however, involved her sweating profusely as warning alarms blared inside her head.
+WARNING! WARNING! Enemy target at melee range! Enemy contact engaged! WARNING! Engaging combat mode!+
'No! No! No combat mode! Stop combat mode! Stupid head computer, you're gonna blow my cover!' Usagi thought, trying to banish the waves of warnings and calculations running across her field of vision, as well as all the targeting reticules appearing over the short vampire's body, in particular his heart and head.
+Class D nosferatu identified! Activating battle computer!+
'Stop! No battle computer!'
+Compiling defense options... generating anti-midian protocol!+
'Cut it out! Whatever you just said you were gonna do, don't do it!'
+Enemy is inside effective combat range! DANGER, Usagi Tsukino, DANGER!+
'I know that, now shut up!'
+Enemy elimination is strongly advised! Cleanse! Purge! KILL!+
'Shut up, shut up, shut up!'
"Are you all right, Miss? You seem frustrated by something," Toro asked gently.
Usagi blinked, and shook her head as most of the alarms and warnings finally succumbed to her will and silenced themselves. The computer still insisted on a putting the blue-haired boy in a flaming red outline, however. "Oh, sorry! I was just, uh... remembering something I should have turned off... back at home, that is." She noticed that at some point during her distraction, she had been led to one of the lounge tables, and was currently sitting much closer to the blue-haired boy than she would have liked, considering that she was currently trying to stay absolutely loyal to her estranged fiancee to prove her love to him.
Well, there was also the fact that he was an undead monster who wanted to suck out her blood and turn her into a fellow walking corpse. That was quite a repellent in itself.
"My name is Toro. I used to have a last name, but to be honest, it doesn't mean much to me anymore." He smiled wanly at his prey's confusion. Most girls figured that a boy without a last name had a troubled and dramatic past with his family, which gave him a seductive and mysterious edge.
"Oh, uh, my name is Tsukino Usagi," she said immediately, bowing slightly before she stopped to ask herself if it was a good idea to tell him her full name.
Maybe it didn't matter... she was going to destroy him later, right?
'Remember, he's just a monster who feeds on people,' the cyborg thought grimly as Toro began going on about how cute her name was. 'Just a demon with a pretty face. I've seen lots of them before. He's no different.'
Toro was silent for a moment, noting that Usagi seemed distracted from his flirting. "Usagi-chan," he began, causing the blonde to squirm from the presumptuous honorific, "tell me, are you around guns a lot?"
THAT got Usagi's attention. "Huh? Guns? No, of course not!" She said honestly.
"Really? How odd. I could have sworn you smell faintly of gunpowder..." the vampire mused, leaning back into the seat cushion.
Usagi was completely flabbergasted. 'I smell like gunpowder? How? Just from standing next to Snake, maybe? He was firing a gun earlier...'
"Then again, you have quite a unique aroma, I must say," Toro admitted, sniffing the air. "What scent is that in your hair? Strawberries?"
Usagi nodded as she let out a breath of relief. For a moment she was worried that she stank and people would think she didn't take baths. "Wow, you have a... sensitive nose, huh?"
"Mm, yes, I've been told that," Toro allowed. "But I get so much more from you... machine oil? Are you a mechanic of some sort?"
'This is bad. I think. Maybe.' Usagi tried to think of something to say to change the topic. She didn't her think her cybernetic nature was in any danger of being revealed, but better safe than sorry. "No, but I suppose I am around cars a lot," she lied. "How do you recognize the smell so easily? Are you a mechanic? And how do you know what guns smell like? Do you know any police officers or anything?"
Toro blinked, surprised at having the questions directed back at him. Most girls were far more interested in his past and his romantic attachments than his career or friends. "No, I don't know any police officers. Considering you don't work with guns at all, perhaps I'm completely wrong about the smell after all." He tilted his head to the side. "As for my job, I actually work as an artist... of sorts."
'Well, great. I got him to stop asking me about how I smell, but now he's being boring.' "Really? That's SO interesting!" She said with a completely false smile.
"I'm not very well-known yet, of course, but I'm making my way up," Toro continued. Then he frowned as a small group of men, whom Usagi quickly identified as more vampires, walked up to him and gestured him over.
Looking annoyed, Toro got up to speak to them quietly, glancing at something by the entrance.
Usagi couldn't see it because the group was in the way, but didn't care enough to make the effort. 'I should probably get away from him before everything starts exploding,' she guessed, slowly standing up.
"Ah, so you're tired of this place too, hm?" Toro said as the other vampires moved away. "I agree, it's a bit bothersome out here, isn't it?"
"Uhm, that wasn't really the problem," Usagi mumbled, fidgeting.
"I was thinking, perhaps we should continue this conversation... in a private room," the midian said, gently taking the blonde's hand as he flashed her his best smile.

There were two things that Ranma really hated while being on-duty (or in this case, doing the sorts of things he would be doing on duty while he was technically on his own time): being in charge and being idle.
Authority was the bane of the DAPC officer, as the potential abuse of the power to command a half-dozen dysfunctional, heavily-armed fools never outweighed the cruel plight of being ultimately responsible for the damage they did. Aside from that, trying to give orders to someone like Tiro or Akina was a lot like arguing with Akane Tendo: no matter who won, you always ended up with a throbbing headache.
Ranma never liked being idle, either, because he possessed only a slightly longer attention span than Kyle, the poster child for ADD (or he surely would have been, if he wasn't twenty-seven years old).
Akina was right; this plan was boring. The fact that it was Snake's plan practically ensured that the boredom would end with a brief, painful episode of explosive terror, but that didn't help Ranma any.
Looking for the girls he had entered with, he saw Akina giggling inanely as she was herded upstairs toward the private rooms by a tall, rough-looking man who registered cleanly on Ranma's ki senses as being dead but still moving.
He debated going after her, but hesitated as he saw Usagi sit down with some blue-haired kid - another vampire, he realized after a moment - across the room.
'The hell with it. Akina got herself into this, and she can handle herself. It's Usagi I'm worried about,' he decided.
He was mildly surprised that the vampires had been leaving him alone ever since his entrance; if they could tell he wasn't "pure" right off the bat it would explain why there weren't several undead women fawning over him, but he couldn't help but notice that all the vampires that got close tended to shy away from him and grant him a greater berth almost immediately.
'It's a predator's instinct,' Ranma thought as he stared hard at the blue-haired kid talking to Usagi. 'They know that I'm a big fish, but they're not sure if I bite.' He'd have to practice his aura exercises again and try and tone down his aggressive ki a bit, as the midians seemed to be picking it up. It had been such a long time since he'd had to bother that he couldn't manage it off the top of his head without reverting to the soul of ice, which may have alerted the vampires that something was wrong.
So there he was, killing time by making up a list of targets in his head and prioritizing them, when someone tugged gingerly on his shirt.
"Who...?" Ranma turned around calmly, recognizing before looking that it was a human behind him. "Uh... yeah... can I help you?"
Standing to his right, and looking quite agitated for some reason, was a young, slim woman with long, black hair wearing a modest red blouse and khaki pants.
"What are you doing here? Do you know what this place is?" Rei asked in a hushed whisper, trying not to draw too much attention to herself.
Ranma was silent for several moments. "Uh... well... what are YOU doing here?" He countered.
"Saotome-san, are you in the middle of an operation? Are there more officers here?" She started looking about wildly, and only missed seeing Usagi because Ranma was standing directly between her and the Senshi princess.
The martial artist started to become nervous. "Is this...? Uh, well... I... I can neither confirm nor deny that," he tried. "Who are you, anyway?"
Rei suddenly looked taken aback. "What? You don't remember me? Rei Hino?" She almost growled. Men did NOT forget Rei Hino. And if Ranma had, then she was going to correct that error with extreme prejudice.
Ranma looked at her uneasily. "This isn't about a deal my pop made, is it?"
Rei took a deep breath, preparing to give the man a long, loud tirade that would smash his stupid ego and make sure every individual in the damn club could testify to the event.
Instead, she just ended up holding her breath. 'Crap! I forgot! We only met when I was Sailor Mars!'
She began to bigsweat as Ranma started looking at her face more critically. "Oh! Uh... you know what? I think this is a case of mistaken identity! Sorry about that!"
Ranma frowned, unconvinced. "But you knew my name. And that I was a police officer."
"Oh, well, you know how many Saotomes there are in the police force!" Rei tried, now slowly backing away.
"Are there that many?" Ranma asked suspiciously, stepping forward.
"Yes! Of course! And it makes sense that I'd confuse you for someone else because you're in disguise!" Rei pointed out.
Ranma's eyes narrowed. "How do you know I'm in disguise?"
In response, Rei slapped her hands over her mouth, which didn't really help her case one bit.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Ranma waited for an explanation.
Then, something in his mind clicked. "Wait! Now I remember you! You're... uh..." He lowered his voice significantly. "You're Sailor Mars, aren't you?"

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Akina gave a seductive glance to one of the more muscular vampires who was leaning over the guardrail of the second floor, which overlooked the dance floor of the lounge below.
"Hey there big fella, why don't you join us? Make it a two-fer?" She said playfully, reaching out and pinching the man's butt cheek.
His face lit up in undisguised interest for a moment, before he saw the suddenly disgruntled look of the redhead's male escort.
"Whoa, hey, I'm not so sure about this," Sai said, backing away a few steps. "With another guy? No dice."
Akina laughed. It was a cheery, musical sound that somehow managed to sound arousing and contemptuous at the same time. "What's wrong with that? Afraid you won't measure up?" Releasing the guard, she backed into the first vampire, firmly rubbing her rear against his crotch.
All at once, the confident, can't-fail attitude was back. "Hey, don't you worry, babe. I'm more than enough for you, I promise."
The guard remained curiously silent, not wanting to ruin a chance at the bodacious redhead, but not any more keen on a two-man threesome than his counterpart.
Junko pouted and took the guard's hand, pulling it to her chest to cup her breast. "Aw, c'mon guys! PLEEEEEEEEASE? I promise I'll make it worth your while..."
Both men briefly shuddered, and they felt their lust surge suddenly as waves of pure, undiluted pleasure assaulted their brains from a source unknown.

With their arousal peaked, they felt the last of their inhibitions and insecurities melt away.
"Well, there's a first time for everything," the guard said, opening up the door to one of the rooms before pulling his shirt up over his head.
"YAY! You guys are the best!" Akina cheered, hugging the nosferatu from behind and pressing her breasts into his back. "C'mon in, Sai! I've got SO much to show you..."
Sai entered eagerly, and closed the door behind him before quietly locking it. He turned and was about to take off his shirt, when he realized that his recent conquest was removing her own top. Not wanting his vision obscured during such a vital moment, he grinned silently at the sight.
Akina tossed her shirt off to the side, and tugged on the straps of her black silk brassiere for good measure. Then she twisted her hips as she slipped out of her pants, smiling brightly at the leers of the undead watching.
Once her jeans laid in a pile at her feet, she began groping at them for a moment before settling forward on her knees. "Well boys, it looks like we'll have to do this one at a time."
Sai chuckled as he started to unbutton his pants. "I gotcha. Can't be helped, really."
Akina sighed. "Nope. It looks like Junko only brought one knife."

All things considered, it took entirely too long for the two lecherous midians to figure out what was wrong with that statement, and as a result, Sai had the terrible misfortune to die in one of the most humiliating ways possible for a man: with his pants halfway down to his knees.
Thunk! The vampire let out a strangled cry as the combat knife solidly pierced his heart, and staggered backward briefly, nearly tripping on his inconveniently positioned jeans.
He didn't trip, but that was only because Akina dashed forward and grabbed the handle of her knife, eliciting a short spray of blood from around the hilt as she slammed Sai into the wall, driving her blade down further into the vampire's second most important organ.
The bloodspray was much worse when she twisted the knife and then tore it free; not by pulling it out the way it came, as would be easiest, most expedient, and least psychotic, but instead by ripping it out to the side under the vampire's shoulder. He promptly began to turn into dust.
Whp! Akina deflected a punch for her head from behind, grabbing the offending arm and then twisting her body into a roundhouse kick aimed straight at the second vampire's head.
Akina was mildly surprised when he bounced off the wall instead of plowing through it, leaving a deep indentation and a number of cracks in the plaster. Apparently the walls were pretty solid, which she had to admit was probably a good idea when people were alternatively being murdered and having sex (usually in that order) in the adjacent rooms.
"What the hell ARE you?" The guard growled, baring huge, thick canines as he jumped to his feet.
Akina blinked innocently as she picked up the bloodied shirt out of the dissipating dust on the floor, and used it to wipe off the blade of her knife. "Me? I'm just a police officer."
"P-P-Police?" the vampire spat in disbelief.
"Mm-hm. You've been very bad, luring these poor, impressionable teenagers here and turning them!" She lectured, jabbing her knife at the man as she frowned at him. "I'm not sure what the official legal penalty is for transforming people into man-eating walking corpses, but I'm planning on killing you all in self-defense anyway, so it won't matter."
"S-Self defense?" The man stuttered. Then his expression hardened. "So if we leave you alone, you can't hurt us?"
Schnk! A silver flash erupted from around the midian's neck, followed by a prominent wash of blood.
Akina giggled to herself as the headless corpse tumbled forward, breaking into dust when it hit the floor. "Hee hee! You vampires are so stupid! Just wait, I'll skewer all of you!"

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Rei shook her head wildly, her eyes wide.
"Sure ya are! You said your name was Rei Hino, and that's the same name on Mars' registration."
Rei shook her head again, though she kept her hands clamped firmly over her mouth.
"Oh, come off it. It would explain why you knew me, since we met when you were tryin' to take Igov out. I didn't recognize you without your cheerleader outfit."
"It is NOT a cheerleader outfit!" Rei hissed through clenched teeth. "It just happens to be extremely effeminate magical armor that-" Then she hung her head. "God damn it..."
Ranma sweatdropped. "Would you chill out? I'm not gonna tell anyone. Besides, now that I know who you are, I can tell you th-"
"Hino-san, why did you run off like that?" Tsuna whined, coming up behind the raven-haired girl. She had been delayed for some time by the group of charming, handsome men that had practically walled them in a minute after they'd arrived. Amazingly enough, right after Rei had bolted to talk to this fellow, they had started hitting on her!
She was quite pleased with this new development, and intended to get right back to being picked up by sleazy clubbers as soon as she figured out if Rei would need a ride home or not.
Rei tensed up visibly, and swallowed as Tsuna saw who she was talking to.
"Hi! Are you a friend of Hino-san's? What a coincidence meeting you here!" She said brightly.
Ranma chuckled. "Well, we're more like brief acquaintances, but yeah, it sure is!" He leaned forward slightly as he searched her face. 'Is she one of the Senshi too? Hard to tell off the bat...'
'He's checking me out! I can't believe it!' Tsuna gushed inwardly. 'This place is great! I can't believe I didn't come here earlier!' In her elation, and in a move that she would chastise herself for endlessly later that night, she had entirely forgotten the original reason she had come to Dark Hearts.
Smiling broadly, she took his hand firmly and shook it. It was a western greeting, true, but she felt it had several advantages over Japan's traditional ones in that A) She got to hold hands with a cute guy and B) There was no rule that said you had to let go right away, giving her an anchor to her new prospective boyfriend.
"My name is Tsuna Nagase! Nice to meet you!" She chirped.
Ranma was unfazed by the handshake, and was about to introduce himself in kind when Rei interrupted.
"Whoa, whoa, hold it! Nagase-kun, are you serious?"
Tsuna noted Rei looked upset about something. 'Oops. Maybe she was coming on to him and I got in the way?' "What's wrong, Hino-san? Was I interrupting something?"
"Never mind that! Don't you recognize him?" Rei asked irritably, pointing to Ranma's face.
Ranma himself stayed quiet, making the assumption that Tsuna was a Senshi and Rei was simply surprised she didn't recognize him. He noticed that the bespectacled girl hadn't let go of his hand, though.
Tsuna shook her head. "No. Why, have we met before?" She really had no idea how Rei would know if they HAD met. She hadn't known Rei for all that long, and they had always met alone.
Rei snatched off the sunglasses Ranma was wearing. "There. Do you recognize him now?"
Tsuna cocked her head to one side. "Well... no... wait..."
The fire Senshi fumed for a moment. "Imagine him with a pigtail."
Tsuna's eyes widened.
Ranma chuckled as she apparently recognized him, though he still didn't recall the name "Tsuna Nagase" on any of the Senshi's registration cards. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this."

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Warning alarms were going off in her head again, but this time, they weren't coming from any electronic sensors.
'He wants to take me to the private rooms? He's gonna bite me! He's gonna bite me and kill me and turn me into a vampire and defile my pure, innocent, virgin flesh! NOOOOO!!'
Usagi snatched her hand away as if it was on fire. "N-No thank you! I like it fine out here!"
Toro blinked at the unexpected rejection, and then smiled. "I'm sorry if I came across as presumptuous. I don't intend to do anything inappropriate; my friends here insist on bothering me frequently, and I would love to talk to you at length, without interruptions."
'Nothing inappropriate my butt. Keep your hands off of me, you perverted dead guy!' Usagi sat down in her seat and clutched the cushions tightly. "No thank you. I'm fine here. I arrived with a friend, you see, and he might get worried if-"
She stopped talking as Toro chuckled. "Ah, yes, your 'friend' is right over there, and seems to be busy with those other ladies."
Blinking in surprise, Usagi turned to look at where Ranma had been standing last she checked, and she gasped.
Toro, thoroughly misunderstanding the source of her surprise, smirked slightly as he leaned forward.
'What? What's Rei doing here? And who's that with her? Why is Ranma-' her thoughts were cut off as her current companion gently cupped his hand under her chin and tilted her head up.
"There, you see? Your friend has abandoned you. I'll take care of you from here on out."
Usagi wanted to say something akin to "How has he abandoned me by holding a conversation with one of my other friends," but instead found her jaw unmoving as she slowly rose from her seat, her face softening.
Were this the old Usagi, champion of love and justice, the minor hypnosis would have run its course, easily allowing the vampire to seduce the innocent, naive young woman... at least until the various forces of good in the area came down on him like a sledgehammer.
This was not the old Usagi. And the one-hundred and fifty kilograms of new Usagi took exception to the attempt at amateur mind control.
+Neural corruption detected. Nervous system purge initiated.+
Usagi flinched as she felt a mild stinging sensation in her head that seemed to crawl down between her shoulders and dive down her back, spreading a light, tingly feeling all over her body, and stopping her from rising further against her will.
+Enemy has initiated hostile action. Engage combat mode?+
Toro, who was still gently guiding the blonde up by her chin, would have figured out something was wrong fairly quickly, but had suddenly looked away as somebody started shouting from across the room.
Usagi placed her hand up against his chest.
'Engage combat mode.'
Ker-chak!

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Tsuna stared wide-eyed at Ranma, then glanced down at her hands, which were still firmly clamped onto his.
"AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!" She screamed, snatching her hands away. "You touched me! You touched my hands!"
Ranma stumbled backwards, taken completely by surprise as he suddenly became the center of attention. "What? No! You touched MY hands! What's the problem, anyway?"
Tsuna didn't appear to be listening, however. "He touched me!! My palms have been soiled with the blood of innocents!!"
Rei swallowed and slowly backed away, realizing that her big mouth had just created two minor catastrophes in as many minutes.
Ranma looked offended by Tsuna's screaming, which most would agree was entirely fair. "Hey, I don't kill innocents! And I ALWAYS wash my hands after they get bloody! It's just good hygiene!"
"Liar! Tyrant! Murderer!" Tsuna shouted as she backed away, pointing at the disguised officer. "I know of your monstrous ways! Your devotion to the lies! Your endless lust for blood!"
Ranma began to sweat as more people moved to watch the spectacle. "What? No, you have me confused with Snake! My lust for blood totally has an end, and I'm a horrible liar!"
"Don't try and talk your way out of this, you bigoted bastard!" The junior journalist shouted. "You're all the same! You and all you murderous DAPC officers!"
As dozens of pairs of eyes oriented on Ranma and flared an angry red, Rei mentally chalked up one of the catastrophes to "major." 'I really, really suck...'
It was anybody's guess whether or not things got better or worse when the high-pitched whining noise of an energy weapon charging suddenly came from the other side of the club.

SCCRRREEEEEEEYAAH!! Toro's vampiric nature didn't help him a damn bit as his entire upper torso was stripped of its component electrons by a huge beam of yellow energy, and the remaining bits of his body started to turn to dust as the majority of his body collapsed into clouds of free-floating particles that were whisked away in the backwash from the blast.
Naturally, the vampire wasn't the ONLY thing blasted away, and the patrons of the Dark Hearts club, vampire and human alike, stared at the huge new hole in the wall in morbid shock.
BLAM! The shock turned to panic as one vampire's head exploded into gore, and then crumbled into dust.
"Hino! Crazy lady! Get outta here! Now!" Ranma shouted, leveling his Jackel at the next target.
Tsuna's sudden terror instantly turned to rage. "Who are you calloomph!"
"Now is NOT the time!" Rei growled, dragging the other girl toward the exit posthaste.

BLAM! BLAM! Ranma growled as his second shot went wide, annihilating a good chunk of a vampire's shoulder and blasting her into a wall.
'Not good. This is SO not good,' he thought, sensing a dozen different targets darting toward him at high speed from all directions. Jumping up, he barely managed to dodge a slash from a midian diving at him from the second floor, and twisted around to aim his pistol at the vampire before it touched down.
BLAM! The vampire hit the ground as dust, but it proved to be no deterrent as more and more vampires raced past screaming, panicked humans to kill the intruder.
Ranma landed on the second floor, and he grit his teeth as MORE of the blasted undead burst from the private rooms up there, most of them in various states of undress. 'Dammit, where is Snake and his overkill when you need it?'
"STOP RIGHT THERE!!"
Amazingly enough, the vampires did. The snarling midians and screaming humans alike silenced themselves and turned to behold the latest interruption in what was proving to be an extremely bizarre turn of violent disasters. "What in the world..."

Usagi kicked aside a lounge table and stepped forward, clad in the black bodysuit that had become her new combat uniform, her expression grim.
"Night clubs are places for sleazy, desperate guys and emotionally unstable, recently dumped women to meet in drunken stupors and spend a single night pretending that there exists some light and loving warmth in the empty, pitiful black pit that makes up their lives!" She declared self-righteously, pointing at the vampires.
Many of the human patrons winced, and several of them looked down and shifted their feet.
"So, okay, maybe it's NOT the happiest or purest place in the world, and maybe it DOES make a cruel, dark mockery of love and romance!" Usagi continued hotly. "But damn it, it's just wrong to eat people and turn them into zombies and vampires!" She pulled her arms back, and twin energy blades suddenly erupted from her wrists with a sizzling crackle. "I am Cyber Moon! For great justice, I WILL PUNISH YOU!"

The vampires frowned slightly as the newly anointed "Cyber Moon" stood there scowling at them.
"Well, that was pointless," one of them murmured. "Can we kill her now?"
"Sure, after the-" the bartender blinked as he looked up at the second floor. "Hey, where'd that cop go?"
Shwck! In response, a wide silver arc streaked through a couple of vampiresses that were blocking the exit, and Ranma seemed to fade into being as their bodies collapsed.
"Snake! Finish up with those damn charges and let's finish this!" He shouted, once again leveling his Jackal as vampires streaked toward him.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Several more of the vampires charged for Usagi, who met their charge with a wide slash that forced them to break and scatter.
Still twisting her body around, she managed to catch one of the midians on the follow-up swing, and the blades' crackling, sizzling noise intensified greatly as they severed his head and left shoulder from the rest of his body.
She managed to step forward and skewer another vampire before a young undead woman tackled her from the side, smashing her into a table.
"Gotcha, bitch," the vampiress snarled, her fangs enlarging as her jaw siezed onto Usagi's neck.
Crunch!
"Glk!" The vampire twitched as Usagi struggled against her, and then tore her mouth away from the cyborg's throat and start spitting.
"Pthaw! Thack! Ptooey! What the HELL was that? Tasted like gasoline or something! And I think I chipped a tooth!"
Cyber Moon replied the moment she got her arm free by ramming her right energy blade up into the woman's ribcage and out her back.

Whump! Thud! Two vampires paid for their hesitation to join the battle when they were sent flying from the second floor and down into the first floor at extremely high speed. One had the reflexes to roll with the impact and get away with a meaningless bruise, but the other impacted squarely on his head, snapping his neck and effectively incapacitating him for the rest of the fight.
"Hey, I didn't know you guys started the fighting already! Why didn't you tell me?" Akina complained as she looked down at the chaos of the first floor.
Another vampire that had remained on the second floor immediately leapt at her. "DIE, you little-!"
Before he could complete the sentence, she had grabbed his head out of the air and twisted around, transferring all his momentum into a nearby wall and very nearly tearing through it. A firm cut across his neck severed the head, and the redhead turned away as the body started to disintegrate.
She frowned. "Man, that's a lot of enemies. I wish I had more than one knife."
Seemingly on command, Ranma bounced off of the back of one vampire and hurled a kodachi toward her. "Junko! Catch!"
One vampire saw the exchange, and his body became a blur as he tried to jump up and intercept the weapon.
Luckily, bullets moved faster than even Ranma could throw a knife, and after slugging away another vampire, he unloaded another silver bullet that sent the interloper back to the ground with a gaping hole through his abdomen.
Akina easily snatched the blade out of the air, and then pouted.
"Ranma-kun, you know I'm not Junko, I'm-"
"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE CALLED, JUST GET DOWN HERE AND START STABBING PEOPLE!!" Ranma yelled as he started moving again, his other kodachi flashing wildly to stave off the undead trying to flank him.
Grumbling to herself, Akina leapt downward into the fray, blood washing upward in graceful crimson arcs behind her.

K-chnk! Usagi's rocket boosters popped out of her back as she was backed into a corner by her remaining targets, and she clenched her teeth as she felt them charge up.
"Cyber Moon Kick!" She shouted, her boosters activating as her leg swept upward.
All things considered, the Cyber Moon Kick was probably one of Usagi's better ideas. By using the power of her jet boosters, she could multiply the forward momentum of the kick (already somewhat stronger than the original version used by Sailor Moon) for maximum impact force. At that level of kinetic energy, even a vampire would have its torso reduced to cream, its vital heart ground into a fine soup along with various other organs, assorted fluids, and powdered bone.
Usagi soon learned however, that no matter how strong the attack, there was the possibility of a miss. And the stronger the attack, the more devastating the consequences tend to be.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Vampires dove out of the way desperately and humans squeezed their eyes shut as Cyber Moon sailed across the width of the club with the power of a rocket engine behind her.
WHAM!! The trip, Usagi decided, was far too short, and the landing not nearly soft enough.
Before she could start digging herself out of the pile of debris and even think about starting a system check, something grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her forcibly out of the pile before holding her upside-down in the air.
Blinking in surprise, she turned to see who had pulled her out, and winced upon seeing that it was the club's bartender, looking none too pleased and possessing a pair of thick, fierce-looking fangs.
"I'm gonna enjoy this," he snarled, his hand reaching for Usagi's throat as he pulled her up higher.
Frowning, Usagi raised her arm and flicked her wrist at him.
Click! A piece of PEZ popped out of her wrist and onto the floor.
Cyber Moon flushed slightly. While the vampire was now staring at the piece of candy in confusion, that was not what she had meant to do. Raising her arm again, she tried twisting it this time.
Psht! A spray of Seras' liquid anti-vampire spray washed into the midian's eyes, and he shuddered violently before his grip on Usagi's leg slipped.
"AAAUGH!! Wh-What the? Grrgh!" He staggered backward, tearing off part of his shirt to try and wipe his face clean.
Usagi rolled to her feet after hitting the ground, and remembering the weapon she had reflexively unleashed on Snake earlier that day, morphed her arm into the appropriate device.
Pshaw! There was a brilliant flare of light as the plasma bolt struck the bartender square in the face, and he staggered backward again.
Pshaw! Pshaw! Pshaw! The next three bolts all impacted around his torso, burning through cloth and flesh alike. Oddly enough, however, they didn't seem to do nearly as much damage as they had inflicted on the metal walls back at DAPC headquarters.
Cyber Moon was further shocked when the much-blackened figure suddenly charged forward and seized her, grabbing her plasma-weapon arm and pointing it away as he slammed her into a wall.
"Huh? ... Oh, gross!" She nearly gagged as she stared into the charred, blackened surface that used to the be the vampire's face, only to watch as it slowly melted back into place, with muscle seeping out over fresh bone, and skin slowly wrapping over his head as the regeneration progressed forward. All the while, chunks of fused carbon crumbled away from the midian's head, spilling down his body and onto the floor.
"Did you think a fancy flashlight like that could hurt me?" The vampire taunted as small, milky white sacs appeared within the folds of charred flesh and slowly inflated into his eye sockets. "Let me tell you something interesting before I kill you and then kill your little friends: These vampires you're knocking off left and right are kids. Figuratively and literally. Do you know what that means?"
Usagi shook her head silently.
"Do you think killing vampires is this easy? Stab 'em in the heart, they're done? These aren't real vampires you're taking out, they're just babies. The helpless cubs of the wolf pack." He snarled, and his huge, pointed teeth grew even larger. "I'M a real vampire, Blondie. I've put in the decades. Your garlic is a cute trick, and your wacky space gun is just an inconvenience to me. I'm the big wolf guarding the den, and now your time is up." Hair started sprouting up as the final bit of skin closed together over the bridge of his nose, and his jaw opened wide.
Usagi winced. "You know that biting me won't do anything but hurt your teeth and give you a nasty taste in your mouth, right? Another one already tried that. I'm, like, mostly metal and everything."
The bartender seemed to hesitate, and his teeth shrank slightly. Not that Usagi had been trying to buy time in particular, but the last time she had been bitten it had really hurt, and the girl who had bitten her hadn't gotten off any better. If it was going to be a lose-lose situation every time, then Usagi saw no reason to go through with it again.
But sometimes buying time works, too.

BWAKOOM!!
The entire building shook slightly, and Usagi was briefly aware of a massive cloud of dust descending on her before everything was momentarily obscured.
She started coughing immediately, and just as quickly her nosed detected the powerful odor of the cloud.
Garlic.
Hack! Glack! The bartender started breathing heavily as the dust started invading his lungs and fought his advanced regeneration in earnest. Vampires technically didn't need to breathe, but any midian will tell you that it's a difficult habit to break.
"What the Cough! hell is with you Hack! people and your garlic?" The head vampire snarled as he waved a hand in the air to ward off the settling dust. Once her vision was mostly clear, Usagi could see that his skin was covered in red patches, and his veins were throbbing all over his body.
"Dammit, just DIE!" The vampire snarled, applying as much strength as possible to Usagi's neck to try and snap her head off.
Ch-chak! "Age before beauty, old-timer," Snake said, grinning as he poked his Pancor Jackhammer into the side of the bartender's head. BLAM!!
The vampire was totally bowled over by the blast, and went spiraling away before landing limply on the floor, the dust billowing out under his body from the impact.
Usagi released a gasp of relief as she slumped forward off of the wall. "Snake-san, you're finally here! What took you so long?"
Then she took a look at him, and noted that the DAPC weapons expert had several gashes on his chest and shoulders, as well as a bite mark on his arm. "Oh."
"Yeah, 'Oh.' Stupid pansy nine millimeter rounds," the American grumped.
Neither Snake nor Cyber Moon seemed particularly surprised when the barkeep pushed himself up off the floor, his head bleeding profusely and his chest gasping for air.
"You can't... kill me..." the man mumbled, stalking forward as his face repaired itself before their eyes. "I am... immortal... do you... know what... that MEANS?" He grinned fiercely, apparently unconcerned with the complete lack of fear in his targets. "Your weapons can't kill me! You can't stop me! You're all DEAD!"
BLAM! "Gugh!" the barkeep staggered forward as his abdomen burst open in front of him, and he cried out in agony as he fell to his knees.

Ranma lowered his Jackal and glared at Snake. "You know, if you needed help, you could have alerted me. You KNOW I'm better at killing things quietly than you are."
"Eh, I did well enough," Snake countered. Then walked up to the kneeling vampire and grinned. "Well, it looks like blessed silver even works on you tough guys. I tell ya, immortality just 'aint what it used to be." Still smirking, he planted the Pancor Jackhammer firmly into the nosferatu's mouth, and his hand tightened around the trigger.
"Not that I want to ruin this dramatic moment," Ranma interrupted, "but a shotgun blast in the mouth might not do him in, and we're all gonna look really lame if he gets up again and we have to find a wooden spike to put through his heart or something."
Snake considered this silently for a moment. Then his hand slipped upward off the stock of the weapon, and he switched it to "full auto."
"Yeah, I think that'll do it."
BA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BLAM!!

Kicking aside the vampire's dust as it mixed freely with the garlic dust, Snake walked into the center of the Dark Hearts club and cleared his throat while he loaded his shotgun. "Attention, patrons of this corrupt, seedy deathtrap! This area is now under the official control of the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment! If you have a pulse, but were too stupid to leave when you had the chance, this is your FINAL chance to get to safety! If you don't have a pulse, this is likewise your last chance to flee, but you won't make it 'cause we'll shoot you!"
As if in demonstration, he turned on his heel and took aim at a woman trying, unsuccessfully, to climb up the side of a barstool. BLAM!!
He turned back around as she crumbled to dust, and saw to his satisfaction that there were several people standing up from under tables and chairs and dashing for the exits, apparently unhindered by all the garlic in the air.
"All right then! Chikiko!"
Akina stood up straight and saluted.
"You go upstairs! There may be some recently turned in the private rooms upstairs. Put them out of their misery," Snake ordered.
The redhead blinked. "Isn't that kinda cruel?"
"In a way, it certainly is. Which is why I'm giving the task to you, quite possibly the only person in our department less averse to brutal murder than I am."
Akina nodded. "That's a good point. I'll get right on it!"
Usagi leaned over to Ranma. "Is anyone going to ask why she's running around in her underwear?" She whispered.
"No. Giving her attention just encourages her," he replied.
"Tsukino-kun!" Snake shouted, causing the cyborg to stiffen at attention, despite her lack of training to do such. "You hold the back entrance! Kill anything that isn't alive!"
Usagi blinked. "What? But if it's not alive, how can-"
"You know what I meant, now move it!" The American shouted.
"Eep! Moving!" The blonde squeaked, dashing toward the rear of the club.
Ranma turned toward Snake. "So, should I take the main entrance?"
"No, I'll cover that," Snake confided. "Saotome, I want you to do a sweep of the club proper..."
Ranma nodded.
"... and collect all the wallets from the dead."
Whump! More garlic dust billowed outward as Ranma facefaulted.
"Collect WALLETS?" the martial artist asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah. Vampires have money too, you know. And now all they are is dust and clothes." He turned and aimed at a shape trying to crawl away from the bar. BLAM!!
Then he turned back. "So why should we condemn all that free yen to fiery destruction when this place blows in four minutes?"
Ranma sighed. "Okay, okay, I'll... wait... blows in four minutes?"
"Yeah. 'Cause, you know, that's when the bombs explode," Snake deadpanned.
"You mean, more garlic bombs?"
"No, I thought I'd try a light oregano explosive this time," the American said sarcastically. "Maybe with some parmesan mines to kick it up a notch?"
"You didn't tell us you set more bombs!"
"You really should have figured that out on your own."
"Dammit, Snake!"
"Better get moving."

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

Vampires dusted: 37
Secret government conspiracies cracked wide open: 1
Stupid government conspiracies alluded to: 4
Jokes made about stupid hippies: I lost count, and it's late. Let's say a lot.

End Chapter 5

Author's note: After showing this chapter around, it became clear that many people didn't get the Zero Wing ("All your base are belong to us!") reference at the end of Usagi's speech. Apparently I've exceeded the standard geek threshhold for the fanfiction community at large, which fills me with equal parts shame and joy. After much deliberation, I decided to leave it in, as obscure and not-so-obscure references such as this have always been a big hit with those readers that understand them. Also, I'm tired.