"Preparation goes a hell of a long ways toward winning wars, though."
- Asuka Takami

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

All characters not created by me don't belong to me. Like, duh.
Knowledge of Guardian is required for full enjoyment of this fanfic. An unstable mind fueled by black rage and madness is NOT required, but recommended nonetheless.
Notes: Story may contain references to stuff in Guardian that haven't happened yet. To answer any and all inquiries to this effect, YES, that stuff will eventually happen.
Other Notes: Sounds, techniques or emphasis, 'thoughts', (side comments), +writing, computer readouts+

Millennium
Chapter 6
Trial & Error
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Riiing! Riiing! Rii-Beep!
Minako grunted as she finally managed to fumble her cellular phone open, and groaned miserably as she the device over to where her head was still embedded in her pillow.
"Hello...?" She mumbled, not deigning to open her eyes.
Minako! Why aren't you answering your communicator?! We need to move out to rescue Usagi right away!
Minako was silent for several moments. "Oh... it's you, Rei-chan. Hi. What's up?"
"What's up?" I just told you what's up! Get out of bed and get your henshin pen, now!
"... Okay, sure, I'll do that first thing tomorrow," Minako mumbled, her eyelids still refusing to open. "'Night, Rei-chan."
What? What're you... No! Don't you DARE han-Beep!
Already falling back asleep, Minako pressed the appropriate button to turn her cell phone off, then let her entire arm go limp, dropping the device on the floor as her hand dropped off the edge of her bed.

Several minutes later, there was a knocking on the front door. Predictably, no one moved to answer it. After a brief pause, the sound of a key fumbling a lock open was heard, and Makoto stumbled into the room, looking only slightly more awake than Minako.
"Okay... okay... I'm in her room... now what?" Makoto asked the communicator in her hands.
One could very nearly feel the frustration coming from the communicator in waves. Mako-chan... this IS something of an emergency, but you should probably get some coffee or something. We need you to be ALERT when you get here.
"Right, right. I'll alert the coffee when I get there," the brunette mumbled. "But seriously, what am I doing here?"
On the other end of the communicator, Rei resisted the urge to scream. She could appreciate that their nighttime Senshi duties in the past had instilled in them all a healthy appreciation for a full night's sleep, and didn't begrudge her teammates in taking advantage of their freedom to get plenty of rest in the recent years, but honestly, the girls were in college! They shouldn't be THIS dead at one-thirty in the morning! Didn't Minako and Makoto go to all those crazy late-night parties?
Mako-chan... listen to me VERY carefully... Usagi is in danger. You need to wake up Minako and Ami and meet me at the edge of the courtyard NOW.
Makoto nodded, trying to break through the haze of sleepiness. "Okay. Right. Usagi is in danger. Got it."
"Mako-chan?" Usagi asked, yawning as she sat up from her bed. "Is something wrong?"
"Yeah. Gotta transform and go rescue you," the ponytailed girl said, still bleary-eyed.
Usagi cocked her head to the side. "Rescue me? I don't think I need to be rescued."
Makoto frowned deeply, and then scratched her head as she raised her communicator. "Usagi says she doesn't need to be rescued."
I don't care whether Meatball Head thinks...... wait... you mean she's THERE?
Makoto nodded, forgetting that the gesture couldn't be perceived over the phone. "So can I go back to bed now?"
No! Well... I guess... NO! Just stay there for a minute, all rigtht? I'll be right there. Beep!
Makoto groaned as Usagi continued to stare at her, and let her hand holding the communicator fall limply to her side.
"Mako-chan, is everything okay?" The blonde asked worriedly.
"I dunno," Makoto mumbled, breaking for a moment to yawn. "Rei-chan's convinced you were attacked by vampires or something."
"Oh. THAT," Usagi said, chuckling nervously. "It's okay. We took care of it."
Makoto frowned as she shook her head, her unbound chestnut hair flying wildly at the gesture. "Wait... 'we'? You and Rei? No, but, no then..."
"Nughn? Whos'ere?" Ranma mumbled, slowly sitting up from where he had been resting on the couch .
He blinked repeatedly as he stared up at Makoto, who blinked repeatedly as she stared back down.
Like a light switch, the brunette suddenly seemed to be completely alert, and grimaced before she turned and zipped into the bathroom.
Ranma frowned and scrubbed his head with his hand. "Wha' was that all 'bout?"
Usagi shrugged from where she was sitting up in her bed. "I'm... not sure..."
A few seconds later, Makoto walked out of the bathroom, utterly beaming. Her hair was done up in its usual ponytail style, and it seemed she had found time to apply makeup as well. The only part of her that not been neatened was the T-shirt and pajama-bottom pants she was currently wearing, the former of which was now hanging off of her breasts rather scandalously.
"Ah. I see now," Usagi murmured, sweatdropping.
"Hi! You must be that officer that Usagi-chan's told us all about! Saotome-san, right?" She said brightly, showing none of the sleepiness that had been so obvious only moments before.
"Uh... yeah. Nice to meet you," Ranma said uncertainly.
"My name is Makoto Kino! It's so nice to finally meet you!" She gushed, bowing deeply and exposing even more of her poorly concealed cleavage. "So! Usagi-chan tells me that you two aren't dating!"
Usagi groaned and fell back into her pillow. "Mako-chan, at least wait until tomorrow, okay? He had a rough night and needs some rest."
"What? Why?" Ranma asked, obviously confused. He DID need rest, but didn't see how an introduction and short conversation would make much of a difference.
"Hmm? What was he out doing?" Makoto asked, genuinely curious. She had seen Ranma go head-to-head with the cyborg that had wiped the floor with her in her Senshi form, so she was understandably curious as to what he considered a "rough night".
"We'll tell you all about it tomorrow. For now, just get some rest, okay?" The blonde cyborg asked before reactivating sleep mode and shutting her eyes. Ranma shrugged and settled back down onto the couch.
Makoto frowned. "But why can't-"
Bam! The sound of the window being forced open cut off Makoto, and Ranma and Usagi both sat up sharply at the sudden noise.

Both relaxed considerably when Sailor Mars clumsily tumbled through the window, mumbling irritably under her breath as she stood up on the carpet and dusted off her legs.
Makoto stared at the fire Senshi with wide eyes, and then her head snapped back toward Ranma. Though she noticed that he seemed entirely uninterested, she started to sweat nervously as she did her best to look absolutely shocked.
"Wh-Why look! It's Sailor Mars! I can't believe it! What on Earth could you be doing here, in my best friend's dorm?"
It's a good thing Ami was asleep at the time (with her communicator buried under a pile of dismantled first-generation N-Gages, in case inquiring minds want to know) or she would have had choice words about the nerve of people criticizing HER acting several days previous.
Mars rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it, Mako-chan. He already knows who we are."
Ranma blinked in surprise, and then glanced at the ponytailed girl hesitantly before turning back to Mars. "Wait, so is she a Senshi too?"
Sailor Mars blinked. Then she blinked again.
"Son. Of. A. BITCH!!"
Wham! Wham! "Hey, some people are trying to sleep around here! Keep it down!" Came the muffled banging and shouting from the room above. Mars seriously considered blasting a hole in the ceiling out of sheer frustration.
Makoto did not look pleased. "Smooth, Mars. REAL smooth."
"Oh, shut up," the raven-haired Senshi murmured. "Getting back to the POINT, what happened back there? I thought you two were goners."
Ranma sighed and shifted into sitting position. "Well, I guess we nearly were, but..." he trailed off, and glanced at the head of blonde hair buried in a pillow across the room. "What about her? Is she a Senshi? You all live together?"
"Some other time!" Sailor Mars hissed. "And be more careful about saying things like that! People could be listening in!"
"Okay, fine, I get it," Ranma mumbled. "Anyway, we had backup. They arrived in time to turn the tables on the bloodsuckers. We got 'em."
The fire Senshi frowned. "Hold it. Your 'backup' turned the tables on something like thirty-plus vampires? You were surrounded!"
Ranma shrugged. "Eh. They weren't that tough."
"How many people were backing you up?" Mars asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "The entire building had been leveled by the time I got back there."
"Two," Ranma said simply, not at all put off by Mars' raised eyebrow. "Junko and Snake."
"Snake? Where?" Minako said suddenly, attempting to bolt upright and instead accidentally rolling off the side of her bed. "Guwah!" Thump!
Wham! Wham! "Hey! I'm serious! I've got tests tomorrow!" Came the voice from above.
Mars sighed. "Well, it seems you got out okay, so I guess we can call it a night." She hesitated, staring down at Ranma and letting a slight flush tint her face. "And... uh... I should apologize," she mumbled. "I knew how Nagase-kun felt about your department and that she'd probably make a spectacle out of meeting a DAPC officer and I let her know who you were without thinking about the consequences. I'm sorry." She held her hands over her waist demurely and bowed, deeply impressing everyone in the room who could appreciate how rare Rei's apologies were.
Minako frowned as she rubbed her head. "What's going on? Why is Rei-chan apologizing? Why is that guy from the park here? Where's Snake?"
Mars' eyebrow twitched, and she decided not to chastise Minako for using her civilian name when she wasn't aware that Ranma was in the loop (given her own miserable record for keeping their identities from him so far). "Oh, go back to sleep."
Makoto slowly smiled at the disgruntled fire Senshi, and scooted over to Usagi before leaning over to whisper. "You know, I do believe our fiery little friend has a bit of a crush."
Makoto hadn't said this quietly enough to escape Mars' ears, and she damn well knew it. As Ranma fought back a yawn, oblivious, Sailor Mars' face colored further, and she stalked haughtily back toward the window. "That's enough out of you. We need to get some rest and talk about this tomorrow, okay?"
Minako climbed back into bed, sat down on her mattress, and then crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at the pigtailed man. "Okay, I can accept that Snake isn't here, but seriously, WHY is Saotome-san here?"
Mars stopped in her tracks and whirled around. "That is an EXCELLENT question," she said firmly. While she wouldn't be surprised to find the pigtailed officer in Makoto's company at night, he was currently in a different dorm room, fully clothed, and resting on the couch. And while she could only expect her taller friend to go about changing that with all haste, it begged the question of what he was doing there in the first place.
Ranma, for his part, simply yawned. "Bodyguard duty." He pointed to Usagi, and then shifted his position on the couch once more, so that he was again lying on his back.
Usagi chuckled nervously as the other girls stared at her, clearly weighing the situation in their minds.
Mars turned back to the police officer. "Bodyguard duty, huh? Is that some excuse to keep tabs on her all the time?"
"Yup," Ranma replied without hesitation.
Makoto sweatdropped. "Uh... I think you're supposed to lie about that. Or at least spin it a little so it doesn't sound like government intrusion."
"I've never been good at that stuff," Ranma mumbled, letting his eyes fall closed as he relaxed. "Usagi's been targeted by terrorists, and we need to make sure she doesn't get recaptured or controlled or whatever. So that's why I'm here."
Mars' eye twitched. "We don't NEED government agents hanging around to keep us safe. We are the Sailor frikkin' Senshi, saviors of the planet, defenders of love and justice, etcetera etcetera. We can protect ourselves, thanks."
Ranma opened one eye and tilted his head to look at her. "...... How's your head? I've taken hits from Igov before; his elbow strike could probably bust open a safe. You recovering okay?"
Makoto winced. "Aaaand there goes that love interest," she said wryly. 'Oh well. Less clutter on the runway for yours truly!'
"Look here, you arrogant little punk," the fire Senshi said through clenched teeth, and plainly ignoring the fact that Ranma was definitely older than her, "don't get smug with me because you kicked around some foreign tin man who caught us off-guard!"
Usagi gulped, and was about to interject a plea on Ranma's behalf, but Ranma was just as quick with his mouth as he was with his fists.
"Can I be smug about killing more than half of the vampires in that club pretty much by myself before any bombs went off?" Ranma asked, fighting off a yawn.
"No!" Mars said immediately. "You may be good for a police officer, but we-"
Wham! Wham! WHAM! "I'm serious!" Said the voice from above, now sounding perfectly enraged. "Shut UP!! I'm trying to sleep! If you morons keep shouting, I'm calling the cops!"
Sailor Mars clenched her teeth and balled her hands into fists, mentally torn between giving up and going home, or committing acts of terrible violence to vent her frustration.
Ranma frowned up at the ceiling, and then hopped up off the couch. "Well, duty calls. Excuse me, ladies." Before the red-skirted girl could organize her angry thoughts well enough to protest... whatever was currently happening, Ranma had reached the window Mars had entered through, hopped onto the window sill, and then jumped up out of sight.
Minako frowned again. "Wait... why did he just go out the window?"
"Why haven't you done anything but ask inane questions since you woke up for no reason?" Mars countered hotly, causing the blonde girl to pout grumpily.
"Listen, Rei-chan," Usagi began gently, getting up out of bed and placing her hand on Mars' shoulder. "I know you're just worried for me, but it's okay. I trust Ranma-san."
"You trust everybody," the fire Senshi snapped back, though it was hard to make such a statement sound especially accusatory.
"I believe in Ranma-san," Usagi said resolutely, in that rare tone of hers that simply doesn't stand for argument. "He wants to help us. If something bad happens, he'll do the right thing."
Mars was silent for a long moment, though her expression didn't soften. "And what if doing the 'right thing' involves taking you out before the enemy gets a hold of you?"
Usagi winced. "Well... I still think..."
"Not to interrupt this dramatic conversation," Makoto said suddenly, "but did anyone else just hear a thumping noise?"
Minako raised her hand. "I thought it was that guy from the room above again, but it was much lighter this time."
Before speculation could continue, Ranma swung back into the room through the window, idly dusting off his pants as he walked back to the couch and laid back down.
Sailor Mars frowned. "So... what happened up there?"
"He registered a complaint," Ranma said, shifting from side to side to get comfortable, "and then I helped him get to sleep."
Silence greeted his explanation, which suited the pigtailed cop just fine as he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.
Makoto leaned over to whisper into Mars' ear. "Look, if you're not gonna want him, let me know now, okay? 'Cause I will be ALL OVER that."
The fire Senshi's eye twitched. "Do what you want," she snapped as a bright glow enveloped her and then vanished, leaving her in her street clothes, apparently careless of Ranma's presence. "I'm going to bed. This whole evening's just been one disaster after another." She stalked out of the room, obviously still upset, but no longer having a clear focus for her frustration.

Usagi sighed and fell back onto her pillow as Minako crawled back under her covers across the room.
She hadn't really thought about the possibility of being attacked and recaptured by the people who had converted her into a cyborg. It was rather difficult to imagine, considering that she had exactly three faces to associate with the "terrorist army" that was supposedly responsible. She supposed a final showdown with the redheaded android was probably to be expected, but other than that...
Usagi sat up again. "Mako-chan, seriously. Not tonight, okay?"
Makoto pouted and pulled her shirt back down from where she had been preparing to join the sleeping pigtailed man on the couch. "Hmph. I'm surrounded by prudes," she mumbled under her breath, giving the man on a couch a final, long stare before following Rei out the door.

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Snake whistled happily to himself as he flipped through the wad of yen notes he had collected one last time before bundling them and adding them to the small pile of other cash bundles to the left of his breakfast (steak and eggs with orange juice, of course). On the other side of his breakfast was a mound of wallets and pocketbooks, all of them bereft of cash but still containing identification, credit cards, and pictures.
"Sometimes I really do wonder just how different my job is from that of a career criminal," Snake said to himself as he dropped the last wad of yen notes and started cutting his steak.
He was just washing down his first bite of breakfast with his juice when the door to the living room swung open, and Junko staggered into the kitchen, blinking rapidly as she held a small quilt around her body.
"'Morning," Snake said evenly as he put his juice down. He then started cutting off another piece of steak.
Junko stared at the American, and her brow furrowed. "Wait... I'm at YOUR house? I thought this place seemed kind of familiar, but..." she glanced around the kitchen. "Urm... would you happen to know why I'm here? Or why there's some teenage geek sleeping on your couch?"
"I can make probable guesses at both," Snake deadpanned, making a mental note to burn the couch later. "Did you know that Akina doesn't have enough of your memories to figure out how to get home on her own?"
Junko's eyes widened slightly. "She doesn't? Oh..." Then her eyes narrowed. "OH. I see. Did you hit me over the head again when I wasn't looking?" She asked accusingly.
"Nope. You were looking right at me at the time," Snake responded before putting another chunk of steak in his mouth.
The redhead scowled at him. "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Akina-san does not echo your sentiments."
Before the discussion could heat up further, a timid voice came from the room behind Junko.
"M-M-Mistress? May I l-leave now? Please?"
Junko glanced back toward the living room. "Hmmm... no. Might as well take one for the road, while you're here." She let the quilt fall to the floor as she walked back where she came from. "Hey, Snake, do you think you can make us something to eat before we take off? Thanks!" She closed the door behind her.
'Forget the couch. The entire room will need to be purged with fire,' the Texan decided as he rolled his eyes and got up to make more eggs.

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"Okay, it's a brand new day, we're all up and rested," Makoto said eagerly as Rei sat down in the chair next to her around the coffee table, "so let's get the scoop!"
Ami looked nervous as she cradled a cup of coffee in her hands. "Will this 'scoop' explain why Saotome-san is apparently living in our dorm now?" She kept glancing at the man uneasily, though she was probably more disturbed by the pieces of a 13mm. pistol that were spread out in front of him as he cleaned them than she was by Ranma himself.
"Yes, it will," Usagi reassured her. The genius Senshi had been VERY perturbed to find Ranma on the couch that morning, being the only one that hadn't woken up the previous night.
Usagi frowned at Rei, who was already staring stubbornly at Ranma, who was ignoring her as he cleaned his gun. "Did you bring Luna and Artemis?" She asked.
Luna and Artemis didn't live with their "owners," as the dorms had a strict "no pets" policy, though it wasn't uncommon for the moon cats to sneak in for a few nights at a time. Normally they stayed with Rei, who lived in an apartment close to the campus and could facilitate them easily.
"No. If I'd brought them, they'd be all over you as soon as they saw him, and we wouldn't get anything done," Rei explained, nudging her chin toward Ranma. "Particularly Luna; she's going to freak out over this. And I'm not sure if we should be letting Saotome-san in on every aspect of our little group."
Ranma shrugged in response, putting down the firing pin and dabbing a rag once again with oil. "That's fine; I don't need to know everything about you or who you associate with. Though if these Luna and Artemis people are Senshi, or some kinda superheroes like you guys, it'd be nice not to have any big surprises spring up anywhere."
Makoto snickered. "Then don't worry about it; they're pretty far from superheroes, I'd say."
"Okay then," Usagi started, taking a deep breath. "Everybody, this is Ranma Saotome, an officer of the... uh... what do you call it, again?"
"Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment," Ranma said as he put the rag down and started reassembling his gun. "Most people just call it the DAPC, or just the DA."
"Right. That," Usagi continued. "Ranma-san, you know me and that I used to be Sailor Moon, and apparently you already know that Rei-chan is Sailor Mars." She pointed to Makoto. "This is Makoto Kino, Sailor Jupiter..."
The brunette smiled and winked at him suggestively.
Usagi pointed to Minako. "Minako Aino, Sailor Venus..."
The blonde with the red bow in her hair waved pleasantly from where she was gathering food for breakfast.
"... And this is Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury," Usagi finished, placing her arm on the genius Senshi's shoulder.
"Are you sure it's okay to let him know who we are?" Ami asked timidly, not making eye contact with the pigtailed man.
"Little late for that," Makoto said, shooting a meaningful glance at Rei before she shrugged. "Besides, we can trust you, can't we Ranma-kun?" She smiled and leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table as she propped up her chin.
"Sure ya can," Ranma answered easily, sliding the final piece of his sidearm into place. "You can trust me with anything!"
"Please excuse us for not taking your word for it," Rei deadpanned, her arms crossed over her chest. "We have to be careful about who we tell our secrets to, and you and your... friends down at crazy cop central don't seem like safe bets."
"What're you, kidding?" Ranma chuckled. "I know they don't give the best first impression, but our guys are the best out there! There's nobody more trustworthy!"

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(Back at HQ)
Kyle blinked as he scanned the list of profiles before him, and shook his head before turning around in his seat.
"Hey, Tiro! Did you know that we have the Sailor Senshi's identities listed here in the encrypted archives?"
Tiro didn't glance up from where he was studying a copy of Victoria's Secret with fierce intensity. "Really. So, we know all their names, addresses, and whatnot?"
The blonde man nodded. "Yup! They even have pictures here!"
"Are any of them naked?" the lecher asked, still not looking up from the magazine.
Kyle frowned and scrolled down the screen. "...... Nope."
"Then stop bugging me."

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"Again, I'm not going to take your word for it," Rei said firmly. "Usagi-chan's the type to trust a fox to guard a henhouse. But you're going to have to EARN that kind of trust from me. And let me tell you, being thrown in jail wasn't the best place to start along that path."
Ranma blinked. Twice. "Wait... you were in jail? For what?"
"Some bull about burning a storefront without a license, or something," Minako muttered, taking out some bread from the pantry and walking over to the toaster.
"And... you're saying that we should just let people burn down stores whenever they want?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Rei scowled. "You could make an exception for us!"
"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what we did," Ranma deadpanned. "Unless you're telling me you're out on bail right now."
"We're getting a bit off-track here," Makoto interjected before Rei could come up with a retort. "Ranma-kun, why don't you explain exactly what your job is while you're here."
"Well, to put it simply, I'm supposed to protect Usagi-chan," Ranma said, shrugging. "She tells me that you're planning to assault a Freedom's Angel base to find one of their leaders, Alexandra Tokima. If something goes wrong, the Angels could re-capture her. I'm here to prevent that, and help out with the mission if possible."
Ami raised an eyebrow. "I see... what, exactly, do you specialize in, Saotome-san?"
"Kicking things, mostly," Ranma said with a self-satisfied expression as he leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "Sometimes I shoot them, too."
"Law enforcement has gotten a lot more intense since we were younger, it would seem," Rei said dryly. "When did they get rid of all that 'due process' stuff?"
"Have you ever BEEN to trial?" Ranma asked distastefully. "I'd rather fight vampires than argue with lawyers."
Minako poked Usagi in the shoulder, still holding her bread, and effectively interrupting the conversation. "Uhm, Usagi-chan? The toaster's broken..."
Usagi looked up at the other blonde, uncomprehending. "So... you want ME to fix it? Ami-chan's right there, you know."
"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic," Ami mumbled as she sipped her coffee.
Minako looked flustered by the response, but still seemed determined as she held up her bread. "Well, if you can fix it, sure, but... well... can't you do it yourself?"
Usagi's expression went flat. "You want me to toast your bread?"
"If you wouldn't mind..."
The cyborg crossed her arms under her breasts. "What makes you think I even have a toas-"
"In the back, between the shoulder blades," Ami said suddenly after swallowing up more coffee. "Usagi-chan should be able to open a pair of slots there. They use the vector thrusters for heat."
Usagi twitched as Minako started pulling back on her shirt collar and poking around on her back. "This is humiliating."
"Oh, stop whining and just open up," Rei muttered as she poured herself some coffee.
Usagi pouted as a soft whirring noise came from her back, and Minako brightened as she slipped her bread down into her friend's back.
"Getting back on-topic, here," Makoto started, shaking her head at the sight of Usagi being used as a common household appliance, "you said you were fighting... what? Vampires? Are you serious?"
Ranma nodded somberly. "Over the past few weeks we've had a steep increase in the number of disappearances, seemingly unmotivated homicides, and small zombie infestations. On a few cases we've managed to track down a few of the perpetrators, which turned out in each case to be young adult vampires."
Rei frowned. "Huh... Tsuna was right on the money, then. But where did these things COME from?"
"Well, obviously, the vampires we've fought so far came from other vampires," Ranma said, leaning his chair back as he stared up at the ceiling. "The problem is... well... as far as we can tell, vampires have always been around Tokyo."
PFFFT! Ami immediately started choking after spewing her coffee out all over the table.
Ranma sweatdropped. "You seem surprised..."
"Of Hack! COURSE I'm surprised!" Ami said, coughing a few more times as Makoto smacked her in the back. "You're telling me Gasp! that these monsters have been around for as long as your department?"
"Yup. Supposedly they're real sneaky bastards normally," Ranma explained, scratching his head. "They kept to themselves, did everything to hide from authorities, didn't kill more than they needed, and chose targets that wouldn't be missed. Vampire encounters were so rare that there was a lot of speculation even in OUR records that they really might be myths. But recently there's been... I don't really know... some kind of EXPLOSION in the vampire population. The night club we assaulted last night was literally set up as a sort of vampire factory to churn 'em out as quickly as possible."
He shook his head. "On top of that, it wasn't that well defended or particularly secretive. We found it on a tip, but even if we hadn't gotten the tip, that place couldn't have stayed open for more than a week without somebody realizing something was fishy."
'Actually, somebody already had noticed,' Rei thought to herself as she took another sip of coffee. 'Good thing Saotome was there, too. I'm not sure if I could've saved Tsuna myself.'
"So they've begun to come out of the shadows, so to speak?" Makoto asked, frowning.
"I don't think it's even that," Ranma said, letting his chair fall forward again as he sat up straight. "They haven't been inviting conflict or anything; it's just that the vampires we've run into keep making mistakes. It's like there are so many of them now, and they're so inexperienced, that they can't all hide effectively." He frowned suddenly. "Have you noticed that there are a lot less homeless people on the streets nowadays?"
THAT sent a cold chill through all of those present.
"R-Really?" Minako asked nervously. "Uh... are y-you sure it's not just... well... the shelters taking in more, or..."
"Nah. We've been getting reports from frightened workers from the shelters sayin' how less and less people keep showing up every night. A lot of the surviving people refuse to leave, even in the daytime. Nobody knows what's happening." Ranma seemed more troubled by the situation than disturbed, which the Senshi guessed was an appropriate attitude when he was dealing with this matter directly.
Ami shuddered. "But... following the logical conclusion... after the vampires run out of easy victims..."
"Exactly." Ranma sighed, running a hand through his hair. "And though it's much easier to track a vampire coming from a mysterious homicide than from a missing persons report, if things start getting that bad..."
Ding! Clunk!
The seriousness of the situation was utterly shattered as a bulge appeared beneath Usagi's shirt on her back, and Minako blinked and reached down into her friend's collar. "Oh! The toast's done! Aww... Usagi, you burnt it!"
A vein popped up on Usagi's head, and she made a mental query as to the lower settings available for her taser module.
Ami slid her coffee away, the earlier discussion having sharpened her state of mind more than the bitter stimulant could ever manage. "We HAVE to do something about this. We can't let these monsters roam about unchecked any longer."
"You don't need to; we can handle it," Ranma insisted, waving his hand dismissively. "Besides, don't you have enough on your plate with the whole terrorist deal?"
"We have to fight injustice and darkness everywhere, not just where it affects us," Makoto insisted proudly, standing up and pressing a fist against her chest. "We'll do whatever we can to help!"
"Now wait just a darned minute," Rei grumped, leaning forward. "I'm all for blasting vampires, but I'm not crazy about the idea of working with the police."
"Oh, come on," Makoto said, her voice suddenly smooth as silk as she scootched over to Ranma and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You have to admit that they're not ALL bad... I could get used to the idea of working... closely... with Ranma-kun here..."
Ranma, being as oblivious to innuendo as he was, would have been the only man within one hundred miles to take that statement at face value... if it weren't for Makoto's hand slipping down off his shoulder and across his back, her fingers dancing across his muscles roughly as she felt him over.
"Eh... heh heh... Gulp!" Ranma swallowed nervously as the brunette continued to feel him up, grinning down at him the whole time. "I, uh... thanks?"
"That's great, but what about the OTHER problem with this little bodyguard arrangement?" Rei deadpanned.
Usagi raised an eyebrow. "What problem?"
"She may be referring to a... uh... male police officer standing guard in a girl's dormitory," Ami said with an embarrassed glance at Ranma. "No offense, Saotome-san."
"None taken. I get that sort of thing a lot," Ranma mumbled, still sweating slightly from Makoto massaging his shoulder.
"What's wrong with that?" Minako asked, chomping down the last of her overcooked toast. When Rei glared at her, the blonde rolled her eyes. "Oh, grow up. Can't we deal with a situation as serious as terrorist abduction without worrying that our bodyguard might walk in on us in the shower?"
Makoto grinned even wider. "Of course, if he makes Ami-chan uncomfortable, we could always make... OTHER sleeping arrangements..." She purred, her hand working even faster on Ranma's back.
Ranma's face flushed as Makoto's hand slid to the side and seemed to be making its way under his arm. "A-Actually, I r-really should stay with Usagi. 'Cause... you know... she's the target?"
"But you don't KNOW that," Makoto said brightly. "What if they want to turn more of us into cyborgs? You'd want to be close by so you could save me... wouldn't you?"
He started sweating more. The brunette's hand was under his arm now, feeling his tensed pectorals. A quick glance at the other girls in the room didn't seem to bring any hope of rescue. Minako looked quite interested in the exchange, Rei had turned away, disgusted, and Ami and Usagi had flushed and were looking elsewhere.
"Wait! Aren't most of the Senshi living here, though? So I should definitely stay here in case that's true!" Ranma pointed out.
Unfortunately, Makoto wasn't nearly so interested in a logical discussion of where Ranma was going to stay. "Yeah, whatever. My room's close enough to here anyway. Let me show you!" She tried to drag Ranma out of his chair, only to stop short and nearly lose her balance as she found herself attempting to move the entire dining room table along with her victim, which jolted from the movement.
Ranma's fingers dug into the wooden surface of the table as he pleaded with the women across from him silently, and Makoto frowned at the unexpected resistance.
Finally, Usagi decided Makoto was being a little too pushy and decided to come to Ranma's rescue; she didn't really care if the Thunder Senshi nailed Ranma ragged, and would have been overjoyed to see her bodyguard have a real relationship within her circle of friends, but Makoto was letting her libido run wild more than usual, and it was clearly making Ranma uncomfortable.
"Ranma-san, I know there's not much food here, so why don't you go down to the cafeteria and get yourself something to eat?" Usagi said suddenly, getting up from her seat and pointing to the door.
Ranma brightened immediately and nodded, standing up himself to go. His nervousness returned full force when a pair of arms wrapped around one of his, with a pillowy pair of breasts pressing against his bicep.
"I can show you the way! We'll make a date out of it!" Makoto cooed, glad that Usagi had thoughtfully gotten him to release his iron grip on the table. She began to drag him out the door again.
Whrrr... Clang! Makoto yelped as a metal claw suddenly latched onto her arm and yanked her back, breaking her hold on Ranma. Looking back, her eyes bugged out as she saw Usagi staring at her firmly with her normal arms crossed over her chest, and a third servo arm extending out of her shoulderblade to restrain the taller girl.
"Now Mako-chan, leave Ranma be for now. We have things to discuss HERE, don't we?" Usagi asked. Ranma, apparently unfazed by the appearance of the new appendage, bolted out the door.

Makoto slumped at seeing her newest piece of meat escape out the door. "I don't know, DO we?" she asked irritably of Usagi.
Rei rolled her eyes and leaned back as she polished off her cup of coffee. "Mako-chan, I'll admit that he's not a bad catch, but show some propriety, would you? Hell, if Ami-chan wasn't here, you probably would have started undressing him right then and there."
Ami blinked and thought hard about that, wondering if she should be pleased that her friends were sensitive to her embarrassment, or irritated that they thought of her as a little girl to be protected from the sight of sexual conduct.
Minako shrugged. "You WERE coming on a little strong. He doesn't seem that easy, you know?"
Makoto pouted. "I just figured that he deserved some kind of reward for his help in the park..."
"Well, I'm sure he'd appreciate a simple 'thank you,'" Usagi lectured as the mechanical claw let go of Makoto's arm. "Besides, it IS his job to do that sort of thing."
"I can't imagine he gets paid enough to fight freaks like that Igov guy," the brunette muttered. "Besides, did you SEE the way he moved when he was fighting? Imagine the sorts of things he could do in the sack!"
Ami's face promptly began burning as she started doing just that. "I need a drink..."
"Seriously though, if we can put aside the gossip for a minute, this vampire situation is serious," Rei said irritably. "I didn't get to see the battle, but I'm guessing there were a lot of those freaks in there. We have to find the root of this problem and put a stop to it."
"Okay, but where do we start?" Minako asked.
"Ranma can help!" Usagi said immediately. "Him and Snake found the night club by interrogating a vampire that they captured!"
Rei noted the way Minako lit up at the mention of the American, and quickly moved to put down the idea. "We don't need the DAPC. I have my own lead on the vampires who found the club on the same night."
"Was it that crazy girl who nearly got us killed?" Usagi deadpanned. "Ranma told me about that. She just heard he was DAPC, and she went nuts!"
"Well... she has some issues," Rei admitted quietly. "But so do your police buddies! I don't want that nutcase Snake around!"
"Ladies, ladies, let's calm down," Makoto said gently, placing a hand on Rei and Usagi's respective shoulders. "Look, by ourselves, we've got nothing, right? We might as well go out combing graveyards for all we know about hunting vampires. So I figure we shouldn't be turning away any info we can get, no matter WHERE it comes from."
"That's fine, but Saotome at least is going to want to tag along with us when we go out to take care of these things," Rei fumed.
"So? What's wrong with that? He's really good at killing vampires," Usagi protested.
Makoto just grinned. "If you want Ranma-kun out of the way, you just let me know. I'll keep him... occupied."
Minako snickered. "Okay, so now we have to assault a terrorist hideout and then a vampire lair. Anything else?"
"Yeah," Usagi mumbled, suddenly looking tired. "Tests. I'll see you guys later, okay?" As the other girls nodded and mumbled goodbye, Usagi grabbed a notebook and headed toward the door.
"Usagi..." Rei said, her eyebrow twitching.
"Yes?"
"The arm?" The raven-haired girl pointed to the servo arm that was still extending out of the blonde cyborg's back and curving over her shoulder.
Usagi flushed and the robotic appendage slipped back into her shoulderblade, vanishing into a narrow slip of space that shouldn't have been able to hold that much volume in the first place. Without a word, the ponytailed girl was out the door.

Rei was about to take another sip of coffee, when she blinked and jerked her head back to the door. "Wait, where's she going?"

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"And THAT'S how American military might conquered Communism, and brought peace and prosperity back to the poor, wretched, non-American countries of the world," Snake said proudly, watching as his student scrawled down the last collection of notes in her notebook.
Sitting next to Usagi was Ranma and Kyle, the latter of whom was there because he really had nothing better to do.
"Wow. I've never heard the Vietnam War described like that," Kyle muttered, scratching his head. "Usually people talk about it like it was some sort of big embarrassment and failure on the part of the U.S."
"LIES!!" Snake snarled, leaning forward. "We only left because the Vietcong were too weak to sate our battle-lust! America has never lost a war, and never will!"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, now shut up. Does that cover today's lesson?"
"Yeah, that should just about do it," the Texan decided. "Though I still think you should memorize a list of all the American presidents."
"You also think we should hire her as a fridge," Ranma deadpanned.
"Not JUST as a fridge. I'm sure she has other useful appliances," Snake reasoned.
Usagi sweatdropped. "Well... apparently I can do toast..."
Ranma leaned back out of Usagi's peripheral vision, and then stiffly shook his head no while mouthing "No good, no good!" silently.

"Anyway, I'm really grateful for the help, but I'm kind of nervous about my English class," Usagi said, sighing. "Ami and Minako are both really good at English, but I'm hopeless, and between my lessons here and our planning against the terrorists and the vampires and everything..." she rubbed her head as she trailed off. "It's awful! Rei-chan even suggested we start going out on PATROLS again! I can't DEAL with that during midterms!"
Kyle smiled. "I can teach you English!"
Ranma and Snake both did spit-takes at the exclamation, and fought off the ensuing laughter as Kyle pouted.
"What? It's true! I'm really good at English!"
"Commander... Kyle... buddy..." Ranma said gently as he patted the taller man on the shoulder, "You're the dumbest guy in our department. You don't know ANYTHING."
"Academically speaking, it's a miracle you didn't take the short bus to school every day," Snake said, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. "Hell, if you stuttered a bit more when you talked, you could probably qualify for disability!"
"Hey! That's really mean, you guys!" Usagi protested angrily, having flashbacks to being teased and insulted constantly by her own peers back in high school.
Kyle just frowned, being much less sensitive to criticisms of his intellect than Usagi could have imagined. "But I'm really good at speaking, right? And that's why! I have great language skills! I always scored high in all my writing and speech classes, Japanese and English!"
Ranma and Snake sobered slightly, sensing that their superior officer was being serious in defending this new area of competence.
"So, what, you got good grades in Junior High or something?" Snake asked, raising an eyebrow.
Kyle drew himself up proudly and smiled. "Before my dad talked me into joining the police academy, I took two years of college as a language and fine arts major! I still thumb through my old European poetry notebook on occasion!"
"Even so, it's kind of a waste," Ranma said, not quite buying Kyle's endorsement of his English. "I mean, Snake's a native speaker. Can't he just teach her along with the history lessons?"
"Booooooring," Snake said, drawing out the word as he leaned back and brought his feet up onto the table. "I'm not teaching Tsukino-kun anything that doesn't have to do with why America is great. If Tekai can do it, let him do it." Then he glanced at the blond man. {"You CAN speak English fluently, can't you?"} He said, switching the language in question.
Kyle grinned back at him. {"Do not have concern, Mister! All is fine in my hands!"} He said back in English.
There was silence for several moments as Ranma and Usagi waited for Snake to confirm or rebuke Kyle's grasp of the language in question (having understood none of it themselves).
"...... Meh, good enough," Snake said, giving Kyle the thumbs-up.
Usagi smiled and stood up before Kyle, bowing to him. "I'd very much appreciate your help, Tekai-san! Thank you!" Then she cocked her head to one side. "But where did you learn English, anyway? Just from your classes? Weren't those a long time ago?"
"Yeah, but I get a lot of practice using it around my family," Kyle explained. "I'm one-fourth American. My grandfather and grandmother both immigrated after the war."
Snake frowned. "You mean one of the grandfathers and grandmothers, I think. And wouldn't that make you half American?"
Kyle stared back at him blankly. "Grandpa's half the what now?"
"Don't ask him for help with math," Ranma murmured to Usagi, who sweatdropped and nodded in agreement.

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A day passed, and the citizens of Tokyo went about their business, the vast majority unaware and unconcerned with the various mortal threats that bubbled underneath the surface of calm routine and gentle prosperity that graced the Japanese capital.

Ironically, of those groups that were not so happily ignorant, it was the warriors and cowards of the DAPC, the force charged first and foremost with dealing with such threats that relaxed calmly with each other in perfect comfort while waiting for the next catastrophe to strike. Lesser men would have found themselves hard pressed to put substantial time and effort into helping a ditzy college student cram for mid-terms when there were bloodsucking monsters prowling about the city in packs, but that was simply the caliber of the DA's officers.
Tokyo's finest indeed.

Across the city, hidden in steel labyrinths underneath corporate fortresses of glass and steel, an infamous Russian general emerged from his personal repair bay which, much to his annoyance, had been seeing more and more use as time passed.
In a laboratory above him, a robotic monstrosity greedily sucked up energy as its systems slowly flickered to life, testing manipulators, engines, and energy projectors in preparation for war.

Opposite the DAPC headquarters from this factory of death, four girls started planning an assault in earnest as one amongst them typed furiously on her computer, running through the DAPC's databases in the hopes that it would reveal their enemy. A vital spot, a weak point, a conveniently isolated operation; every possible point of attack was considered for the purposes of maximum damage with minimal disturbance. For this was not a matter of defeating an invading army or annihilating a rampaging beast.
No, the Senshi had a somewhat darker agenda on this occasion. Someone had attacked their princess, changed her, and then dropped her back into the Senshi's laps as if to show off his wonderful prank. And "someone" was going to pay dearly for their indiscretion.

Not too far from the meeting place of the Inner Senshi, a pair of lovers felt the dreadful chill of a parent just informed that their child may be in danger as an older woman nervously told them over the phone that their daughter had now officially been missing from her class group for a full twenty-four hours.
The reassurance that school supervisors and local authorities were making every effort to find the girl did not comfort the two Outer Senshi, nor did it spare the poor woman informing them from any wrathful cursing from the more aggressive and outspoken of the pair.

Not too far from either groups of Senshi, a stunning businesswoman calmly sipped on fine alcohol as she read the troubling report that her assistant had just handed her.
Evidently terrorist cells were disappearing, often in horribly bloody and mysterious ways. The woman's list of enemies was long indeed, but evidently there was a completely new threat to her admittedly (and in some cases literally) decaying forces.

Finally, as dusk passed over Tokyo and gave way to night, a single figure floated over the tops of Tokyo's skyscrapers, the myriad lights from the streets below occasionally peeking up from between the buildings to illuminate her ghostly pale face.

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

Long whips of silky fabric wafted behind the woman in the wind as she slowed her flight, approaching her destination at last. The penthouse apartment of Fujimata Suites towered over the adjacent buildings, affording it a great deal more privacy than that of the penthouses surrounding it.
Of course, privacy was hardly at a premium at this particular property, as the complete lack of artificial light, combined with being shielded by its height from most of the light from the streets and buildings below kept the exposed, extravagant deck in near total darkness, spoiled only by the light of the moon and stars.
The woman touched down on the edge of the property and walked forward, her stride firm and purposeful.
This penthouse was of the stereotypical sort; a luxurious, stately property that screamed wealth. It was the sort of "rich man's bachelor pad" that old businessmen bought to impress and impregnate their girlfriends
And despite the unusual nature of its occupants, the penthouse certainly gave that impression tonight. The darkness proved to be no impediment as the newcomer glanced over the other vampires gathered in and around the large heated pool. Bikini-clad women made up the majority; a testament to the apartment's male owner. Pale, silky flesh was on display everywhere, and the woman noted with mild distaste that some of the females had discarded their bathing suits entirely, or had already latched onto one of the few males and started screwing out in the open, much to the delight of the other participants.
Far be it for her to complain, of course. Vampires were very carnal creatures by nature, and though they were much better known for their predatory habits than their sexual ones, the rush of power that followed the conversion to undeath almost always boosted one's libido fiercely.
Over time, the rush of power one felt every time the sun went down tended to dwindle though, even as the vampire itself became stronger and stronger. Older vampires like herself had their egos and mannerisms tempered by over a century of experience and culture, and treated the young ones as they were: foolish, hormonal children who barely understood what they were, and were drunk with the power of undeath.
Sighing, she stepped past the penthouse jacuzzi, trying to block out the screams and moans of the massive orgy coming from within it, the collection of bare flesh colliding and writhing like a perverse mosh pit.
Entering the apartment proper, a pair of bulky-looking men in silk suits stepped up to her, looked her over, and then nodded their consent to her presence, turning their attention once more to the risque party taking place out on the deck.

"Ah. Kimiko. Welcome back."
The woman stopped and bowed, her long platinum hair spilling down over her shoulders. "Master Ran. I've come to give my report."
Before her laid what appeared to be a young man, perhaps not even in his twenties, with dazzling blonde hair and two shapely vampiresses in his lap. He regarded the newcomer with an air of impatient attention, as if he was only listening to what she had to say out of personal courtesy, rather than because she possessed information vital to the decisions he had to make.
Kimiko had never really understood Ran; despite being the oldest and strongest vampire in Japan, he had always been... oddly enough... quite youthful, for a vampire. Unlike herself, and the men that Ran used as bodyguards, he had chosen to keep a young man's body down through the centuries, had maintained a more than healthy libido, and basically acted like the arrogant, foolish morons that were starting to get shot up around the city from making mistakes.
Of course, Ran was neither foolish nor particularly arrogant; he had dozens of old, powerful vampires under his direct control, and far more humans under his heel, either through direct manipulation and hypnosis, or through his extensive financial dealings. He was smart, and never hesitated to use force when he could get away with it.
Still, he was vain, cocky, and lecherous, and Kimiko honestly hated serving under him.
Not that she had much of a choice, of course; she was one of the many vampires bound directly to his will.
"Oh. Right. You had that raid on... something... how'd that go?" He asked, looking quite disinterested as he played with the breasts of his current bedmate.
"Not very well, I'm afraid," Kimiko muttered, disappointed - as usual - that her master hadn't bothered to remember what was a rather important operation. "If you recall, two newly turned slew their master vampire and made a break from their new homes during the day. It seems they were... displeased with undeath." Most vampires tended to say that sentence as if it was a joke or a source of great irony. Kimiko did not. She had been undead long enough to know it wasn't all free power-ups and good times. It was rare and surprising whenever newly turned showed such foresight, but it did happen, and it was happening more often as the population of vampires increased.
"They managed to make their way to a church, where they revealed their nature, and begged help of the priest there in front of the entire congregation." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "As you can imagine, there was a great deal of panic and confusion with two vampires sobbing on the floor of a church, cowering under the cross and bemoaning the theft of their purity. This made things easier to take care of, but caused quite an uproar."
"Go on," Ran said, looking slightly more interested, but in a manner that made it clear he didn't like what he was hearing.
"When dusk settled we made short work of those inside the church, including the defectors, and also managed to hunt down all of those who had fled the church before we got there... we hope," she murmured.
Ran blinked. "Oh. Good, then. It sounds like the mission was a complete success."
Kimiko fought off the growl rising in her throat. It was moments like these that she really hated serving this man. "In order to destroy two traitors, we ended up killing thirty-three humans. Even after drinking ourselves fat, most of those individuals were left with blood still in their veins. Not only was it wasteful, but the sheer volume of the murders is far beyond any possibility of hiding. When the local authorities and the populace are already wary of increased disappearances at night, now is NOT the time to be killing off scores of humans left and right!"
Ran's head swayed back and forth as he considered this, and one of the women in his arms cooed gently and kissed his neck to comfort him as she squeezed her body tighter against his side.
"I suppose you're right," the vampire lord said, shrugging. "But what's to be done about it? We can't just stop killing defectors."
"A more humanistic individual might suggest we stop spreading vampirism about like the flu," Kimiko said sarcastically. "And on that note, I bring news that I'm sure you'll agree is entirely bad; the Dark Hearts club has been leveled, as the rumors had guessed. The entire operation is a total loss."
The elder vampire scowled, his pointed incisors poking down between his lips. "And just how did this happen?"
"There were three survivors to the massacre. Of those, two were recently turned who had no idea what was going on at the time; when the explosions and gunshots started, their hosts left to defend the club, and they took the opportunity to make a break for it." She sighed wearily. "Needless to say, they weren't so pleased at being vampires after seeing a whole bastion of their new peers slaughtered. I had to destroy both of them after I was done questioning them. The third fellow was simply some coward who fled early. His account was slightly more helpful."
Kimiko took a deep breath. "It seems the DAPC infiltrated the clubhouse. We're not sure how they found it, but apparently someone blew their cover during the operation, resulting in a battle that ended with the club in ruins." She frowned. "Evidently, they were also assisted by an odd character referring to herself as 'Cyber Moon'. Not sure what that's all about."
One of the vampiresses caressing Ran started. "'Cyber' Moon? Any relation to that famous superheroine from down in Juuban?"
"I haven't the slightest," Kimiko said, shrugging. Vampires had little to no direct conflict with Japanese demon hunters, as Japanese spirits tended either to cause far more uproar than the typical vampire, or stay rooted to a single area. The Sailor Senshi in particular were almost entirely reactionary, and tended to stumble upon hidden operations almost exclusively thanks to dumb luck. Unlike mundane authorities, who relied on experience, wit, and technical expertise to track their targets from the scene of the crime to wherever they might flee to.
Midians were, or at least, used to be, masters of stealth and discretion, only using their formidable physical abilities for direct combat when they had no choice. And up until recently, they had neatly evaded Japan's most popular super heroines to the extent that the girls had no idea that vampires existed.
"This is... most unfortunate," Ran mumbled, pushing the girls off of him as he stood up. "The prophet will not be pleased." He looked up at Kimiko. "What of Tsumoyatsu?"
Kimiko shook her head. "Dead. Only the humans and those three I spoke of escaped." The eldest vampire to be stationed in the club - usually called the "Overseer," though he played the role of bartender - had clearly perished in the assault, as he would have been the first to report to his superiors had he survived.
"Yes... MOST unfortunate. He was a good servant," Ran said regretfully. "Do you think that the other clubs are in danger of being discovered?"
"I do," Kimiko deadpanned. "And so long as such places are in operation, ALL of our strongholds are in danger of being discovered."
Ran rolled his eyes as he recognized the start of a long-running disagreement between them. "Kimiko, darling, calm yourself. These facilities are necessary if the prophet's plans are to come to fruition."
"The prophet's plans appear less and less worthwhile with every incident," Kimiko hissed. "Look at us, Master! Have you seen what's happening down there? In the streets, our kind have taken to raiding homes and grabbing pedestrians out in the open to keep from starving! Our normal roosts are so overwhelmed with new bodies that they're in constant risk of discovery! Every day is spent in fear of a government search in our resting places, and now the authorities have taken to hunting us down in earnest! More and more of our 'new recruits' reject undeath and oppose us, trying to escape and warn others. We have completely abandoned the old ways, and-"
"The old ways are useless to us," the vampiress who had spoken before when she heard the name Cyber Moon stood up, hands on her hips. "The prophet brings visions of a new world, where humanity gives way to our kind and the sun is blotted out of the sky once and for all! What are these trifling little problems compared to the reward he promises? That there are too many of us? That the humans might find out about us? So what?"
"There is very troubling precedent for that sort of thing," Kimiko said evenly. "The midians' record for wars against humankind is something to the effect of zero-to-four. And the... children we're turning nowadays are far from being soldiers. They're clumsy, impulsive, and arrogant. More to the point, they're getting restless as prey becomes increasingly hard to catch and overcrowding raises tensions. These are problems our people have never had before, at a time when being discovered is more dangerous than ever."
"Yet it must continue," Ran said softly, gazing out at the deck toward his undead brethren as he clutched his more talkative concubine close.
"Master, this is ridiculous," Kimiko said wearily. "Our numbers grow too rapidly. In addition to the limitations of our food supply, most of the midians we have turning new vampires are less than a year dead," she pressed, using the common term for noting a vampire's age after conversion. "They hardly have the will and experience to control ghouls, much less other vampires. We grow increasingly dependent on the newly turned being enslaved to the minds of those that turned them at the same time that those minds are weaker than ever. Putting aside the severe cases of outright defection, fights are becoming all too commonplace."
"It's the natural order of things," the vampiress from before said, and Kimiko mentally resolved to get her name for later; the tramp was obviously a junior midian if Kimiko had never really noticed her before, and needed to learn that slaves and concubines had no place in a discussion between elders. "Any expanding species or civilization experiences a few 'growing pains,' and the weak among us must be culled so that the strong prosper. Only THEN can we succeed and take our rightful place as the superior species."
Kimiko's face twisted into a snarl. "Are you really so stupid?" She snapped, eager to silence the upstart. "We're nosferatu, not humans! We're not conquerors, we're not kings, and above all, we're NOT natural!" She sucked in some air through her teeth, her fangs having enlarged due to her irritation. "We're parasites. We cling to the underbelly of civilization and feed on humanity as best we can, knowing we'll be wiped out if we're ever found. And for millennia, we've managed to do so. And you, in your childish ignorance, would have us all tracked down and burned!"
The vampiress bristled, though her response lacked significant heat; Kimiko didn't know her, but everyone close to Ran knew who Kimiko was and where she ranked on the power stepladder. "You can't be serious! Vampires are NOT just parasites! We're a noble, powerful species!"
"That would depend on your definition of 'noble'," the platinum-tressed vampire mumbled, "and likely your definition of 'species' as well."
"Enough of this," Ran said suddenly, having been silent as his underlings squabbled. "Kimiko, you may be right... but it doesn't matter."
Gently pushing aside the vampiress who was arguing with his lieutenant, the vampire lord regarded Kimiko with a firm, yet somewhat regretful expression.
"I'm tired of it, Kimiko. Sick and tired of the hiding. The secrecy. Constantly walking on eggshells and living in fear of discovery." He scowled, his fangs lengthening. "I want to put a stop to it. Make it so that the strong need no longer fear the weak, and finally let the humans know their place, once and for all."
His mouth twisted into a grin as he said this, and Kimiko wasn't surprised to see the other vampires in the room grinning as well as Ran's two concubines looked up at him in adoration.
"Bolder words have been spoken by more powerful vampire lords," Kimiko said simply. "All are now piles of dust gathered around silver stakes."
"The prophet says-"
"To Hell with the prophet!" Kimiko snapped. "What is this creature, who orders about midians like common underlings, who tosses aside our safety as inconsequential in the face of some alleged revolution? Why does that... that MORTAL command such respect? What makes you think he can help you succeed where so many have failed, when all he's done so far is create confusion and turmoil?"
The vampiress from before glared at her. "Do not speak ill of the prophet. While you scurry around with your petty tasks and complain about minor inconveniences, the prophet works tirelessly to plan for our future and warn us of danger."
Kimiko stiffened. "Preventing the slow and systematic annihilation of our kind is a 'petty task'? The deaths of dozens of young vampires is a 'minor inconvenience'?" She glared coldly as the younger vampire wilted. "Perhaps Lord Ran would stand for the 'minor inconvenience' of having you gutted here and now; he has no shortage of women to sate his urges. I'm sure you wouldn't be missed."
"Kimiko, STOP," Ran demanded, his eyes suddenly flaring a bright crimson within his pupils.
The vampiress hadn't actually moved, so she merely closed her mouth and stared expressionlessly at her master, forcing herself not to flinch as her master's presence filled her head near to bursting with the psychic pulse that had accompanied the command.

Ran waited a moment to check the reactions of those around him. His more talkative concubine was currently clutching his leg, shivering as she pressed her face into his shoulder. His bodyguards, naturally, were all in their usual positions, all pretending as if they hadn't heard a thing; they wouldn't have moved to stop a vampire as high-ranking as Kimiko without a direct order, unless she was lunging for Ran himself. The activity out on the porch hadn't stopped, though many of his guests were peering into his lounge curiously. It wasn't every day that the local vampire lord had someone yelling at him, after all.
"Kimiko..." he finally said, relaxing once again as he held the woman in his arms up against his body. "Double security around our remaining little 'vampire factories'. Equip them with weapons should they need them."
"So in the interest of security, we're to make our strongholds MORE conspicuous?" She asked tiredly. Normally she wouldn't dare be this rebellious in tone, but the recent verbal scuffle had left her more frustrated than ever.
Ran ignored the comment. "Your other task is to hunt down and slaughter this 'DAPC'," he said angrily. "Teach them the consequences of their foolish resistance."
Kimiko was silent for a long moment. "Master... you understand that this is no simple task you ask of me..."
"I requested the slaughter of a group of human upstarts," Ran said, incensed that his servant dared to question his orders. "How is this complicated?"
"The DAPC is at least reasonably skilled at combating our kind; a direct confrontation may be unwise," she said uneasily.
Ran snorted. "I suppose I didn't make myself clear: You WILL find these filthy mortals, and you will MASSACRE them, Kimiko. I will accept no cowardice from my servants. Now get out of my sight!" His eyes flashed as he swept his arm to the side.
The platinum-tressed midian twitched, then whirled around, stalking out of the room in a tightly controlled fury.

Ran watched her go, and then sighed as he hugged both his current lovers against his body. "What a pitiful shell she's become. When I first came to Japan she was so lively... so wild..." He smirked. "Not to mention quite a handful in the sack. Such a shame to lose that passion."
"Forget about her, Master," the more talkative of his concubines said soothingly as she reached behind her back to untie her bikini top. "You don't need her. We're here for you now."
Ran's grin nearly split his face as the top was discarded behind him. "It's good to be the boss..."

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

"It really bites being the boss," Asuka mumbled before gulping down half a cup of coffee. "Ugh... remind me why you're bringing this to me?"
Ranma shrugged nervously. "Well, the Senshi are nice girls and all, and from what I keep hearing, I GUESS they're pretty powerful on their own... but they don't seem too bright."
Asuka looked up from the printout she was reading over. "No offense, but you're not exactly batting a hundred in that arena yourself."
"Exactly," Ranma said humbly, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's why I took this to you to look over. If it don't impress ME, then it can't be all that hot an idea." Years ago, Ranma would have been insulted at the idea of people coming up with a better combat plan than him, much less someone criticizing his basic intelligence, but serving under Asuka had drilled their comparative strengths and weaknesses firmly into his head; no one was better for judging the intricacies of a plan of attack.
"Right, right," Asuka mumbled. Then she looked up at him. "By the way... is one of those Senshi a girl named 'Ami Mizuno'?"
"I can't say. It's a secret," Ranma said firmly as he nodded his head judiciously.
Asuka sweatdropped and went back to the document. "I see. I thought maybe someone had made a mistake when filing the registration forms. Hmmm..." she felt pretty bad about having arrested and locked up her cousin, but she felt even worse that she found out about Ami's secret identity through a bureaucratic snafu, when the girl's own MOTHER probably had no idea what she was.
"Well, it's certainly a start, though I wouldn't throw anybody I liked into this strategy," the police captain murmured, taking another sip of coffee. "So, were you involved in writing this up?"
Ranma nervously tugged on his pigtail. "I... GUESS you could say that..."

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

Ami frowned as she stared at her computer screen and the document that was open and spread across the computer desktop.
"Mina-chan?"
Minako looked up from where she was putting away her purse, having just arrived back in the dorm with Ami just moments before. "Yeah?"
"Were you using my computer before we left?" The genius Senshi asked, scratching her head. "Specifically, did you type up a written outline of our attack plans and then print it out?"
Minako blinked. "Are you sure you didn't do it?"
"What?"
"Well, it wasn't me, and since we came back before the others, I really don't see how anyone else could have done it," Minako explained. "Unless they somehow turned invisible, hid behind our couch the whole three hours we were working it out, and then was dumb enough to type up everything on your computer here to take back with them instead of taking care of it somewhere else."
Ami frowned deeper, then shook her head. "You're right... I've got to stop drinking in the morning."

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"How often do you think they clean under the sofa cushions in college dorms?" Ranma asked suddenly, taking some change out of his jacket pocket and sorting it on the table.
"I haven't the slightest," Asuka said, not knowing where that question had come from. "Anyway, this plan looks all right, but it fails to address several important defensive factors; though the target is an office building, they seem to assume the worst they'll face would be guards and possibly automated turrets. A primary Freedom's Angel stronghold is likely to have much more than that on stand-by, especially if they're planning on wiping out the main laboratory underground."
She chewed her lip for a moment, then took out a pen and started jotting down notes on the document.
"It's good that they take both primary power and back-up generators into account, but they can't rely on the back-ups being where the building specs say they are, since the structure was heavily modified in secret. Also, the reactors are likely to be far more powerful and harder to destroy than they guess; the FA labs definitely use more power than they take from the city, since such a massive power drain would seem suspicious coming from a chemical lab."
Asuka drew more notes on the documents, and then turned to her computer, bringing up the building blueprints in question.
"Now, I can't say for certain, but if I were going to place the generators with the expectation that someone might try to charge in and blow them up, I'd locate them HERE," she said, tapping a point on the computer screen. Then she flipped over the document and started sketching the sub-level blueprints on it.
"What makes you say that?" Ranma asked, scratching his head.
"Well, for one, it's the farthest area from the access elevators they could possibly dig up without scraping the sewers and subways. Meaning that anyone trying to get through them would have to deal with nearly every single security measure before they could destroy the power source for those security measures."
She finished sketching in the proposed room, and then tapped the pen against her lips as she considered it. "As for the specific security... it's hard to say. But in the style of classic evil laboratories, I expect that anytime they find long rows of mutants trapped in glass tubes or containment fields, they'll mysteriously get free just as the infiltrators start to think that the room is safe."
Ranma frowned. "Hmmm... that DOES happen a lot, huh?"
"They'll probably have completed mutants on standby, either for security purposes or awaiting transport. I doubt there will be any zombies or creeps, as the T-virus is too much of a security threat to be used as a security measure." She rubbed her chin. "Also, if Tokima is there, you can be sure she's got more in the way of bodyguards than that little brunette twerp and a few grunts packing heat. Probably cyborgs, androids, or even full boomers. They're going to need more than one person to take her down."
Asuka looked up. "Other than that, I guess it's pretty solid... besides the fact that a counter-attack could strike the facility at any time. Not only will they have to overcome much tougher resistance than they're probably expecting, but enemy units could pour into the building from the outside at any time. Adding another layer of difficulty is the fact that annihilating the entire building or simply wiping out everyone inside is impossible if they want to minimize innocent casualties; not everyone who works for Wraith Labs is a terrorist."
"Wow. This is hard," Ranma mumbled, scratching his head. "Would you have planned it completely differently if it was you?"
"I wouldn't have bothered with Wraith Labs headquarters in the first place," Asuka said dismissively. "At least, not without a back-up force and a few federal warrants. But that's why we're the fuzz and they're the superheroes." She shrugged.

Before further serious discussion could continue, Tiro walked past Asuka's office toward the parking lot, pulling on his jacket as he went.
Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Yamazaki, where do you think you're going?"
Tiro stopped dead, blinking. "I was just going to hit a coffee shop with Kyle. Maybe get some donuts."
"Well, you'll have to wait a bit. Snake and Chikiko will be back from that mass murder thing down at the church in a few minutes. Then you can go."
Tiro's brow furrowed. "... Do you mean to say Snake was investigating mass murder, or causing it?"
"Get out of my office," Asuka deadpanned.
"What? It's a fair question!"
"And that was a fair demand," the police captain countered. "Now scram!"

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

"Man, I just can't score any points with that woman," Tiro mumbled as he stepped outside, the late dusk air cool against his face. "You'd think I could at least question Snake's mental state without her getting mad at me. Yeesh."
He looked over at Kyle, who was leaning against the trunk of a squad car and waving to him. "Sorry Commander, we gotta wait!"
"Huh? Why?"
"Snake's got some case going on right now, and the captain wants him back before we go out. She's getting a little paranoid, I think," Tiro mumbled. "Just 'cause we have a few bloodsuckers roaming around gutting street beggars doesn't mean the damn things are crawling around in alleys waiting to jump out and kill us."

Having heard the lecher's statement, a dark haired man with thick, pointed fangs grinned as he clung to the wall of DAPC headquarters, his presence hidden from human eyes from a stripe of shadow cast from the adjacent building.
Nudging his head to signal his partner, the midian licked his lips in anticipation.
And then he lunged, pushing off of the wall and falling right behind the foolish police officer, his hand raking through the air to bisect his prey from shoulder to hip.
It didn't QUITE work out that way.
Somehow, against all odds, the brown-haired man yelped and dove out of the way, leaving the unseen attacker cutting nothing but air.
"Tiro!" Kyle yelled in surprise, watching his subordinate officer scramble away from the confused vampire on hands and knees. "Hey! You can't-GLK!"
Kyle had his own strong points, but near-prescient danger awareness was not among them. Before he could do more than twitch toward the midian who was attacking Tiro, he was grabbed from behind, and a pair of needle-like fangs drilled into his neck.
"Holy crap!" Tiro spat as he stumbled to his feet, the first vampire snarling and stalking toward him. "K-Kyle!"
"Don't yell so loud; it's annoying," the first vampire snapped, preparing for a second dash. "Your friends will all be dead soon. There's nothing you can d-" WHUMP! WHAM! The vampire let out a strangled cry as his partner suddenly smashed into his side, knocking them both hard into a wall.
Kyle frowned as he rubbed his wounded neck, then grimaced when he brought his blood-streaked hand away. "Ewww... that's just gross, man. What if I get infected or something?"
Tiro breathed a sigh of relief that Kyle seemed to be okay, since he was the greater threat of the two of them and the vampires would probably attack him instead. "Commander! Vampires!"
Kyle rolled his eyes. "I know I'm supposed to be the dumb one and everything, but even I'VE figured that out by now, Tiro."
"What the HELL?" the second midian, his lips still painted with blood from his attack, swayed slightly as he pushed away from his partner. "What are you?"
"A police officer!" Kyle said immediately.
"I think he's referring to how you're still standing with a couple of holes punched in your jugular," Tiro explained as he positioned himself behind the blond man.
"Oh, THAT," Kyle said, sighing. "I'm afraid it's kind of a long story, and since I'm on the clock and all, I should really be killing you guys, not chatting, you know?"
The second vampire charged, not nearly as interested in Kyle's origins as he might have guessed. "DIE, HUMAN FIL-" POW! The vampire went spiraling through the air, his face smashed in, as Kyle met his high-speed charge with a perfectly-timed haymaker.
Touching the ground, he skidded along the cement until he smashed into the HQ building's dumpster, denting the side of the steel box, and crushing the rest of his skull completely enough that his body started to disintegrate into dust and blood, completely spent.
The remaining vampire gaped at the sight of a vampire being clobbered like that, and then stuck two fingers between his teeth before letting out a shrill whistle.
Immediately two more men jumped down from the adjacent building, both of them landing on the squad car and caving in the top as the vehicle shook from the impact.
Kyle's eyes widened. "HEY! I just had the dents buffed out of that thing! You stupid dead jerks!"
The two newcomers weren't as talkative as the first two, and one responded by snapping a kick toward Kyle's head. He grunted at the impact, but his genetically enhanced skeleton held firm, and the blond man grabbed the offending leg before hurling the vampire haphazardly across the lot.
The second newcomer immediately grabbed onto Kyle's back and bit into his neck opposite the first wound, which was already sealing itself. Before the officer could respond, the first vampire who had summoned the others rushed up and slugged him hard in the stomach, putting all his vampiric speed and strength in addition to his weight into the attack.
Kyle grunted again. "Dammit... knock it off!" He suddenly jerked his head forward, slamming his forehead into the punching vampire's and painfully dislodging the fangs drinking from his neck. Then he dashed backward, slamming into the headquarters wall with enough force to crack the cement, to say nothing of the ribcage of the undead on his back.

The first vampire shook his head as his vision swam about him, suddenly feeling sluggish. Vampires were highly resistant to pain and didn't need most organs to function, but his brain, which currently had a few chunks of his skull lodged in its frontal lobe, still functioned just like it did in life, and suffered the normal drawbacks when it was damaged.
Still, the midian struggled to its feet, managing to stand up and fix its vision on the genetically enhanced cop that was currently wiping the floor with them despite its brain being partly destroyed.
BLAM!!
Once it was completely destroyed by a shotgun blast to the cheek it was a different story, and Tiro nervously turned toward the remaining vampires as his first target fell to the ground and disintegrated.
"Not good. Sooooo not good. This is NOT my area of expertise!"
CRASH! He winced as a vampire was sent flying through the windshield of the squad car next to him, striking with enough force to punch through the bullet-proof glass, at the expense of much of the midian's skeletal integrity.
"Aw, man... I wonder if any of these freaks made it into HQ," he mumbled, aiming the shotgun at the vampire sprawled painfully over the driver's seat of the car.

Kyle blinked as he watched his vehicle shake from the vampire's impact, and felt like tearing his hair out. "Damn it! I wasn't aiming for the car! That's more money out of my budget!"
In response, the last vampire raked his shoulder from behind, tearing through his jacket and drawing a light spray of blood as its sharpened and hardened nails fought against Kyle's genetically toughened skin.
In response, Kyle growled and reached over his shoulder to grasp the undead's face, then yanked it over his head before slamming it hard into the ground. Then he lifted up his boot and stomped HARD on the midian's head, crushing the creature's skull into a two-inch depression in the concrete surrounded by cracks and ruptures.

BLAM!! Tiro unloaded his last shotgun shell into the vampire in the car, as the angle prevented him from getting a bead on the blasted thing's head without getting much closer than he wanted.
Glancing over to Kyle, he groaned when he saw that the genetically enhanced officer had been chewed up pretty badly (and literally); both sides of his neck sported rapidly clotting bite wounds, and he had long claw marks over one shoulder, his chest, and all over one arm.
"Hey, are you alright?" Tiro asked, reloading his shotgun as he made sure that the vampire in the car was turning to dust like the others.
"Yeah, I'm okay," Kyle grumbled, massaging his aching neck. "But the car isn't! A bunch of dents, a shattered windshield, blood ALL OVER the carpets, and you totally tore up the seats and dashboard with shotgun fire!"
"Putting aside the minor property damage - kind of unusual that it was OUR property for once - I think it's kind of important to consider that those vampires were out here specifically to kill us," Tiro deadpanned.
Kyle looked confused, which didn't surprise the shorter man. "Uh... well, what ELSE would they do?"
"As usual, you don't understand," Tiro said, a touch of nervousness in his voice. "I seriously doubt they were out looking for a good meal and just decided that two cops to split between the four of them was the perfect opportunity. I think they were out to kill US specifically. As in the DAPC."
"Oh." Kyle considered this. "So what? We hunt them down and kill them, right? It's not like we can get mad about it."
"That's not the point, musclehead," Tiro muttered, scrubbing his head with his hand. "I'm worried about the others..."
As in response to his concern, a DAPC squad car turned the corner, its headlights shining in the officers' eyes as it rolled up to them slowly.
Tiro squinted his eyes as he held his hand up to try and shield them from the glare. "Is that Snake and Junko?"
Kyle raised an eyebrow as he started to wipe off his hands. "Who else would it be?"
"I'd rather not know the answer to that..." Tiro trailed off as the vehicle stopped about a meter in front of them, and the door slowly opened.
"Snake? That you?" Tiro asked, his voice coming out with a nervous waver that he definitely didn't like as he crept closer to the door so that he could peek past it.
"Bleaar..." With an inhuman growl, a withered, blood-soaked head sporting several deep gashes bobbed up over the top of the door, its white, clouded eyes goggling at Tiro listlessly.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Snake's howling laughter soon overcame Tiro's scream of terror as the terminated ghoul tumbled onto the ground, a railroad spike impaled through its chest (which had been hidden earlier by the door). "Oh man! That was awesome! you should have seen your face!" The American barely managed to spit out as he stepped out of the car, though he had to hold onto the door to keep from falling to the ground laughing.
Tiro's ashen face regained its color with surprising speed. "What the hell?! You jerk!"
Junko sighed as she got out of the other side of the vehicle, a clothespin pinching her nose shut. "Was it really worth keeping that filthy thing in the car this whole time with the windows rolled up just for that stupid joke?"
"Of course it was!" Snake said gleefully, kicking the corpse aside. "Considering this is your assigned car, anyway. You're gonna want to get it washed. That stench is gonna stick to the seats for weeks."
As the redhead glared at Snake, Kyle discarded the whole incident that had just occurred to address the more pressing issue. "Hey, Snake! We've got trouble. Some of the vampires are-"
"Hunting us down, yeah. We noticed," Snake said, pulling out his Pancor Jackhammer and glancing around at the damage and various piles of dust. "Specifically, we noticed about ten minutes before they set a trap for us behind the church, trying to use scarface here as a distraction. When nobody responded, they poked their heads in to search for us, and MAYBE saw the proxy mines just before they were blown up and buried."
"You destroyed the church?" Tiro deadpanned.
"It's cool; I'm Jewish," Snake explained.
"Shut up, both of you!" Junko suddenly snapped. "I hear gunfire!"
Snake frowned. "Well, yeah, but it's just..." he trailed off and gazed toward headquarters. "Uh-oh."

BOOM!! The four officers flinched back as several windows on the second floor exploded outward, flames and glass pouring out over the parking lot. They promptly took cover as the latter of those two substances fell to the constraints of gravity, and quickly dashed toward the back entrance under the rain of sharp fragments.
Tiro reached the door first, and his hand grabbed and twisted the knob, his face paling as the door barely budged open. "They barricaded it or something! It won't open! What the heck? How'd they get in so fast?!"
"I can open it!" Kyle said quickly, stepping forward before Junko grabbed his arm.
"OR, instead of tearing apart our own HQ, we can use the front entrance; the doors are much bigger and they couldn't barricade them so quickly," she explained.

Were any of them strategic geniuses, they might have considered that breaking through the barricade was the superior tactic anyway, as the vampires would most likely be prepared for a counter-attack front the front entrance.
However, the only one that even remotely qualified as a strategic genius was Snake, and he would have much rather fought vampires head-on than risk being the one assigned to fix the door.
The four officers dashed around the corner, only stopping for a moment to regard Usagi, who was looking around in confusion.
"Oh! Hey! Is everything all right? I came a little late for my tutoring, but then I heard an explosion and..." she trailed off as they simply dashed past her and up the front steps, slowing only slightly once they reached the double-doors leading into the main lobby.
"Tekai, you're on point. Chikiko, cover our rear, but make sure you shout something if you see the enemy instead of just firing; that glorified dart gun you call a pistol won't do anything to a vampire, especially with your aim," Snake barked out orders, yet again heedless both of the proper chain of command and Junko's self-esteem. Nobody complained.
Usagi blinked, and then started to get nervous. This looked fairly serious. "Uhm, is there anything I can do to help?"
They all glanced at the blonde briefly, considering.
Of course, out of all of them, Snake was the only one that had a good idea of Usagi's fighting abilities (as Junko couldn't recall enough of Akina's memories to judge), so he again took charge. "Can you fly?"
"Yes!" She said immediately, a yellow glow appearing around her head and sliding down her body, replacing her wool shirt and long skirt with the black bodysuit of her combat form.
Kerchunk! Twin boosters popped out of her shoulderblades, and started to glow as she prepared for takeoff.
Everyone except Snake was staring at Usagi with varying expressions on their faces. Kyle was confused, as usual, Junko was captivated by the bizarre bunny ear-like apparatus on Usagi's head, and Tiro was entranced by the form-hugging contours of Usagi's combat suit.
Actually, Snake was staring at her too, but he was clearly trying to decide if he was looking at a combat asset or a decoy. "Well, you did well enough against the vampires before... apparently they're attacking us head-on now. If you can, blast off into the fourth floor and check on the geeks up there. Then go down from there floor by floor until you meet up with either us, Captain Takami, and/or Saotome. Eliminate all opposition. Got it?"
Usagi nodded sharply, her expression turning determined. "Right! I'll do my best!"
WhrrrrrrrmmmmmmMMMM... her boosters continued to charge as she stood in place, arms stretched out in a "takeoff" pose.
Everyone sweatdropped as the jet boosters glowed brighter and brighter, and even started to shake, but Usagi stayed in place.
"Weird," the blonde cyborg mumbled as she brought her arms down. "Wait, how do the rockets work again? I guess I have to-" FWOOOOOOOSH!!
The police officers all ducked as Usagi burst into the air like a mortar shell, slamming into a fourth story window at an angle that had them all wincing before they suffered their second minor rain of glass and debris.

"Damn," Snake mumbled, "shoulda gotten her on decoy duty."
"Do you have any distant relatives we don't know about, Commander?" Tiro asked, for once forsaking lecherous commentary to take a jab at his superior's family history of ineptitude.
Kyle frowned. "I really think now's not the time to be talking about my family..."
"Yamazaki, grab a frag!" Snake shouted, moving up in front of Kyle as Tiro scooted up the other side. Then he took out a flashbang and pulled the pin as Kyle took hold of the door handle.
"NOW!!"

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Kimiko sighed wearily as she stared down at the carnage below. "This is pointless. Both assaults have failed to slay any of the targets, and already fifteen of our number are dead. Wait, no... six-no, seventeen." She winced as the psychic links she had attached to her subordinates faltered, indicating the vampires' deaths. Her count didn't even include the separate attack made on the officers investigating the church, which had already failed miserably.
The man standing next to her, a lanky fellow in a black leather jacket that hung off of his body, snarled and bared his fangs. "This is ridiculous! Why aren't we down there helping?!"
"Because those idiots volunteered for this duty, that's why," Kimiko snapped. "I cannot disobey Lord Ran's will. I can, however, do my best to accommodate his goals by culling the unfit from our ranks, and advancing the strongest among us to better serve in this conflict. In this case I'm doing both; if we were down there, we would simply annihilate all the humans ourselves, and they would all survive and learn only to sponge off of the efforts of their betters." She winced again. "Although the police are burning through our men much faster than I expected. There are only five left now."
Behind her, another vampire snorted and ran a hand through his slicked-back hair. "And here I thought you were the elder that actually cared about your own kind. Tough love, eh?"
She glared at him. "It was much easier to care when there were less of you idiots. And when they knew their place," she snapped. "But enough of this. Our men are almost completely wiped out; if we wait much longer, the success of the mission may be in jeopardy. Yamato, you attack those four that just entered the building. Shio, you meet with the men we have left on the attack; they're on the second floor, clustered together, and they don't know what to do anymore. Lead them in a charge against the officers holding out in the second floor." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I'll follow that strange blonde girl."
The vampire named Shio rolled his eyes behind his shades. "Oh, sure, you take the easy kill."
"That girl had ROCKET BOOSTERS in her back, you upstart. Regardless of her ability to control them, that alone should warn you not to judge her from appearance. Now GO!" She swept a hand out, and both vampires growled, leaping from the building.
The thin, leather-clad one bounced lightly off the hood of Kyle's damaged cruiser and onto the ground, and then stalked purposefully around the corner of the building, his jaw slowly grinding from side to side.
The midian with slicked hair and sunglasses slid down the wall of the building he was standing on, then jumped off of it toward the HQ, breaking through a window with ease.
Kimiko shook her head and levitated upward, floating over the gap between buildings.
"And so, hunted relentlessly and driven from our homes by the enemy, we instead throw ourselves into his hungry maw," she intoned wryly. "Immortality is so fleeting sometimes."

Without another word, she floated toward the outer wall, and then passed into it, phasing through the cement and steel as if it were air.

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"Uungh..." Usagi twitched from within the pile of rubble she was buried in, and then grit her teeth before pushing herself up. "That hurt... a lot..." a yellow glow appeared around her suit's collar, and then slowly crawled down her body, causing all the shards of glass to dislodge themselves from the rubbery material and all the cuts and tears to seal themselves.
+Trauma classification: Medium-level concussive damage incurred. Minor structural damage incurred. Total systems down: 3. Kinetic dampeners offline. Autorepair systems initiated.+
"Well, that doesn't sound TOO bad... I guess..." She mumbled as she got to her feet unsteadily. "Let's see now..."
She started looking around the hall, and winced as she saw several long streaks of blood on the walls, as well as a great deal of dust and discarded clothing. There were several small rents and tears in the floor, and a few gaping gouges in the walls that were clearly made with some sort of sharp blade. Which was rather impressive, considering that the walls on this level were all shielded with a half-inch layer of steel (which had made her forced entry all the more painful).
"Huh... I wonder who was fighting here?" Usagi wondered aloud. She was no expert in matters of combat, despite her extensive experience, but this didn't look right for a battle between vampires and armed police. Even SHE managed to notice the complete lack of shell casings on the ground, as well as anything that looked remotely like a bullet impact on bloodstained walls.
Grrrr... Srah! Skrak!
The cyborg frowned as she heard some snapping and scraping noises coming from the next room, and quickly walked over to the sounds.
She paused briefly as she heard some gunfire from below her, and chewed on her lip as she considered her orders. 'Snake said to check on "the geeks," whoever they are... and those noises do sound suspicious...' Gulping nervously, she crept toward the obviously damaged door, never noticing a pale, ageless face emerge from the surface of the wall behind her.

"H-Hello?" Usagi tried, gently pushing on the wobbly metal door to try and get a peek into the room.
Instead of it opening just enough for her to look inside without anyone inside being able to identify her, the door instead decided that it had suffered enough abuse for the day, and it snapped off its hinges at the cyborg's touch, collapsing inward. Usagi, in dedication to her chronic clumsiness, promptly fell into the room after the door.
"Ouch!" She hissed, pushing herself up and rubbing her nose where it had impacted the fallen barrier.
After a moment of comforting herself, she remembered that she was in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation, and looked up to see what was in the room.
Structurally, the room consisted of a wide open lobby, with several hospital gurneys parked next to one wall, and a long white curtain separating the room from the next one.
It would have seemed perfectly bland and sterile, if it weren't for the wild streaks of blood, torn clothes, piles of dust, and the fact that two of the gurneys had been ripped apart wildly and were now scattered around the room in pieces.
Plus there was the massive, armored beast in the middle of the room that was slowly turning around and glaring at her, blood-soaked claws twitching.
"Gyah! It's that... that... that THING!" Usagi yelped, scrambling to her feet. "Wait... okay... it's on our side. Isn't it?" She gulped as the alien growled at her. "Just what IS it, anyway?"
Blocky green text scrolled across her field of vision in answer. +Designation: Hunter. Classification: Light melee support beast class A. Species: Zerg, advanced zergling genus - "Devouring one". Armor: Bio-enhanced full-body carapace with protection equal to medium-grade tank armor. Weapons: Beak, claws, and talons containing large percentages of super-heavy alloys to allow the rending of armor significantly stronger than the creature's own. Top speed: 80-90 kilometers per hour, which can be maintained for nearly twelve hours without rest. Senses: Good eyesight and decent hearing, with no sense of smell and a poor sense of touch and taste. Possesses a sensitive psychic node that can pick up fear and anger among sentient beings. Other abilities: Capable of burrowing through nearly any material for a short ways, and can regenerate any non-fatal wounds. Extremely powerful metabolism that can digest any given substance known to man, regardless of its chemical makeup or even radioactivity.+
Usagi noted with great relief that the zergling hadn't charged her while she was taking the time to read all that, and was slowly circling around her toward the wall parallel the hallway, its fierce crimson eyes boring into her.
Gulp! "Uh... okay..." she slowly got down onto her knees and then beckoned toward the killer alien with her hand. "G-Good Hunter! Good boy! You're a good boy, aren't you? You don't want to hurt me!"
Hunter lowered his head and raised his rear-mounted claws, as if challenging Usagi's statement. "Shreeagh!"
"Eep! Wait! I'm on your side! I think!" Usagi waved frantically.
Hunter was unconvinced, and let out a final hiss before he batted aside the remains of a hospital gurney with his head and rushed forward toward the frozen cyborg.
"HUNTER!! Down, boy!"
The screech of tearing metal bombarded Usagi's ears as the zergling suddenly dug its heels in, its head and claws dipping just a few feet short of its intended lunge.
Seras sighed in relief as he pushed aside the blood-spattered curtain leading into the next room. "Hunter, back off! She's with us."
The alien snarled, but did as instructed, its tail whipping back and forth as it crept backward.
Usagi let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, her hand pressed against her chest. Strangely enough, her heart didn't seem to be beating any faster than usual, but by now she had learned to ignore little physical oddities like that. "Phew! You're okay! That's a relief! Snake-san sent me to check on you."
Seras shrugged as he pointed to Hunter. "Me and Yamma heard some ruckus, and caught sight of Hunter cutting up a few of the bloodsuckers." He idly kicked a pile of dust, scattering the dried undead remains across the floor. "They didn't seem to be able to hurt him easily, so we left things to him. Some of them managed to get past him into this room, but I guess they weren't expecting any sort of countermeasures." He smirked and held up a thin canister of his anti-vampire garlic spray. "They were still rolling around on the floor screaming when the big guy caught up with them."

Usagi nodded in understanding. "Well, if you're safe, then I guess I should help out downstairs..."
She trailed off, frowning. Something wasn't right here. It was way too convenient that the DAPC would easily mop up all the attackers in the short time that it took for help to arrive. She was usually an optimist, and gladly took any seemingly simple situation at face value, but something about this situation bothered her, and it wasn't just the huge, blood-stained killing machine hissing at her just a few meters away.
"Computer, scan for any more vampires," she said suddenly, and her sensor fins twitched.
+Scanning for additional bio-energy signatures... bio-energy anomaly detected! PROXIMITY WARNING!! DANGER!!+
Shrak! Blood, oil, and sparks sprayed from Usagi's back as a glowing green hand clawed at her from behind, the attack seeming to come out of a thin, barely visible mist that had been gathering around the doorway.
Seras gaped and stepped back as Usagi screamed and fell to the floor; he had mistaken the mist as some dust kicked up by the general havoc going on outside, but evidently it was something more sinister. He raised the spray canister in his hand.
Kimiko quickly materialized and snapped her fingers, causing the canister to fly free of Seras' hand and land in her own. "Hmph. 'Countermeasures,' you called this? You humans and your science..." She crushed the canister in her hand, ignoring the mild stinging sensation as the liquid burst out of the canister and spilled over her hand and arm.
Usagi blinked rapidly as the pain from her back began to subside, and stared up at the vampire that had attacked her.
She was oddly... plain, for a vampire; all the female midians Usagi had seen so far had looked like supermodels, with perfectly smooth, pale skin, ultra-slim bodies, and pert, firm breasts. This woman had a certain agelessness about her, like an older woman who simply lacked wrinkles or any of the other flaws of old skin, and she had long, shining platinum hair. Besides that though, she was decidedly... average.
What WAS more extravagant was her clothes, which consisted of a simple, yet elegant white strapless ballroom dress, with a long silk mantle that floated about her neck on a breeze that currently didn't exist. In a different situation, Usagi would have TOTALLY asked her where she shopped.
"SHREEAGH!!" Hunter took great exception to the increasing tension in the room, and lunged at the apparent cause of it.
In response, Kimiko's hand moved sharply in a backhand motion.
Thwack! Despite the fact that she was about two seconds too early to physically strike her attacker, Hunter suddenly went flying to the side as if he was simply swatted out of the way, and crashed sidelong into the row of gurneys on the side of the room.
Usagi winced from the noise, to say nothing of the actual attack. 'Uh-oh... this is definitely bad. Can I beat her?'
+Target identified: Vampire class A. Scans indicate that this unit's power is consistent with standard midian profile. Powers include shadow manipulation, personal transmutation, telekinesis, and enhanced regeneration. Odds of combat success, considering unit Cyber Moon's current weapon proficiency and system damage... 12%+
"You there," Kimiko said to Usagi, staring down at her imperiously. "I wish to speak with you. You might prove useful, or at least have some interesting information." She turned toward Seras. "I'm afraid you'll have to die, though. Orders are orders."
Seras, oddly enough, just smirked, despite being disarmed of his only effective vampire defense. "You'll have to get through our loyal mascot there, first."
Shnk! Skrakt! Hunter shredded a gurney that had fallen on top of him, and then smacked another impediment to the side with his head, growling fiercely.
"I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as well-versed in vampire physiology and abilities as I probably should be, even after partially dissecting one," Seras said casually, fishing a small stainless steel flask out of his pocket and taking a quick swig of the contents. "Gulp! But I've yet to see you freaks do anything that could hurt our little friend here."
Hunter hopped to the side and then leapt, only to freeze in mid-air when the vampiress raised her palm toward him.
"Do not trifle with me, monster!" Kimiko snapped, her hand suddenly covered in a green energy.
Pressing the fingers of that hand together, she stabbed it into the underside of Hunter's neck, piercing the outer carapace with a loud Crack!
Hunter obviously took exception to this, and lashed out at the midian's face with his claws rather than paying any attention to the wound.
"Gwah!" Kimiko cried out as metal-hard claws sliced through her cheek and skull with equal ease, and then she swept her hand to the side, sending Hunter once again flying into the wall. Wham!
Hissing as the cuts rapidly shrunk and the skin sealed after them, Kimiko glanced at her hand distastefully, and at the bit of dark red ichor that coated her fingertips. She had barely managed to break the zergling's armor, and the attack hadn't even fazed the beast.
'I may have to circumvent that creature... what an annoyance,' she thought, idly licking the blood off her fingers. Pthoo! She immediately spat it out, and then coughed at the horrible taste.
Ch-chunk!
Kimiko's head jerked to the side, and she frowned as she saw the strange blonde girl aiming some sort of weapon in her wrist. "Oh, please..."
Pshaw! Pshaw! Usagi let fly with a pair of plasma bolts, not entirely surprised when the projectiles bored through the vampiress like she was made of mist - which it was, at times - splashing against the far wall.
The holes in Kimiko's body swiftly expanded as her body turned completely into mist, and the transformed nosferatu swept toward Seras, ignoring Hunter as he dashed through the cloud swiping for something substantive to tear up.

Seras frowned as the cloud approached, the mist forming what appeared to be a skull at the head as it floated toward the scientist.
"Run! Quick!" Usagi shouted as she got to her feet again, desperately trying to think of a weapon that might work on such an insubstantial enemy.
Seras did no such thing, and took another quick swig of scotch before slamming his hand onto a button next to him.
Pshwoooooo! Immediately, jets of sanitizing agents blasted down from the ceiling, disorienting the midian as her gaseous form was suddenly mixed with foreign anti-bacterial agents.
VwoooooOOOOOOOSH! Then the sanitation mist, vampire mist, and a good deal of the vampire dust were all sucked up into the ceiling fan.
Usagi blinked as her hair fell back to the ground, the long ponytails having been lifted up into the air by the powerful suction. "Wow... that... that was... wow."
Seras sighed as he upended the flask in his hand, seeing but a single drop of his precious liquor clinging to the lip. "That won't stop her for long. You should go after her."
"Right!" Usagi said, her combat bracer appearing over her forearm. "Uh... but what about you?"
"I'm tired of this; I'm going to get more scotch," the drunk said, waving her off dismissively. "Just follow Hunter; he should be able to track the damn witch."
The zergling snarled fiercely at the mention of his name, and he lumbered forward through the curtain to the next room, eager to sink his claws into the slippery undead woman.
Swallowing nervously - though whether it was due to chasing a powerful vampire or following Hunter was anybody's guess - Usagi followed him through the bloodstained curtain.

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"Shit, shit, SHIT!! This is insane! We gotta get outta here! We can't stay! We're all gonna DIE!"
A large vampire with bulging muscles and a shaved head snarled as he glanced down the smoke-filled hallway. "Would sombody shut him UP?! We don't need this crap right now!" He glared down at the blubbering vampire, who was sobbing to himself and clutching his head like a madman.
"Give 'im a break, man! He just saw his girlfriend get blown to pieces!" A second vampire said, looking quite nervous himself.
"No, I won't give him a break! If you cowards don't shape up, we're ALL gonna be dust!" the first vampire shouted.
All around the beleaguered midians, dented and torn pieces of furniture had been moved into the hallway they were in to serve as makeshift barricades... as well as convenient cover for a few explosive traps.
Originally the barricades were used by the vampires' prey to aid their retreat. The vampires were confused and dismayed to find themselves using the cover just as often and not nearly as well.
"Are you SURE there's only two of them?" The shortest of the three remaining vampires asked. "How'd they respond so fast?"
"Dammit, I DON'T KNOW!!" the bald-headed vampire snarled as he kicked aside a piece of desk and then hopped back, waiting for any traps to go off. "That blue-haired chick managed to knife Jaan before she could bite her, and then the guy... and that gun..." he shuddered despite his stubborn courage to move on. Six booming gunshots. Six howling nosferatu collapsing into dust all over the floor. The man's cold, deadly gaze as he punched a third-dan black belt's lower jaw up into his brain case. The shrill sound of steel being drawn before that blinding silver flash...
'We screwed up. We screwed up big time.' They were puppies assaulting a lion's den, as ludicrous as the idea would have sounded during their briefing. 'Kimiko was absolutely right. We were arrogant to think it was going to be so easy...'
The other vampires followed the leader cautiously, the last one calming slightly from his nervous breakdown upon seeing the other midian's steely resolve.
"So what's the plan?" The short one asked anxiously. "Are we just going to keep pushing forward bit by bit and let them wear us down?"
"Hell, I dunno!" the first vampire snarled. "I'm not supposed to be the leader here! Can you think of a better plan?"
The others were silent as the bald-headed undead reached a T-intersection in the hallway and slowed to a halt. "Which way did they go?"

It was a thing of great interest whether becoming a vampire affected one's common sense and instinct for self-preservation through the deception that vampires were invincible, or because undeath physically tampered one's natural body and mental chemistry. The observation these theories were based on was that vampires were far more impulsive and prone to reckless acts than humans.
Most would argue that this is appropriate, as vampires are far less vulnerable than humans. However, ALL could agree that there are times, no matter how indestructible one thinks he is, that a little common sense really did help.
This was one of those times, as evidenced by the LACK of sense that the shortest vampire displayed in trotting up to the intersection and leaning over to look down the hall.
To the vampire's credit (sort of), he had guessed right in which direction to look first, and spotted the prey right away.
Blam! Before he could say anything to that effect, the back of his skull burst into bits of bone and gore, and he slowly slumped to the ground as his brain suffered catastrophic failure due to the hole recently drilled through its frontal lobe.

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

"Nice shot," Ranma mumbled as he watched the vampire slowly turn to dust. The effect was a lot less spectacular when the killing blow was made by a mundane weapon firing ordinary lead slugs, but it was just as lethal.
"Thanks," Asuka said quietly as she reigned back her weapon, allowing Ranma to get back to bandaging her left bicep. Her body armor laid on the floor at their feet, one of the shoulders ripped off and a shallow tear across the chest. "They know where we are now, and they'll probably be expecting us to fall back again."
Of course, they weren't falling back any further, as they had reached their destination; the only place in HQ that was both somewhat insecure and valuable to an enemy assaulting the building. It was the reason Asuka had retreated in the face of the "surprise" attack instead of pushing forward to find Kyle and Tiro.
Ranma nodded and glanced to his left, where the DAPC armory laid behind a reinforced steel door and three nigh-impregnable locks.
At least, they were nigh impregnable to humans. Ranma didn't think that the vampires would have any way of getting in without the proper keys and the passcode, but it was now his mission to make the issue moot. The vampires had attacked with nothing more than teeth and claws, and had suffered terrible losses for that insult. They would not be allowed to arm themselves if he could help it.
Ranma heard another cry of despair from the hall intersection and rolled his eyes. Not only were the vampires showing very little appreciation for tactics, but they were also being obnoxiously loud. One of them in particular had been blubbering frantically ever since the first bomb trap had gone off.
Asuka checked the tightness of her bandages, and then nudged her chin toward the discarded armor. "Could you help put that back on, please? I don't want to move too much."
Ranma nodded silently, and picked up the shattered armor, quickly sliding it down over his superior's head so that it didn't obstruct her vision for long. He started attaching straps a moment later. "Are you sure you don't want something bigger than the Eagle? Like a shotgun?"
"I don't think I could handle the kick of anything bigger with my arm like this," she answered calmly. "Besides, I want the armory door to remain locked until every one of those freaks is dead. How many of those silver bullets do you have left?"
"I emptied the first clip. I only have one more," Ranma explained. "I thought we might have to go on another raid tonight, so I had them on me ahead of time."
"Then get in position. Either they'll muster up the courage for another go, or they'll bug out soon."
"Gotcha." Ranma took a deep breath and kneeled lower behind the two filing cabinets piled sidelong in front of them, his Jackal in his right hand and a kodachi in his left.
Asuka glanced over at the man, and then looked out over the hallway. "You know... on second thought..."

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

WHAM! "Ghg!"
The vampire let out a strangled cry as his head was slammed hard into the wall, the hand pressed over his face slowly crushing his skull. He clawed frantically with his remaining hand at his assailant's face, only to have that arm seized fiercely around the forearm.
Crack! "Mhrm!"

Across the lobby, another midian coughed weakly and craned her head up to stare down the barrel of Snake's Pancor Jackhammer. "If... If you're gonna kill me... then kill me already..." She coughed again, spilling a little bit of blood. It would have been much more normally, but vampires typically didn't have much blood in their veins anyway, and she'd lost most of hers along with the lower half of her body.
Snake's lips curled into a smirk. "Don't be so fast to die... again. How many friends do you have, and where'd they go?"
The vampire stared back at him, gasping, and then stared up at the ceiling. "I... I don't know. I don't know how many are left. We thought we'd taken that pigtailed guy by surprise, but... I'd never seen anything like it..." A tear idly leaked from the corner of her eye as she whispered up at him. "So many of us gone... all in an instant... I couldn't tell what was going on... and Yoruichi... oh God, Yoruichi, why?"
Coughing, the midian seemed to snap out of her sudden fit of depression. "I said that we should run, so they left me here to guard the rear. Shoulda listened to me..." She spent a few more seconds convulsing, then locked eyes with Snake again. "They're coming, you know. The old ones. We're nothing compared to them."
Snake snorted. "You're not so hot compared to us, either."
"Hah... you simple little humans..." she choked for a moment, then gasped and continued. "There's nowhere to run. They'll find you and-" BLAM!!
Snake reigned in his weapon as a spent 12 gauge cartridge bounced on the tile floor. "And we'll thank them for saving us the trouble of hunting them down. With extreme prejudice." He turned around and noted that Kyle was still pinning the other vampire against the wall. "Finish him off; we've got to get a move on."
Kyle nodded sharply, and then suddenly yanked his enemy out of the wall, lifted him up, and then slammed him on the ground.
Tiro winced briefly at the vampire's cry of pain, but showed no further hesitation in aiming his own shotgun at the incapacitated foe. BLAM!! BLAM!!

"They've gone upstairs... why?" Snake asked, his brow creasing. "Maybe Saotome wasn't able to protect the captain? Or... Wait! The armory!" Although Snake's reasoning as far as their destination guessed that they had dashed for the weapons cache to arm themselves rather than preventing the enemy from doing the same, he had managed to correctly deduce the most likely destination for their missing peers. "All right, we're moving-"
"LOOK OUT!!" Junko suddenly screamed, diving to the side behind a desk rather than firing her sidearm as a veritable whirlwind of shadows careened through the front entrance of the HQ.
Yamato let the surrounding shadows dissipate as the redhead dodged, and then grinned as the three men all turned gun barrels toward him. "Howdy. I'm-"
BLAM!! BLAM!! Bang! Bang! BLAM!!
"You're... what? Dust? Gone? In agonizing pain, maybe?" Snake asked as his spent shells bounced onto the floor, the undead abomination staggering backwards.
Yamato stopped and lurched forward, glaring out of the one eye that remained after the barrage. Half his face had been blown clean off, along with one arm, and he had a few holes in his chest from Kyle's pistol as well.
"Stop that. It stings," he said in a hollow, tired voice.
"No," Snake replied. BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!
The last shotgun blast removed the midian's abdomen, and his legs and pelvis collapsed forward as the remains of his upper torso was reduced to bloody muck splattered all over the front door.

Junko winced. "Well... that was easy."
"It's not over yet," Tiro said nervously, his senses telling him that he was still way too close to death to be comfortable. "Right? It's not turning into dust! Why isn't it turning into dust?!"
Snake frowned as he watched the gore on the entrance and the intact lower torso seemingly dissolve into shadows on the ground that really shouldn't have been there. "Well, nuts. Chikiko, back off! This guy's got a few tricks up his sleeve!"
Junko gladly fled from behind the desk, running up behind Kyle, who stepped forward with his sidearm ready to fire.
Tiro gulped as the shadows originating from the upper and lower torsos met, and then slowly seemed to crawl along the floor toward them. "S-So if guns can't kill this thing, what are we gonna do?"
"Guns can kill it," Snake said reassuringly as he popped a few more shells into his shotgun. "Guns can kill anything. The trick is just finding a good spot to shoot at..." He glanced up at the ceiling lights, noting that only the outer fluorescent lamps were currently on; normally someone would turn on the rest of them as dusk passed, but obviously that hadn't been very important with the vampire attack going on.
Snake snorted contemptuously as the blob of darkness crawling along the floor began to pick up speed. 'The idiots that charged this place didn't even turn off the lights when they can all probably see much better in the dark than we can. Do they pick these losers up off the street or what?'
"Chikiko," the American said suddenly, snapping his fingers and pointing toward the lightswitch. When she glanced at it and looked back, he nudged his hand up in imitation of flipping a switch.
Junko quickly jumped for the lightswitch, hoping dearly that whatever Snake had in mind worked; otherwise she'd probably have to get smashed in the head to unleash Akina, and she was having more and more headaches recently due to the frequent concussions.
Click!
The shadow immediately halted as light flooded the room, and the edges of the pool of darkness began to writhe and waver, as if trying to escape the illumination. Then it seemed to solidify and started to swell off of the ground, as if it was no longer a shadow but rather a spill of some black fluid, like crude oil.
"FIRE!!" Snake screamed, unloading his own weapon into the murky shadow.
The fierce crackle of gunfire filled the lobby as the spot of darkness was ripped apart by hot metal, the blackness writhing as it tore and reformed around the bits of metal and tile that poured into it from above and burst into it from below.
"REAAAAAGH!!" With a feral howl, the shadow-stuff split apart into tiny blobs that rolled away from the police officers, hitting a wall and then slipping into a hole made by a stray gunshot.

"Okay..." Tiro began, feeling his sense of impending doom lessen considerably. "That went... well?"
"We definitely hurt it..." Junko mumbled.
Snake growled. "Not good enough. I don't want it hurt, I want it DEAD. Real dead, not 'my-heart-isn't-beating-but-I-think-I'll-go-for-a-stroll-anyway' dead!" He glanced up the stairs. "Bah... either he'll wimp out or he'll try and take us from behind. Chikiko, turn out those lights you just flipped on. Commander, you've got point, I'll handle the rear. Anybody got a flashbang left?"
Junko turned around after she did as instructed and held up the stun weapon.
"Give it here. Good. Now let's get a move on! Up the stairs!"
"Lieutenant, how can we possibly kill that guy for good? It's like some liquid shadow... thing! You can't kill that!" Tiro complained as he followed Junko up the stairs.
"How do you know?" Snake asked as he moved backward after Tiro. "Nothing is invincible, Yamazaki. Remember that. This guy's crazy shadow-melding powers have to have limitations of their own. Just keep that inexplicable danger sense of yours handy; when you start running, that's our cue to start shooting."
"Yeah, yeah..."

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"Please, come as fast as you can!" Usagi shouted into her forearm, idly wondering when her repair drones had stolen away and installed her communicator. "It's a real mess down here! We need help!"
Figures those DA morons would get into trouble like this. Rei mumbled over the line.
Rei, this is no time for your petty grudges! Usagi-chan needs our help! Ami admonished.
Yeah, yeah...
Hey, look at it this way; after we save their asses, we can make them apologize for locking us up! Makoto said brightly.
Is Snake there? Ooh, this is going to be so cool! I'll bet he kills most of the vampires himself!
"Just get here as fast as you can, okay? I have to go!" The communicator switched off with a mental command, and then flipped over back onto the cyborg's arm before the cut-away section of her combat suit sealed itself around that portion of her arm.
"It'll take them a little while to get here," Usagi mumbled as she turned a corner.
Bump. "GWAH!" Usagi shouted as her ankle caught on Hunter's tail, and she fell over flat right next to zergling, which immediately turned and snapped his jaws at her.
"Meep! Sorry!" Usagi said desperately, trying to scramble as far away as she could from the killer alien without heading back where she came from.
Hunter's growl trailed off as he turned his head and looked up at the ventilation shaft that molded into the wall. He had been leading Usagi through a maintenance closet and down past a number of power regulators that were linked directly to the laboratory, and it seemed that the room ended while the ventilation system continued.
"So she went in there?" Usagi asked as she pushed herself to her feet.
Hunter growled in response, which didn't help her much, although it reminded her to keep a good couple of feet away for safety.
Usagi focused her eyes for a moment, not disoriented at all when her vision suddenly went black before her X-ray scope activated.
"Ah! There she is! And there's someone in there with her!" In an act of uncharacteristic foresight, she deactivated her X-ray scope to avoid running into walls later. "Come on! We have to find a way around!"
Hunter apparently disagreed, as he growled deeply in the back of his throat, and then lunged forward into the wall.

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Kimiko shook her head as she materialized slowly, having struggled greatly to find a way out of the ventilation shaft in mist form.
'Son of jackal! Damn! It's hard to concentrate when you're body's being jumbled around like that!'
She shook her head, trying to relieve herself of the dizziness that accompanied her escape. It was hard enough trying to keep a sense of location and seek escape when one was being swirled around like a cyclone, but it was also difficult to re-materialize when her mist form was so thoroughly contaminated by foreign particles.
"Crap! I think some of it got in my mouth! Blech!" She was sorely tempted to float right back to that man and drain his blood slowly for this complete humiliation, but honestly she was far more concerned now that she had gotten a firsthand taste of the DAPC's legendary resourcefulness.
'I should find the other midians first, killing those between us. Then we can all hunt-oh! Somebody's nearby!'
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Came a male voice from around one of the large curtains.
Kimiko didn't know where she was now, but it was a rather dark, gloomy room with many bloodstains on the floor. All around the room were metal tables, each of which had a long, white plastic curtain surrounding it.
She stepped around one of the curtains, intent on facing the newcomer head-on.
Once she saw the man, she raised an eyebrow. It was a tall, lanky man with skin too dark to be Japanese and a gore-spattered lab coat. Another scientist. Fabulous.
"What? Who are... wait! You're a vampire, aren't you?" Yamma said fearfully, stumbling back and then turning to a console on the wall.
Kimiko jerked to a stop as she saw him pull a switch and then slam his hand onto a button. 'Oh no, now what?' She braced herself best she could, expecting a sudden burst of light or perhaps a heat vent to open up over her.
Instead, there was a grinding noise as the two autopsy tables on either side of her tilted to one side, followed by the sound of something clicking open.
Kimiko blinked as two blood-strewn corpses stumbled out from behind the curtains, groping for her clumsily as they moaned weakly.
She raised an eyebrow. "Hmph. Creative. Not too bright, but creative." She calmly reached out and grasped each of the approaching undead by the forehead, briefly channeling a burst of psychic energy. "Did you really think you could turn ghouls against a vampire, even if I didn't create them myself?"
Yamma scratched his head. "Ah, well... those aren't ghouls, you see, so the question is moot."
"What?" Kimiko asked in confusion.
Crunch! Chomp!
The vampire's eye twitched in irritation as the zombies grasped onto her arms and started biting her, one biting into her bicep, while the other dugs its teeth into her shoulder.
"They're zombies, you see. Not magical or anything; they're actually created using a very dangerous retrovirus." He shrugged. "I don't imagine you could control them."
"I see," Kimiko deadpanned. Then she blasted one of the zombies away with a burst of telekinetic energy, slamming it against the wall and snapping its spine. The second one she shoved away, and then lashed out with a knife-hand strike to its chest, stabbing straight through the monster's heart and tearing out the other side.
"Dispatching these things is quite unpleasant," Kimiko spat as she slowly withdrew her arm. "You'll pay for-Gyah!" As unseemly as it is for a lesser undead to shout in surprise due to a mere zombie, the vampiress lost all sense of decorum as the zombie on her arm apparently ignored the destruction of its heart and slid forward to make a lunge for her face.
"Ack! Stop that, you filthy mongrel! Get OFF of me!" Her eyes glowed a brilliant red for a moment, and the zombie froze, its head suddenly trembling as if it was suddenly being subjected to great pressure.
Blorsh! Kimiko squeezed her eyes shut as the zombie's head imploded, gushing brains, blood, and bits of skin all over her face and chest.
"........." She was silent for several seconds, then raised her hand up and slowly wiped it over her face. "Huh. I've never realized before just how disgusting these sorts of things really are." Grimacing, she concentrated briefly, and the gore spontaneously burst off her body as if from a jet of water.
Sighing, she glanced back toward Yamma, and was about to speak when she felt something bite into her leg.
"What the-HEY!" She growled as she saw the other zombie that had accosted her, which had apparently crawled back to her since its legs had been rendered useless. "Damnation! Why can't I sense you monsters if you're not true undead?!"
Clunk! Clunk! Ka-Clunk!
Her head whirled around again, and her eyebrow twitched as she saw the entrance to the elevator slam shut, no doubt with the foreign fellow inside... and three more tables tilting downward, releasing more moaning, staggering corpses.
"I think I'm beginning to greater appreciate the humans' loathing of the undead," she mumbled to herself as the zombie below her chewed away on her calf. It was useless, of course; given her rate of regeneration, she couldn't be seriously hurt by much besides blessed silver. But the zombies were still a disgusting annoyance, and a minor impediment, which was probably just what the fellow in the lab coat had intended.
'The hell with this; why am I putting up with these filthy drones?' She thought as her body started to dissociate into its mist form.
Wham! Wham!
Kimiko whipped around, choosing to ignore the zombies in favor of whatever threat seemed to be shattering a wall behind her.
Wham! WHAM! CRASH! "SHREEAAAGH!!" Hunter tore through the breach between rooms, heedlessly slicing through a water pipe and releasing a jet of cold water on himself as he landed on the blood-strewn floor of the autopsy lab.
"Ugh... not YOU again," the vampiress spat as she kicked her leg to the side, flinging the zombie on her leg away (though she lost a good chunk of her calf with it).
"Bleagh! Where'd all the water come from?" Usagi shouted as she pushed herself into the room. Naturally, she misjudged the width of the wall with all the water spraying out and obscuring her view, and her foot caught the edge, tripping her up and sending her tumbling right into Hunter.
The zergling's claws twitched, and he turned to glare at the ponytailed cyborg silently, as if trying to communicate his desire to kill her against his orders.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Usagi said quickly, scooting away from the alien and getting to her feet.
Kimiko groaned. "Not more of you idiots... what is this place, some kind of circus sho-"
Chomp! Chomp! Crunch!
Usagi blinked as she watched three zombies latch onto the vampiress and start chewing on her arms and shoulder. "Huh? Why are those things eating her? I thought the zombie things and the vampires were supposed to be on the same side..."
The nosferatu, for her part, was doing an excellent job of pretending that she didn't notice the three rotting corpses gnawing on her. "I think... yes. I've decided that I will no longer have ghouls feed on my victims in the future. Repulsive creatures, really. It's the least courtesy I could give to a human in its final moments."
Usagi blinked some more. "Ghouls feed the what now?"
"Never mind. I'll take my leave of you," she said curtly, fading away as her body slowly became incorporeal.
Hunter snarled and crouched low to the ground as the zombies all stumbled forward into a pile on the floor.
"Oh, no you don't!" Usagi shouted, suddenly raising up her arm.
Vvrt! A tube rolled out of her forearm, and then extended out in front of her.
"You turn into mist and you get the vacuum treatment again, you hear me?"
Kimiko, whose body was still corporal enough to maintain her normal appearance even if she was insubstantial, raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that the same arm you fired those odd green projectiles with?"
"Oh, you SO asked for it!" The blonde growled. Click! VwooooOOOOOOSH!
Kimiko blinked in shock as she felt a stream of suction disrupt the limited amount of control she was putting forth to maintain her shape, and then quickly solidified, shouting in surprise as the waiting zombies immediately started grappling her again.
"What the hell? What are you?" Crunch! She winced as one of the undead bit deep into the back of her neck and started gnawing on her spine.
"Gah! ENOUGH!!" She suddenly stretched her arms out to either side, and the two zombies on her arms went flying into the air, smacking against the far walls. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated briefly.
Splort! Both corpses suddenly came apart in a messy pile of limbs, blood, and organs, as if they had been instantly chopped into pieces.
"And now..." twisting around briefly, she grabbed the last zombie by its head and wrenched its jaws free from her precious spinal column, lifting it in the air as her back instantly sealed up over the damage.
Fwoosh! The undead was suddenly consumed in blue flames, and Usagi's eyes widened as skin and muscle seemed to burn away into ash, leaving bones slowly dropping to the ground, one by one.
"Feh." She tossed the skull haphazardly to the side as it stopped snapping at her, and then turned back toward her pursuers, having quite a few questions for the blonde girl.
Whump! Instead, Hunter knocked her to the floor as he finally pounced, reaching down with talon and beak.
"Ugh!" Usagi staggered back at the grisly sight as she saw the bloody slaughter that had been the end of every other vampire that had assaulted this level; claws tearing mercilessly, pounding back and forth like a jackhammer. Talons digging deep past muscle and bone, searching for soft, vulnerable organs. And the beak... well, it went straight for the head.
"S-S-So much b-blood," she gasped, thankful that her new body apparently wasn't as quick to evacuate her stomach as her old one.

"SSSSHRRAAAA-"
"Silence." BWAM!
Usagi gasped as a blast of energy burst upward from the vampire's body like a cannon shot, bowling the zergling over and slamming him into one of the autopsy tables.
She gulped as the vampiress slowly stood up with some difficulty. And it was no wonder; her body was in tatters, with her entire torso ripped open from throat to pelvis, and everything in-between shredded into gory pulp.
"Y-You can get up... after all THAT?" Usagi squeaked.
A single eye swiftly reformed among a caved-in face to stare at her as the surrounding bone fragments swiftly started shifting back into place.
"Yes... Yes, I can," she mumbled as her neck sealed shut, allowing enough restriction of her air passage for her to talk. "THIS is what a vampire is, girl. Immortal. Indestructible. You cannot conquer me. You can only run. Run and wait for the dawn."
"RAAAA-" Again, Kimiko drew her hand sharply to the side, and again, Hunter went flying as if hit with a wrecking ball, skidding and rolling across the floor toward the far wall. WHANG!
The silver-haired midian turned back toward Usagi, who was trembling slightly. "You see now, don't you? My kind is invincible. You're nothing to us. Merely cattle, awaiting slaughter."
She stepped forward, and Usagi stepped back, pressing her back up against the wall. Across the room, Hunter looked dazed, and one of his back-mounted arms had snapped off and was spilling thick, dark red blood on the floor.
"You're all alone now, little girl," Kimiko said, the last of her body regenerating into soft, flawless, pale skin. Her dress too regenerated, spilling over her bare flesh, and showing no signs of the earlier bloodbath. "If you weren't alone, it wouldn't matter anyway. You'd get to see your friends die, too."
Her eyes flared as they met with Usagi's, and the blonde cyborg felt her limbs go stiff.
"Run away, girl," the vampiress snarled. "Run away, and pray for the dawn. Pray for the dawn while it's still there to keep us at bay; before the darkness descends permanently." Her lips curled into a smirk as she stared Usagi right in the face, their noses almost touching. "Run away, and live in fear. Fear will keep you alive. In the face of a menace that can't be destroyed, survival is all you have, isn't it?"
She kept smirking as she leaned back again, pointed canines poking out from below her lip. "The DAPC have made enemies of our kind. You... we could care less about. Why die uselessly saving a bunch of misfits and morons? Even among humans, these men and women are despised. Go home and pursue your own fate. Your efforts are useless."
Usagi continued staring at the vampiress fearfully, her breathing even despite the adrenaline surge that was pounding into her brain.
'Fighting... useless. Survival... matters. Got to get away. Got to RUN! I have to-'
And then her eyes shrank as she felt a tingling sensation run down her back. A neural purge.

Thwack! Kimiko was only moderately surprised when the blonde suddenly punched her hard in the cheek, caving in that portion of her skull and spinning her around briefly.
She staggered briefly from the sheer force of the punch, and then lolled her head back to stare at the girl as her cheek swelled back into place again.
"You're lying," Usagi said simply, glaring at the woman through narrowed eyes.
"I'm what?"
"You're lying!" She accused louder, standing up straight. "It's not useless, and you're not invincible!" She clenched her teeth. "I've SEEN invincible, and it falls down like anything else when you hit it hard enough! You're not killing anyone!" She drew her arms up over her chest, scowling. "I'm Cyber Moon, and you're finished!"
"'Cyber Moon'? What kind of a name is-"
Chak! Chak!
Kimiko's eyes widened as two narrow racks stacked with mini-missiles popped up out of Cyber Moon's shoulders. "What the blazes?!"
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! The missiles started firing at high speed as the racks retracted back into the cyborg's shoulders, the projectile at the bottom launching right before the next was dropped into position to take off.
Kimiko leapt back and swiped at the incoming ordnance, wincing as the wave of telekinetic power detonated all of them at a distance that couldn't be considered even remotely safe.
Woosh! Woosh! She was off-balance enough that she missed her chance to destroy the next series of missiles, all of which blasted through the dust and flames of the first wave and curled around as they homed in on their target.
Bwoom! Bwoom! BLAM! Boom! The vampiress let out a shriek as her body was torn apart and incinerated, and her eyes took on an unearthly red glow.
"DIE!! DIE, YOU METAL MONSTROSITY!!" She screamed. A moment later, a massive shockwave burst from her body, tearing the nearby tables and equipment apart and annihilating all the missiles en route.
Cyber Moon grunted as she was blasted back into the wall, and screamed briefly as she felt an unidentifiable force tear at her chest and abdomen, ripping partly through her armor.
After a moment, the energy dissipated, and she staggered forward, glaring across the room at the pair of crimson eyes that were quickly getting their body back.
+Damage report: Enemy unit has emitted a high-frequency telekinetic burst - direct hit. Trauma classification: Low-level concussive and slashing damage incurred. Minor external damage incurred. Total systems down: 2. Kinetic dampeners still offline. Autorepair systems inadequate.+
'Can the spider-thingies fix it?' She asked mentally, standing up straight again.
+Affirmative.+
'Then get busy,' she demanded as another apparatus folded out of her shoulderblade; it looked like the servo arm from before, but had a drum-shaped magazine with a large barrel near the top.
Kimiko snarled as her hair started to float in the air behind her from the waves of power gathering around her hands. Her mantle whipped about, as if grasping for prey, and her eyes glowed a brilliant bloody crimson. "I possess far more power than what I've bothered to use so far. You CAN'T beat me, little girl."
The vampiress was mildly disturbed when the cybernetic superheroine stared back at her fearlessly through eyes that glowed a fantastic blue in the laboratory's dim lighting. Tiny mechanical spiders scrambled over her scarred chest as they spat out showers of sparks, and another strange weapon loomed over the blonde's shoulder, rocking back and forth slightly on its servos as if in anticipation.
The cyborg smiled. "I'm not alone."
Before Kimiko could ask what she was talking about, an ear-splitting shriek reached her ears, and she remembered the attack beast across the room just before said attack beast slashed and severed her leg at the knee.
Screaming, she blasted the creature away once again with a bolt of blue fire, and in doing so missed a crucial window as Cyber Moon fired her weapon and blasted a big whopping anti-matter grenade at her.

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Tuxedo Kamen frowned deeply as he stared down at the shattered DAPC headquarters; several squad cars were wrecked, smoke was pouring out of broken windows, and the lights on some levels flickered erratically. The entire building looked a mess, and he had only the vague sense that Sailor Moon was in there somewhere, and in danger.
"Not good. Close-quarters fighting really isn't my forte..."
Leaping from one rooftop to the next, he scanned the windows, searching for any convenient targets that could be taken out from a safe distance.
"Tch! Nothing. Either they're avoiding the windows, or all the fighting's going on deeper inside."
A brief burst of gunfire, muted from having passed through several walls, indicated the latter.
"Damn! What should I do?"
Standing up, Tuxedo Kamen rubbed his chin as he considered his options.
His noble, heroic instincts taken from the emotional baggage of a past life encouraged him to charge into the building cane a-swingin' and fight off all enemies that dared to threaten his beloved Sailor Moon. Nearly every other instinct and rationalization indicated that if he went in there he'd be swiss cheese. He had no idea who the enemy was, how many there were, or what they were armed with. For that matter, he was just as likely to get blasted by the police officers themselves, either because they could mistake him for an enemy, or just from running into that psychotic Snake person.
"This doesn't look good..." he mumbled to himself. And the longer he waited for something to happen to change the situation, the longer Usagi had to fend for herself without his doubtlessly essential support.
Luckily, he didn't have to wait very long.

BWA-KOOOOOM!!!

'Computer, do you think the monster thing was okay? I didn't know the explosion would be THAT big! If you hadn't warned me to turn on my shield I would've been finished!'
+Life signs indicate that unit Hunter sustained non-lethal damage in the blast. It will survive. The destruction of enemy units takes full priority.+
Cyber Moon winced and idly wondered if there was some sort of personality tweak she could give the computer in her brain. It didn't sit well with her that the programming so easily justified hurting friendly fighters so long as she got a good shot in against her foe.
'She's STILL regenerating! What does it take to put this woman down for good?' As she complained to the cybernetic voice in her head that the enemy kept repairing itself, her own repair drones finished sealing her armor, and they skittered over her breasts and back into the deployment bays on her shoulders.
+Kinetic dampeners back online. Processing query... Vampire units are vulnerable to the element silver, items imbued with certain blessings stemming primarily from the Christian faith, and normally garlic. Earlier analysis would indicate that the target is sufficiently powerful to resist the effects of even concentrated garlic solutions.+
'Fine! So do I have a Christian Cannon or something?'
+Negative. Unit Cyber Moon is not equipped with anti-midian weaponry aside from the earlier acquired garlic solution countermeasure.+
'Which doesn't work, right?' She asked, sighing as she watched the vampiress finish healing completely and fling a barrage of blue fireballs at her.
+Affirmative. Running full scan on enemy target. Please wait...+
Cyber Moon twitched as she blasted out of the way of the fireballs, shooting toward her enemy. "I don't have time to wait! Oooh... Fine!" Fzash!
Kimiko grimaced as the cyborg girl activated some sort of energy blade out of her free hand as she zoomed toward her. 'Where the bloody hell is she keeping all those weapons? I don't know how much longer I can keep regenerating from near-complete destruction like this!'
Slashing in a wide upward arc as she got close, Cyber Moon was startled to see the wispy silk mantle suddenly whip around and block the strike, sizzling against the searing edge of the power blade.
Kimiko suddenly thrust her palm at her foe, but to both combatants' surprise, Cyber Moon only jolted briefly in the air from the attempt at telekinesis.
'Whoa, what was that?' Usagi thought as she slashed again, wrenching her blade away from the mantle and then rocketing backward to gain distance.
+The telekinetic pulse was absorbed by unit Cyber Moon's kinetic dampeners.+
'I can DO that?'
+Affirmative. Kinetic impacts without physical mass behind them are ineffective so long as the dampeners remain online.+
'So does that mean that she can't do that thing where she glares at me and I explode?'
+This unit is currently occupied conducting extensive scans of the enemy unit. Recommend that unit Cyber Moon cease redundant tactical queries until scanning is complete.+
Usagi had just finished figuring out what that meant when she realized there was a screaming ball of hellfire coming down on top of her, and barely managed to raise her shield in time to absorb the blast.
Readjusting her boosters to keep the impact from sending her back into the HQ, she angled herself upward and started to gain altitude again. 'Huh. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this flying thing.'
Kimiko's hands started to charge with energy again when she suddenly felt several pinpricks of pain that indicated something had pierced her back.
She didn't turn around or glance at the weapons that had hit her; none of objects had struck anything important, and she wasn't about to risk being distracted again in front of the air-headed walking armory she was fighting.
"PERISH!" She shouted suddenly, lashing out with an ultra-fine wave of telekinetic power that should have sliced the annoying girl clean in two. Instead the cyborg merely twitched at the impact, and then blasted forward through the air, stabbing with that energy blade of hers.
"Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Kamen shouted down from the rooftops above the dueling women, "Know that no matter how strong-"
"Tuxedo Kamen!" Cyber Moon shouted back suddenly as the midian's mantle again blocked the strike. "Not now, okay?!" She pulled back for another strike, and then raised her shield hastily as the mantle twisted into the shape of a lance and then stabbed at her repeatedly. "Ack! I need to concentrate here! Whoa!"
She turned as the mantle managed to score a hit on her shoulder, and managed to slice across her opponent's belly before the strange and resilient fashion accessory returned to smash into her face.
"Ow! No WAY that's real silk!" she complained as she gained distance again.
Kimiko snarled and floated forward, ignoring another series of pinpricks as more projectiles pierced her side.
Cyber Moon frowned at the sight of the numerous roses sticking into the vampiress, apparently to no effect. "Tuxedo Kamen, she's too strong! Go into the building and help the others!"
"Wh-What?" Kamen asked as the dueling intensified, with the midian's strange mantle slashing and stabbing faster as Usagi was pushed onto the defensive. "But I can't! You're-"
"Please! They might need help! Agh!" She cried out as the mantle slammed into her chest, causing a brief shower of sparks as it stabbed through her armor and sent her flying backward through the air. Wham!
Tuxedo Kamen winced as the blonde cyborg slammed into the HQ building, and he readied more roses. "You there!" He shouted at the platinum-haired woman, "You won't get away with that! Justice will always triumph over the darkness!" He unleashed another wave of a half-dozen roses at her, which sailed through the air with perfect accuracy.
"Hmmm..." Kimiko briefly waved her hand in the direction of the projectiles, and they all stopped short and then plummeted down into the street. "So you're the insect that's been stinging me..." she waved her hands again, and all the roses already impaling her slipped free out of her wounds, hanging in the air briefly as the bright red petals and lush green stems suddenly wilted and dried in the moonlight before dropping down to join the earlier batch.
"You know, this battle has been QUITE exhausting. I could use a quick snack," she said amiably, revealing a smile that would have seemed downright pleasant if her canines hadn't been visibly growing into large, needle-like fangs.
Tuxedo Kamen said nothing, readying his cane for defense as the nosferatu floated down toward him.
FWEEOOOOM! Kimiko barely jolted back in time to avoid being bisected by a bright red laser beam, and she glared angrily at Cyber Moon as the cyborg once again rose up behind her with yet ANOTHER weapon mounted on one of the servo arms that extended out of her shoulderblades.
"Tuxedo Kamen, GO! I can handle this! Go help the police!" She insisted as the mini-missile racks again slid up out of her shoulders.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Kimiko growled as she released wave after wave of kinetic blasts through the air, stopping and detonating each volley of missiles before they got close, but failing to scratch the blonde herself.
'This is ridiculous! Just what the hell IS she?'

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

'This is ridiculous! Just what the hell IS she?' Tuxedo Kamen thought as he leapt down to a lower roof to better search for entry into the HQ. 'I knew Usagi said she was a cyborg, but... but that's...'
Suffice to say, it had been a little hard to swallow before. Usagi still seemed like Usagi; he had only Ami's analysis and the brief ejection of coolant gases to confirm that the bizarre tale was true.
He had even begun to regret his initial rejection of her. After all, she seemed like the same girl in appearance, touch, and personality. Was she not still the Moon Princess? He had considered at great length that maybe the cyborg thing wasn't even such a big deal. If he could live with constant monster attacks, evil plots for planetary domination/destruction, and the knowledge that his destined lover was some reincarnated magic space princess, really, was loving a cyborg space princess such a stretch?
What he had just seen made him reconsider his reconsideration. Usagi wasn't just the same girl with a metal skeleton. She was a walking arsenal, bristling with guns and missiles! A month ago she would have been sobbing on the ground at fighting an enemy as resilient as the vampire woman, just waiting for him to show up and prop up her confidence before striking the killing blow.
But this Usagi was different. She was standing on her own legs and had apparently embraced these new powers that had been forced upon her. Tuxedo Kamen didn't like this at all. Things were changing too quickly, and he felt like he was being left behind instead of being brought into the spotlight like he normally was.
'Then again, I suppose it's no surprise I haven't been able to keep up with things, given how much time I've spent in the hospital having bullets removed,' he thought ruefully.
Then, as if in response to that thought, a gunshot rang out, and Tuxedo Kamen collapsed onto the rooftop in agony.

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Snake clicked his tongue as he lowered his pistol away from the shattered window. "Drat. I think I missed the headshot. It's too dark out there."
Junko blinked. "Lieutenant? What was that? Another vampire?"
"Yeah. Unless you can think of anyone else who might be skulking about the rooftops around our HQ at night."
"No, not really," the redhead admitted.
Blam! Blam!
Kyle grimaced as more gunfire came from up the hall. "C'mon! We have to hurry!"

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Blam! Blam!
Asuka nodded slightly to herself as the vampire that had wandered into the hall staggered back, a good portion of its head missing from the two .50 caliber slugs that had plowed through its head.
Poof! Then it vanished into smoke.
Asuka blinked, instantly concerned. That vampire had left no remains; no blood, no dust, nothing but brackish blue smoke that rapidly dissipated into nothing.
Someone less experienced may have shrugged off the sight as merely a vampire dying in a slightly different way, but Asuka was fairly certain things didn't work like that; the kill had been practically given to her. The vampire had walked right into the hall at a calm strolling speed as if he was heading for the break room, not navigating a battlefield.
Her concern was thoroughly vindicated when the exact same vampire strolled into the hallway a moment later and grinned at her.
Steeling herself, Asuka glanced behind her and held her aim steady.
"What? You're not gonna shoot?" The midian said pleasantly. He was of average height and rather muscular, and wore normal street clothes along with a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses and a hairstyle that looked as if it required a copious amount of gel.
"That depends; you have any more twins back there?" Asuka deadpanned. "I'd really like to take care of you all at once."
The vampire suddenly laughed uproariously, and several more vampires just like him snickered as they walked into the hallway behind him and joined their copy. "Man, you've got guts! No wonder you scum didn't fold easy! Ha!"
The eight Shios all licked their lips briefly, and one of them on the left spoke. "You'll make a fine meal, you will. Say, you wouldn't happen to be a virgin, would you?"
"No, sorry; I'm not quite THAT bitter and lonely," Asuka said evenly, not wavering in her aim. Initially she was tempted to fire at the one that spoke, but there was no way her opponent would make it that easy. She had one clip of ammo left, which was enough to eliminate every one of the images before her, but taking them out one by one would take precious time. Time which could be spent running down a hallway and closing to slashing/biting distance. And if she was caught trying to reload...
Well, there was no need for such clumsy tactics. There was a reason she left the major gunplay to Snake.
The Shio copies started stalking forward, dagger-like fangs extending out of their mouths as they walked, stepping ever faster as the blue-haired woman failed to retaliate.
'Ha ha! Stupid humans! In the end, you'll always lose!' Shio smirked viciously, and the seven others did so at the exact same time.
Asuka did her best to focus on the incoming target, which was becoming increasingly hard as she fought the urge to look down at the vampires' feet and possibly give away her trap. Through peripheral vision she could see the first three "vampires" step through the claymore tripwire without incident, apparently not even noticing as their incorporeal bodies slipped around the length of steel.
"Still not gonna fire?" Shio asked gleefully. "If you don't hurry you're gonna-" Twang! "-die?"
Boom! All but three of the Shios vanished as their gaseous forms were blasted away by the small explosion and subsequent rain of fragments, and the midian staggered back away from the blast, more out of surprise than from any actual injury.
Asuka couldn't help but smirk as she centered her aim on the one vampire that had pieces of shrapnel lodged in him instead of small, rapidly sealing holes.
Blam! Blam!
Shio staggered back some more, this time due to real injury, as two high-caliber rounds pounded into his heart, plowing right through his ribcage and ejecting bloody chunks of the precious organ out his back.
Asuka's smirk faded as the abomination failed to fall down, but instead stabilized himself and glared at her.
"Do you have any idea how much that stings?" He snapped, wiping some bits of gore off of his bloody shirt as the hole in his skin quickly began to seal itself.
"I'll take your word for it," Asuka said, pulling back her pistol and then fumbling with it as if trying to reload.
Shio suddenly jumped onto the wall, and then pushed off mightily with his legs, rocketing down the hall and rebounding off the opposite wall to further propel himself.
Asuka raised her weapon - not really empty, of course - and unloaded the last two bullets in her magazine, feeling extremely smug as she winged the midian in mid-leap and send him careening to the floor, the Desert Eagle's stopping power enough to completely throw him off-course.
Noting that the vampire had crashed a mere two meters away and was still rolling toward her, Asuka kicked the drawer out of the filing cabinet she was using as a barricade.
Clang! Shio grunted as the metal box slammed into his head, wondering just how much longer he was going to have to suffer these minor, if effective inconveniences during his assault.
Clink!
As he craned his head to stare at the flashbang grenade that rolled out of the drawer (and away from the pin that was taped to its interior), he guessed that it would be quite a while longer.
BANG!
Asuka covered her ears briefly as the stun grenade went off, and then pushed herself to her feet, ejecting the empty magazine to her pistol as the nosferatu groaned and fumbled about blindly.
C-Click! Blam! Blam! Blam! The midian screamed as his head was ripped apart, and staggered to the ground, completely senseless.

'He's not turning into dust,' Asuka noted with considerable annoyance. The vampire's head was obviously regenerating, although it was doing so relatively slowly.
'Should I call Ranma out, or try and blow the rest of his head away? How many explosives do I have left, anyway?'
She had just begun searching her belt for another grenade when she spotted... SOMETHING coming out the wall behind her out of a heating vent. It was pitch black, and seemed to ooze through the slots before settling into the floor, like a circular shadow being cast by an object that simply wasn't there.
"Now that CAN'T be good," the police captain remarked, holding her weapon at the ready.
Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later as the shadow suddenly bulged upward, forming a humanoid shape out of wispy darkness.
'How many of these idiots are they throwing at us?' Asuka thought as her mind raced. 'I mean, apparently they've been churning these freaks out like automobiles, but when did vampires start using massed assaults?'
The sound of rapid footsteps alerted her to someone coming from the route of attack she had been prepared for, and a quick glance revealed the two vampires that had survived the original assault charging into the hall.
Instead of turning around, she focused all her attention on the nosferatu materializing in front of her, mentally judging the speed of the vampires charging from behind.
"NOW!!" Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Click!

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

The two young vampires didn't fail to notice that the blue-haired woman had seen them, and then appeared to totally dismiss them.
Had this occurred a half-hour earlier, the midians might have thoughtlessly pushed forward, heedless of any possible preparations that the very resourceful police captain may have made.
After having experienced their fair share of Asuka's resourcefulness and nearly dying as a result, they were understandably concerned about where the pigtailed fellow was, especially after the captain shouted "Now!"
"Grk!" They got their answer as a pair of legs suddenly swung down from the ceiling and wrapped around the bald-headed vampire's neck, stopping his dash for the barricade.
Ranma threw his remaining kodachi into the second vampire's back, severing his spine just above the pelvis and paralyzing his legs. Then he twisted his legs sharply, snapping his first victim's neck before he dropped the undead onto the floor.
'That should stop them for a minute or two,' he reasoned, drawing the Jackal as he turned toward Asuka.
Instead he saw a larger vampire staring down at him, pieces of a shattered pair of sunglasses hanging off of a slowly regenerating skull.
Ranma blinked. "Weren't you on the ground a second ago?"
The vampire stared back through his one remaining eye as small splinters of bone slowly grew upward to conceal a throbbing, blood-soaked brain mass.
"You weren't here at all a second ago, so who are you to judge?" Said a voice from behind him.
Ranma frowned deeply as he registered a second vampire behind him. He had been watching from the ceiling before, so he knew how the clones worked, same as Asuka, but the blasted things all had the same aura as the original, or at least appeared so to his ki senses, making it impossible for him to tell which one was real at a glance.
"You brats are getting REALLY annoying," Shio snarled as another copy of his slowly reconstructing form flickered into being to Ranma's right.
"You can't stop us, so stop struggling!" Another spat as he appeared on the left and behind the pigtailed cop.
"Your weapons are useless, your bodies are weak, and your little tricks only slow us down!" Another on the left, but this time in front.
"Give up!" The Shios growled as dark blue energy began to gather around their hands. "Just give up and die!"

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Yamato grimaced as the holes in his body slowly shrank into nothing. "How unpleasant..." Grunting, he stepped toward the blue-haired woman, who was fumbling with something at her belt, and reached out for her neck.
Psht! "Gwagh!" He immediately lurched back and squeezed his eyes shut as searing agony assaulted his face, and swiped blindly at his prey in his confusion.
Asuka dodged the predictable sweep of his arms, then smashed into the vampire's chin with a right cross, twisting and sweeping the midian's feet right afterward.
Instead of hitting the floor hard, like any corporeal creature should have, Asuka blanched as the nosferatu dropped down into his own shadow, as if he had fallen into a hole.
"Crap! Now what?"
The shadow suddenly lurched toward her, and the police captain stepped up onto the barricade of filing cabinets before jumping off and over the patch of darkness, leaving it to zip under her... and then under the barricade as well.
"What?" She blinked, and then clenched her teeth. "Damn! Saotome, look out!"

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Ranma glanced around him as the vampire copies glowed with power.
To his senses, the copies were real vampires when he knew that at least most of them weren't, so he also assumed that whatever the midians were about to throw at him were mostly illusions too, even though his senses were warning him that he was about to be pulverized by energy blasts from all directions.
'Still...' there was the chance he was wrong, of course. But all the clones were out of arm's reach, and he no longer had his blade; if he attacked in one direction and guessed wrong, he'd leave his back wide open.
'Did they know that I can sense life force? How is he managing this?' Ranma thought in frustration. 'There's no way some illusions should have the same aura as a real vampire, much less-'
He blinked in surprise as he came to a sudden epiphany, and his brow furrowed.
"What IS that? Is that a bat? A bat with a vampire's aura?"
Ignoring the bug-eyed looks he got from the surrounding Shios, he raised the Jackal toward a shadowy upper corner of the hall, where a small black bat froze in shock.
BLAM! The creature let out a sharp squeak as it was annihilated by the silver slug, splattering its tiny body all over the wall before what little mass it had in that form disintegrated into a prodigious amount of dust, settling down in the far corner of the hall in a pile.
"Gah! Errgh!" The Shio copies all staggered backward as if in sudden pain, their bodies fading into nothingness as the energies sustaining them dissipated permanently.
Ranma raised an eyebrow as his enemies vanished. "Huh. That wasn't so hard."
"Damn! Saotome, look out!"
The pigtailed cop whirled around into a defensive stance, but failed to see anything but Asuka's panicked expression before one of his legs suddenly sank into the floor.
"What the hell?" Ranma tried to pull his leg out of the pool of shadows underneath, but a hand of black pitch rose from the darkness and clutched his knee tightly, dragging him down further.
"Hey! Leggo!" He shouted, beating on the mysterious appendage and tugging even harder.
Then he jolted in agony, and his face paled slightly.
"OW!! That hurt, you bastard!" He screamed, tossing his gun to the side and shoving both arms down into the darkness.

Asuka's mind raced and her heart pounded in her chest as she watched the struggle across the hall, desperately grasping for something to do about it; while she had a few strategies and well-placed ordnance left, none of them took into account that Ranma would be the one having trouble with the enemy, much less that the enemy would be some sort of magical pit of darkness, or whatever the hell this new vampire had turned into.
She also noted with growing alarm that the formerly incapacitated vampire near her had managed to wrench the kodachi out of his back, even if his legs refused to budge. The other, bald-headed one was already clambering to his feet, and she had no ammunition left; her only remaining weapons were her combat knife and the anti-vampire spray.
'This is bad! Ranma's flank is completely exposed! Assuming the shadow doesn't kill him, either one of those other idiots could do it, and all I can do is stumble over there like Seras is doing now and spray-' that train of thought derailed as she realized that yes, the DAPC's medical officer had just walked past her, climbed over the barricade, and was walking down the hall to the stairs like nothing was happening.

The bald-headed vampire noticed this as well, and stared as the scientist strolled right past him.
He snarled, and reached out to grab the man, when something took his shoulder from behind and tripped him up at the same time, slamming him into the floor.
Asuka forewent the garlic spray and jammed her combat knife straight into the midian's back, eliciting a shriek of pain as the blade dug through bone to stab shallowly into the undead's vulnerable heart.
Gritting her teeth, Asuka stood up and then stamped down hard on the knife handle, piercing the heart completely. "Tuko! Do something! Help Saotome!"

Seras blinked and then glanced to his left, where Ranma appeared to be grappling with a pair of solid black hands reaching out from a pool of shadow. The black limbs seemed to be winning, by virtue of the fact that his arms were covered in bloody gashes, whereas if the darkness had suffered any damage, it wasn't at all apparent.
"Now honestly, what do you expect ME to do about this?" The drunk asked irritably, scratching his head. "He's fighting a bloody shadow. I mean, that's just silly. You should learn to pick your battles more wisely, Saotome."
"Shut up and help me!" Ranma growled, punching again into the pool of darkness and again feeling nothing meet his fists. It was as if he was punching into an empty pool of water, though at least his arms didn't get stuck like his leg was.
Seras sighed. "What do you want me to do?"
"ANYTHING!" Ranma shouted, glancing at his gun. He would have tried blasting a ki bolt down into the shadow, but was more than a little concerned with tearing off his own leg in the blast. "Hurry up! That thing's sucking my blood out, I can feel it!"
Seras considered this for a moment before fumbling around in the deep pockets of his lab coat. "Fighting a shadow, huh? Maybe..." pulling out a small flashlight, he turned it toward the black pool and flipped it on.
"Sheeeeeah!" A high-pitch shriek filled the room as the shadow wavered under the light, and Ranma suddenly flew back as his leg was freed from whatever was holding it down.
Asuka winced immediately when she saw the state of his leg; his pants were ragged strips, soaked through with blood, while deep gashes and a prominent set of teeth marks adorned his calf.
Stepping over quickly, Asuka took out the garlic spray and pointed it toward the writhing black liquid.
Psht!
If the light had irritated the shadow, the garlic spray had sent it into a conniption fit, and the darkness suddenly bulged and bubbled as it slithered away from Asuka, rapidly growing outward into a humanoid shape that staggered away from the police captain like a man moving through knee-deep mud.
When Yamato's form had stabilized, he painfully opened his eyes to judge where he was going, his senses sent completely off-kilter by the spray.
Klack! His vision cleared just in time to stare down the barrel of a 13mm. handgun, and moaned pitifully as Ranma glared at him from behind the weapon. BLAM!

Seras frowned as Yamato slowly slumped to his knees, his head demolished by the gunshot and the silver bullet precluding any possibility of regeneration. "That was rather anticlimactic. You should have said something before you shot him. Like 'Nobody eats my leg and gets away with it,' or 'End of the line, you overgrown mosquito.'"
Ranma sweatdropped. "Oh, shut up. And what took you so long with the flashlight?"
"What do you mean 'what took me so long'? I didn't see you coming up with any obvious weaknesses!" Seras snapped back.
"You're supposed to be the brainy guy, why didn't-"
"Last one's getting away," Asuka deadpanned, interrupting Ranma.
The pigtailed man whirled around, then bit his tongue from the pain of moving with his leg in its current condition.
By the time the agony in his tendons lessened from "crippling" to "mind-numbing," the only remaining vampire slipped around the corner and beyond the reach of his pistol.
"Damn," Ranma hissed, gently lowering himself into a sitting position to keep himself from putting weight on his injury.
Wham!
Asuka, Seras, and Ranma all turned and looked back down the hall as the "escaped" midian went flying through the air and then slammed into the wall painfully.
BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!
Snake glanced up the hall as he stepped around the corner, and then grinned at the vampire that was swiftly turning to dust around his pulverized torso. "Buffy, eat your heart out."
Asuka sighed. "Took you long enough."
"Yeah, well, there were a few traps that the bloodsuckers hadn't triggered, and I was outvoted three-to-one on my plan to just let the Commander charge forward and take the hits instead of having me disarm them," the Texan said bitterly.
"Where did you GET all those mines and bombs anyway?" Junko asked as she followed Kyle and Tiro around the bend. "You don't seriously carry that much ordnance around with you in the office, do you?"
The blue-haired woman rolled her eyes. "You can thank the good Lieutenant for that; he leaves bombs and stacks of ammunition all over HQ."
Snake smirked. "For precisely this reason!"
"No, because you're constantly ordering more than we can store properly!" Asuka snapped as the other officers sweatdropped from hearing the familiar argument.
"So what? It came in handy tonight, didn't it?"
"I only used most of those mines so that the enemy couldn't use them against us instead!"
"Eh, all's well that ends well, right?" Snake asked finally, smiling in such a manner that made Asuka wish that she had some ammunition left in her sidearm.
"Ahem!"
The officers all turned toward Ranma, who was seated against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest as he glared up at them.
"What? You want to get on my case too? I didn't even blow you up this time!" Snake said defensively.
Ranma's eye twitched. "I want a damn Band-aid or something! I'm frikkin' bleeding to death here!"
"Fine, fine. Hold your horses, you big baby..."

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

"Gwaaah!" Cyber Moon cried out as she was sent hurtling through the air, spinning too wildly for her thrusters to compensate for.
WHAM! Crash! Plowing through the wall of an office building - closed for the night, of course - she rolled across the floor and slammed into a desk before stopping dead, the last of her momentum spent.
"Owwww..." she moaned as she pushed herself up, surprised as usual at how easy it was to get back on her feet; as a human, even a magical human, getting hit that hard was always followed by a at least a moment of physical weakness, but her cybernetic body never seemed to slow down.
'That hit was pretty bad... hey, can I get a damage report?' she thought as she dusted glass shards and splinters off herself.
+Internal scanning will interfere with current processes. Tactical scan currently has priority. Override?+
Cyber Moon scowled, but answered in the negative. 'Sure is taking a long time to get that stupid scanning done. I don't know how much longer I can hold her off! It's much harder fighting her in the air than in the building!'
As she blasted outside again, she glanced around for her opponent, not seeing anything.
"Oh no... did she fly back into the building? Dang it!" She frowned and contemplated asking her computer to locate the vampiress, but just knew it would complain more about its scanning being interrupted.
Gently putting more power into her rockets, she floated forward toward the partially gutted HQ building; she and the vampire woman had ended up flying down the street about a block from the target structure, being far too involved in eradicating the other to worry about where the battle was headed. "I guess I should get back and see if I can-ACK!" She covered her face as a swarm of bats suddenly descending on her from behind, fluttering around her wildly in a cyclone of leathery wings and black fur.
"Eww! Yuck! Get away! Gross!" Usagi flailed about randomly as the bats continued to harass her, none of them going for the bite, but instead buffeting her behind waves of leathery wings.
Just as Usagi was about to launch a desperate query for any weapons with which to disperse the swarm, the bats suddenly dispersed on their own.
Cyber Moon blinked rapidly, her arms still held in front of her face as the gentle roar of her boosters filled the empty streets.
The cloud of bats hadn't just dispersed; they were GONE. As if someone had flipped a lightswitch and turned them off. "What? Where did-"
Crunch!
Her eyes widened as dagger-sharp teeth punched into her neck from behind, but as she tried to pull away, two hands grabbed onto her arms and held her firm.
"EEEYAAAAAAH!!" Usagi screamed as Kimiko bit deeper and then pulled her head away, tearing out a good chunk of the cyborg's neck amongst a shower of sparks before the vampiress threw her down into a nearby rooftop.
Wham!
Kimiko spat her current mouthful out into her hand, and she grimaced at the mass of metal plates, wires, and tubes that she had torn out underneath the thin scraps of skin and Cyber Moon's outfit. The mass was stained with numerous fluids from the severed tubes, and though some of it looked like blood, the nosferatu relented from tasting it, instead tossing the mass haphazardly to the side.
"Huh. I don't think I'll be making an undead out of her anytime soon," she said to herself. Then she twitched in annoyance and reached into her mouth to pull out a length of wire that was stuck in her teeth.

Cyber Moon gasped weakly as she pushed herself to her feet once more, the throbbing in her neck being far more severe than any other pain she had felt as a cyborg.
Reaching up to massage the wound, she froze stiff when she felt wet and jagged bits of metal and torn wires where there should have been skin and tendons (or whatever passed for tendons when one was mostly machine).
Her breathing would have increased rapidly along with her sense of panic, except that a good part of her respiratory piping had just been torn apart. Instead she continued gasping frightfully, her eyes wide as she felt over the extensive damage.
Whrr! The bays on her shoulders opened up, and her repair drones rapidly crawled over to her neck before poking her hand, causing her to reflexively draw it away from the wound.
Pshoooot! Crawling into the gaping hole in her neck, the drones started releasing a thin foam over the exposed components, coating the broken tubes and wires to prevent further leakage and damage.
Though Usagi wasn't really done panicking yet, her computer suddenly beeped pleasantly, and text started scrolling before her.
+Enemy scan complete. Previous-+
"The hell with the enemy! Am I okay?" She cried, forgetting to keep her query strictly mental this time.
+Unit Cyber Moon has suffered limited structural and internal damage. Circulatory functions are at 80%. Respiratory functions are at 60%. Bio-stabilizers have made the necessary adjustments. Movement and reaction speed is down 17.8%. Damage area has been contained.+
The blonde cyborg allowed herself to relax slightly, and then stared up at Kimiko, who had turned around and was floating back to the HQ building. 'Well, that's not bad, I guess. What took you so long with scanning that woman?'
+Tests had to be drawn from secondary archives and limited battlefield data, and then compared to recent observations without the benefit of a direct biological sample.+
'Okay... I don't know what that means. So what did you find out?'
+This vampire unit possesses superior regenerative capabilities that preclude any small arms as a tactical threat without the aid of silver or blessed ammunition. Superior energy stores may allow her to continue regeneration of weak points indefinitely, making target elimination impossible with many weapons.+
+The enemy unit can regenerate nearly any amount of damage to the heart or brain so long as a given amount of brain mass survives complete cellular breakdown; scans suggest that even if the heart is completely destroyed, the target's brain can facilitate its reconstruction.+
Cyber Moon took a brief moment to try and crane her head to get a good look at the drones working furiously on her neck before she gave up and decided to just let them do their job. 'So what do I do?'
+In order to affect complete target termination, the brain must be completely destroyed on a cellular level. Disruptor cannons and anti-matter weaponry should be effective with a direct hit.+

That was all Cyber Moon needed to hear, and with a powerful jump, her boosters activated and sent her sailing toward the floating midian.
Kimiko had been expecting the girl to get back up ever since she'd heard the persistent blonde ask herself if she was okay - whatever that was about - and turned around to meet her.
"About time you got back up here. I was beginning to think you'd wised up and retreated while you still had your life."
Cyber Moon fumed as she altered her thrust and hovered lower to the ground, looking up at the platinum-haired woman. "You bit me! You won't get away with that!"
"I'm sure," Kimiko deadpanned. "Have you anything left to throw at me besides threats, or do I-"
Ker-chak! Cyber Moon's forearms split apart as she pointed both of them toward the nosferatu, and a bright yellow glow started to encompass them.
"Do I... have to... uhm..." Kimiko backed away through the air a bit as she watched the air ripple around the girl's arms. 'Wow. That looks like a LOT of power...'
In Usagi's eyes, a pair of green targeting reticules appeared over Kimiko's body, and they both turned red as she raised her arms slightly to aim them at the midian's head.
SCCRRREEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAH!! Kimiko jolted to the side as a massive yellow beam split the sky, and was immediately blasted into the side of a building from the beam backwash alone as the entire street was briefly illuminated.
Usagi's boosters flared briefly to keep her stable in the air, and she flinched as a burst of sparks came from her neck and spilled over her breasts. "So, she's dead now, right?"
+Negative. Enemy unit is undamaged.+
"What? I missed? Dang!" Usagi scowled and then scanned the surrounding buildings, spotting the vampiress pushing off from a wall and looking far more wary than before. "Okay, let's try this again..."
She aimed her arms over at the nosferatu.
Pssssssssssht! Instead of the energy rods in her forearm charging with energy, this time vents opened all along her torso and blasted out steam.
"What? What's wrong? Why aren't I shooting again?"
+Coolant systems functioning at 76% due to internal damage. Firing disruptor cannons would risk core overheat and excessive energy drain.+ She blinked, then reasoned that it DID feel awfully warm after she fired the diruptors; she'd just never thought about "overheating" before.
Cyber Moon gulped as she saw her opponent suddenly fly toward her, and activated her own boosters to gain distance. 'Great! Now what am I supposed to do?'
+Unit Cyber Moon still possesses high-yield antimatter munitions capable of complete enemy termination.+
She briefly recalled the clumsy, if powerful weapon she had fired earlier in the lab. 'If I can't hit her with a beam, how am I supposed to hit her with that? And if I miss I could cause some serious damage!'
+This unit is not configured to provide precise tactical solutions.+
Cyber Moon growled as she dodged a few fireballs that Kimiko tossed at her; apparently her computer was willing to analyze the enemy and tell her about her weapons, but wouldn't go much further.
"Fine! I'll just find..." she trailed off as she noticed that the vampire had frozen in midair, staring forward blankly. "Whoa. What's with her, all of a sudden?"

Kimiko gaped as her mental link with Shio was terminated. 'They did it. They killed Shio. By the dark moon... how on Earth...' She shook her head slowly, reminding herself that she was in the middle of her own battle, and that her enemy had some SERIOUS firepower if she was to be caught unawares.
Though she had suggested that the operation against the DAPC was a suicide mission, she'd never seriously considered that the department could hold out against elder vampires; hell, she had arranged the personnel for this mission and given the orders with the expectation that the twenty-five YOUNG vampires would have been more than enough to handle a police staff of less than ten.
Another psychic link was severed; one of the young ones. There was only Yamato and the one survivor left.
'How did this happen?' She thought as the cyborg released another barrage of mini-missiles at her. 'What are these people?' Her mantle twisted into a lance once more and then lashed out rapidly, stabbing through each incoming warhead and detonating it before got close enough to catch her in the blast.
Suddenly, a third psychic link was severed, and she froze, stunned.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Cyber Moon blinked as the last wave of missiles hit unerringly; the nosferatu had simply frozen in place as if she'd forgotten where she was.
'Well? Can I fire the big guns again?'
+Negative. Cooldown safeties will be released in approximately 18 seconds.+
"Heh. Heh heh heh..."
Cyber Moon's brow furrowed as the smoke parted around the vampiress. Was she chuckling? About what?
"Who would have thought... weakling humans indeed..." Her eyes no longer glowed fiercely, but instead looked tired and pained, and she glanced over at the blonde cyborg with regret evident in her features. "What am I doing? What is this all for? So many lives lost... to make a point? To remove a threat? Or to feed some bastard's ego?"
Usagi had no idea what the undead woman was yammering about, but gladly let her speak as her internal timer counted down to eight seconds.
Kimiko's eyes narrowed. "It doesn't really matter. I'm just a slave. But I can't return empty-handed." Blue flames surrounded the midian's hand. "You'll have to be my prize! I'll take your head!"
"Or not," said a new voice from below. "Mars flame sniper!"
"Uwaaah!" Kimiko screeched as an arrow of fire slammed into her from below, and then whirled around to see who was interfering now. "What the blazes? Who in the nine hells are you people?"
"They're with me," Cyber Moon said, leveling her arms at the vampiress again as the cooldown timer approached zero.
"Venus love me chain!"
"Sparkling wide pressure!"
Kimiko's mantle whipped out in front of her, shattering the incoming chain of hearts and blocking the lightning sphere that followed it.
"Enough of this," the platinum-haired nosferatu said gently, her voice barely reaching the Senshi on the street. "It's no use. I've lost."
VweeeeeooooooOOOOO... Yellow light gathered around Cyber Moon's arms as she summoned her targeting reticules once more. "You bet you've lost! But you're not getting away!"
Kimiko just snorted, though it certainly lacked any of the arrogance she had displayed before. She had been utterly humiliated, and it showed. "Foolish girl. I've little doubt we'll meet again. Hopefully it won't be as warriors, though."
Without another word, her body suddenly burst apart into a swarm of dozens of bats, and the veritable cloud of winged rodents fluttered away into a nearby alley before spilling out into the night sky.

"Augh! Damn!" Cyber Moon cursed as her reticules went haywire, unable to focus her weapon on the bat swarm to any useful effect. Frowning, she turned around in the air and softly nudged her boosters forward while decreasing the power to allow for a nice, gentle descent.
Clang! "Ow!" Whump! "Oof!"
The inner Senshi all sweatdropped as their leader flew right into a streetlight, banging her head before it sent her tumbling painfully to the streets.
"Geez, are you okay?" Jupiter asked. Then she gasped. "Whoa, what happened to your neck?" The repair drones were both working rapidly on the large wound, and the sound of their soldering torches created a constant cacophony of hissing and crackling noise.
"Crazy vampire lady bit me," Cyber Moon mumbled as she got to her feet.
"Sorry we took so long; Luna didn't want to come - and we didn't really want to bring her - but absolutely INSISTED that she be filled in on what was going on," Mars explained, glancing around the street for any signs of more enemies.
"That's fine!" Usagi said, breaking out into a run. "We have to get back to the headquarters, quick!"
"Right!" Her companions said, rushing after her and steeling themselves for battle.

It was an extremely short run with all the Senshi sprinting at top speed, and the non-cyborg Senshi gasped as they saw the state of the building.
"Look at this place! It's terrible!" Venus exclaimed.
Mercury nodded sadly. "It looks as if they blasted the whole eastern wall out of the fourth floor; they must have been intending to level the entire building."
"Uh... yeah... those vampires sure are nasty," Usagi said nervously, her face flushing slightly. "Let's go!"
Rushing forward, the cyborg grabbed ahold of the front doors and then swung them wide open, her companions stepping up behind her.
"Halt, evil abominations! The Sailor Senshi are... here... to...... uh..."
Kyle glanced over the top of the manga he was reading. "Hi Tsukino-kun. Good to see you're okay." Then he turned back to his manga. "Heh heh. Oh Negi, when you're not kicking ass you're stealing hearts. Gotta love that kid."
Usagi glanced from one end of the main lobby to the other. On one end, Asuka was talking to Ranma, who had both his arms and one leg all bandaged up. On the other end, Junko and Tiro were laying on the sofa, looking exhausted while Hunter slumbered at their feet, looking badly scorched but obviously alive. All the officers had noticed the Senshi's entry, but apparently only Kyle found their appearance more important than whatever they were currently doing.
Sailor Mars stepped forward. "Hey, is everyone okay? We're here to take care of those vampires!"
"Perfect! We could use someone to do a final sweep!" Snake said suddenly, startling the girls as he emerged from the side. "Here!"
The Senshi expressed great confusion as the American approached them with an armful of brooms and dustpans, handing one of each to all the Sailors save Usagi.
"What are these for?" Jupiter asked in confusion.
"The final sweep," Snake repeated, pointing to the floor in front of Tiro and Junko. "Start on this floor and move up to the second, and then the fourth and clear up all this vampire dust, would you?"
"You CAN'T be serious," Mars deadpanned.
Snake just shrugged. "It's either that or mop-up. There's an awful lot of blood on the walls." Then he smiled as he saluted. "Know that we protectors of the peace appreciate your contributions, citizens!"
Sailor Venus saluted right back, much to her friends' growing distress. "Yes sir! Anything to help, sir!"
"Fabulous," he responded. Then he took Usagi by the arm. "Well, we've got studying to do. We'll see you suckers later."
Mercury's eyes boggled. "You're studying HERE?"
Jupiter's eyes twitched. "After a vampire raid?"
Mars' eyes narrowed. "While we clean the place up?"
Snake shrugged. "Well, she DID help out in the actual battle. It's the least we can do." Then he patted Usagi's stomach, much to her embarrassment. "Besides, I'm thirsty. Let's go, Blondie."
Usagi gave an embarrassed chuckled and quickly followed after Snake, silently thankful that she had gotten out of cleanup duty.
"What a gyp," Mars mumbled, staring down at her broom. "There's no way I'm-Gah!" She lurched forward suddenly as Venus jabbed her in the back with the handle of her broom.
"Hey! Get to work! We offered to help, didn't we?" The blonde Senshi asked, frowning. "So instead of having to kill powerful, bloodsucking monsters, instead we just clean up some dust. It's not a bad deal, right?"
"But... I mean... come on, you can't be serious!" Mars protested, her face flushing.
It flushed even darker when she saw Mercury shuffle by timidly, pushing along a small pile of dust that presumably used to be an undead being. A few meters away, Makoto was pushing her own broom along straight toward Ranma, apparently deciding to make the most of a bad situation.
"You guys suck," the fire Senshi mumbled, taking her broom and starting for the corner.

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

Vampires annihilated: 27
Zombies squashed: 5
Annoying neighbors silenced (temporarily, of course): 1
Rooms blown up: 4

End Chapter 6