In case anybody really was worried about me after that last chapter, don't be. I mean, come on! I'm a single, male, 19-year old geek who plays video games and writes stupid stories all day! I don't have feelings!
The Prometheus mechs are based on heavy combat mechs from an old SNES game called Metal Warriors. Bitchin' machines.
Oh yeah. Ranma doesn't belong to me, everybody else does, and Ken Yakata is NOT Solid Snake from Metal Gear. So there!
This chapter is dedicated to my special buddy and prereader Josh Temple, who really, really hates hippies.

Guardian
Chapter 14
Counterstrike

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

*{All units are away. The Prometheus mecha are advancing ahead of schedule, and the retrievement convoy is en route. The smokescreens we've deployed are working better than projected, though they seem to be making the terrorists nervous}*
{"Excellent,"} Igov said seemingly to himself, his hand pressed against the metal plate installed over his ear, {"In these conditions, the Japanese defense forces possess a significant advantage. In their confidence, they will not know what hit them until it's too late. Continue the march, and keep the terrorists from fleeing. They don't have very strong loyalties. Yutchzky out."} Taking his finger off the communicator mounted on the side of his skull, Igov looked out the window of his armored transport at the pale gray fog.
{"Once again I travel to the field of battle... I wonder what Nadia is doing now..."} The Russian cyborg sighed wistfully and leaned back in his seat. 'I can do nothing for the poor girl. She is not like her parents. She has no love for my business.' It was why he had left her in Russia, left her among the political backstabbers and murderous government agencies. Nadia was simply a normal schoolgirl with a knack for mathematics, and even after his wife had been killed and Russian soldiers had been given orders to shoot him on sight, he was secure in the knowledge that his daughter would not be harmed. When Llydia had been slain, she had simply nodded sadly, crying softly, as the unsympathetic government official told them coldly to their faces that she had been killed in a car accident. She was weak, helpless, and naive. She was no threat to anyone.
'So unlike her father,' Igov thought wryly, 'so VERY unlike her father.'
*Fshhhhhhhhh* The sound of rocket jets burning overhead reached the transport, and Igov shook his head.
'Now is not a time for sentimentality. Such things have led to the defeat of greater generals than I.' His face hardened, and the lens of his cybernetic eye glowed crimson, casting the interior of the small cabin in an eerie red.
{"The hour is at hand. I will crush all who oppose me!"}
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Damn. I don't like this at all," Ranma mumbled as he stared at the walls of gray smoke that had settled in the streets.
"What do you suppose is happening?" Kyle asked. "This a damn thick fog, 'aint it?"
"Ugh," Ranma waved his hand in front of his face, having some trouble breathing in the smokescreen. "This isn't fog. Something's up."
Kyle blinked, then nodded. "You're right...... so what should we do?"
Ranma sweatdropped. "I have no idea. You used to be the commanding officer; don't you have any ideas?"
Kyle stared at him blankly.
*Sigh* "Right, right. Never mind."
*Poom*
"Eh?" Ranma turned around sharply as he heard a distant cannon fire.
"Whoa!" Kyle gasped as a flash of light pierced the fog, "hey, there's a fight going on!"
"Great," Ranma mumbled, "and here we are without any transportation, in the middle of a huge smoke cloud, and armed only with handguns." For Ranma, these factors didn't pose TOO big a problem, but he would have felt much better if Kyle was at his side with a bigger weapon than he had now.
"Well... I can't do anything about the rest of that, but my car is here, and Junko can give Sakura a ride home," Kyle offered. "So, if you want, we could go out there, but that looked like a cannon shot, and you're right in that all we have are handguns, so..."
Ranma nodded sadly. "Yeah, and besides, it's so hard to see in this smoke that I'm sure we'd get in an accident."
"Pardon me, but can you help us?"
The two Core soldiers turned around to see a couple of teenagers holding a newspaper clipping. They both had long, unkempt hair and were wearing ragged tie-dye clothing.
"We're looking for the Nimiaka Center for Advanced Technology, but we're lost, and then this huge smokescreen billowed up out of nowhere." He shrugged helplessly.
"Oh, no problem," Kyle said, turning around and pointing down the street, "just go about ten miles that way, until you get to Kyoushou Street, then make a right. Then keep going until you reach the post office, and turn left. It's right there."
"Thanks, man," the other youth said.
"Uh... I know it's none of my business, but why are you going there? You two don't really look like... um... researchers, you know?" Ranma asked curiously. "And given that there are missiles falling into the streets building up a huge smokescreen, this probably isn't the best time to be out anyway."
The first youth crossed his arms over his chest. "No smog cloud is going to keep us from doing our duty as members of humanity and tenants of mother nature!"
"Yes!" The second one agreed. "Though the buildup of years of pollution caused by evil industrialists and the greedy, materialistic masses are now actively working to thwart our plans, nothing will stop us from reaching our goal!"
Ranma and Kyle blinked in tandem. "Huh?"
"The Nimiaka Center is demonstrating the newest technology innovations today, and we've organized a protest to discredit the projects there and shut down the labs!"
"The new weapons they seek to unleash will never see use while we're around to stop them!"
"Weapons?" Kyle asked, scratching his head, "but I read about that... I thought they were going to showcase some kind of robotic medical stuff..."
"Yes!" the first teen shouted angrily, "alongside a new killing machine they call a 'rail gun'! Plus some new kind of metal, which will no doubt be used to create more devices of death! It's unforgivable! That place must be shut down! Who knows how many lives their evil inventions will take! And all to make some money! As if a price can be put on a human life! It's disgusting!"
"Indeed! We must all cast away our weapons forever, join hands in peace, and live together in harmony! There is no difference men have that cannot be resolved with words!"
Ranma and Kyle looked at the pair of youths like one would a hideous alien being that had just stepped up and asked for directions to the post office.
Then, Ranma leaned toward Kyle. "Hippie alert," he whispered.
"Ah, I see. That would explain the 'Nimiaka is Hitler' sign," he whispered back, "I wonder if they know that the center's named after a dead guy."
"I implore you! Officers! Soldiers! Whoever you are!" one of the youths proclaimed, clapping his hands on both men's shoulder, "toss away your guns! You only progress the cycle of hatred! Violence never solves anything!"
"IT DOESN'T?!?!" Kyle shouted, so honestly shocked that even the two addle-brained teens sweatdropped.
"Oh, don't listen to them," Ranma mumbled. "Look, you kids have your directions, so go try and shut down the center or whatever, okay? We're trying to deal with real problems, here."
"Fine, conformist drone! Toil for the bourgeoisie masters that hold your leash!"
"It's because of foolish sheep like you that the world has fallen into chaos and violence!"
"No, it's because of twits similar to you who aren't dumb enough to buy into all that 'love and peace' crap!" Ranma shouted after them before turning away irritably. "Stupid punks... why don't those losers just get a job instead of whining all the time?"

Kyle watched them go, then frowned and turned toward Ranma. "Hey, shouldn't we arrest them?"
Ranma blinked. "Why? They haven't done anything wrong. Well, legally, I mean."
"Yes they have!" Kyle protested, "they're hippies!"
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Yes... but that's not illegal."
Kyle blinked, once again honestly shocked. "It's... it's not?"
"Nope," Ranma confirmed, "we can't just start arresting everybody for being stupid. There'd be no room in prison for the real criminals."
"So, when Snake had that one animal rights meeting shut down and all its members jailed without trial, that was-"
"Illegal," Ranma concluded, nodding. "But it was still pretty funny."
Kyle nodded slowly, considering this. "Did they ever get out?"
"I dunno. Probably not."
"Ah," the blond murmured, his mind beginning to drift.
After a few moments, Kyle snickered.
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. I'll bite. What's so funny?"
Kyle snickered some more. "I was just thinking, wouldn't it be ironic if the terrorists were attacking the technology expo?"
Ranma's eyes widened. "Er... why... why would they do that? You said it was mostly medical stuff, right? I mean, some fancy gun can't be worth sending an army over there..."
"Well, sure," Kyle reasoned, scratching his head thoughtfully, "but, you know, everything that can't be used to kill people can be used to keep people from being killed, or at the very least, be worth a lot of money, you know?" He chuckled again. "And then, you know, those people protesting the weapons that they're developing to fight the terrorists might get blown up by the terrorists. That'd be pretty weird, huh?"
Kyle turned toward Ranma, only to see the martial artist staring at him intently. "Uh... something wrong?"
"K-Kyle..." Ranma mumbled, "did you hit your head or something?"
He blinked. "Well, that depends. What time frame are we talking about here?"
"Never mind!" Ranma shouted, "get into the car, now!"
Kyle immediately began to panic, and took out his keys. "What? Where are we going?!"
*Slam!* Ranma got into the driver's side seat.
"C'mon! We're going to my house!"
"What?" Kyle mumbled, slipping into the driver's seat, "why?"
"Because it's on the way to the technology center," Ranma said. "Maybe I'm just overreacting, but it looks to me like you got lucky and hit a bulls-eye this time."
Kyle nodded seriously and started up the car before taking off down the road.
"Hey, maybe we can go over to the place where Snake and Tycho are working! It's out of the way Snake has bigger weapons, and I'm sure that Tycho can make up for the time we've lost if I let him drive."
"You must not like this car very much," Ranma theorized, "no, I don't think we'll be needing bigger guns."
"Oh. Okay," Kyle shrugged off Ranma's response, and concentrated on the road. ".................... So, what was that about me hitting a bulls-eye? Did I say something smart?"
"Shut up and drive."
"Okay."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Mother of God... I can't believe how BORING this is..." Asuka moaned and leaned over the desk of the small security kiosk, her face in her hands.
Sighing, she watched as numerous cars sped by in waves, going far faster than was considered safe.
This led to thoughts of Tycho Wattai, and Asuka promptly squeezed her eyes shut and began banging her head on the desk.
*Wham!* *Wham!* *Wham!* "No, no, NO!!" Then she groaned with her face in her arms. "I need to get myself committed or something... I'm a smart, sensible woman. There's no way I can miss the countless life-and-death battles, the pointless arguments, the perverted co-workers, those idiot hussies I had to work with, and that freakish gun nut!"
She slammed her fist down on the desk, and grit her teeth. "The way he'd drool over the latest import copy of 'Guns and Bullets'! Creepy! The way he'd oil and caress the .50 calibers! Sick! The... the way he'd..." her gaze softened, and her fist unclenched. "... The way he'd always slip a pack of AP rounds into my jacket pocket, 'just in case'... the way he'd always take the first shot. He'd volunteer to be the first one in, and the last one out. Even if the place was rigged to blow. ESPECIALLY if the place was rigged to blow."
Asuka sniffled. "And Tiro... how he'd always gaze at me longingly from just out of arm's reach. That fearful, lusty gaze that said 'you're so beautiful, but I know that you'd snap me like a plastic ruler if I ever touched you.'"
She leaned back heavily in her chair, her head down. "And Kyle. Such a friendly, good-natured, well-meaning idiot. There was just something so heartwarming and uplifting about his stupidity sometimes, like... like you knew that if things went wrong, he'd be the first one to screw up and get killed, and not you."
She sighed deeply, a few tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "And Ranma... Ranma, who always came through for the team. Who'd always do something crazy and stupid and come out on top. Sometimes I just get so angry at that sweet, rugged hunk of man-meat that I just wanna rip off his shirt, tear off his pants and grab him by the-" she stopped suddenly, and spontaneously slapped herself in the face. "What the HELL did I just say?!" she asked no one, wobbling slightly as the red imprint stung her face. "Whoa! Cool down, girl! Easy..."

*SCREEEECH!!* *Honk!* *Honk!*
Asuka blinked as she watched a car come blazing down the road recklessly, snapping her out of her self-pitying reminiscence.
"Christ, what's wrong with these people?" she muttered, actively trying to forget everything she had been talking to herself about.
Getting up, the security guard walked toward the entrance of the garage and looked down the street where all the fast traffic seemed to be coming from.
"What the hell?" Asuke whispered, squinting. A cloud of smoke was present in the distance, fully obscuring whatever was beyond it.
As she watched, several missiles burst from the top of the smokescreen, flying in carefully calculated arcs and eventually plummeting to the streets below in a line, each missile a constant distance apart from the ones behind and in front of it.
*Fsssssh!* Asuka jumped back as one such projectile streaked toward the section of road right in front of the garage she was employed at.
The missile didn't produce an incendiary explosion, however, and instead, a thick cloud of smoke began to seep out of the chemical warhead, quickly spreading out in layers across the street.
"What's going on here?" Asuka mumbled, once again looking out at the street. "Someone's launching smokescreen missiles?" As the missiles had just touched down and hadn't finished deploying their payload, the former captain was still afforded a clear view of the street, with only the bottom few feet obscured by the expanding clouds. She noted that the smokescreen beyond, which had developed far higher, was still expanding outwards slowly, and had reached the intersection at the corner of the garage.
*SCREEEECH!!* A lone car, no doubt trying to get out of the path of whatever was coming, spun out slightly while trying to make a left turn at the intersection, its wheels sliding over the pavement as its momentum shifted. It almost came to a complete stop before its wheels once again took firm hold of the pavement, and prepared to move away from the wall of smoke that the back of the vehicle had brushed up against.
*KRRNCH!!* The automobile was crushed flat in one clean motion as a huge metal foot burst from the smokescreen, and Asuka gaped as a massive cockpit nose pushed forth into view. The nose was attached to a bipedal chassis, with two huge shoulder-mounted cannons that framed the "head" of the massive machine like forward-pointed devil horns.
Asuka gulped. The bipedal mech was nearly eight meters high, with oversized, reverse-joint legs that looked like they could withstand any kind of punishment a gun could offer. The cockpit stuck out of the torso like a bird's beak, and the smoke was still low enough that Asuka could make out the fuel lines that were attached to the underside of the cockpit, and leading toward the nose. Atop the machine she could make out two missile launchers attached to the shoulder cannons, no doubt for air defense, and a single soldier that stood on top, probably to snipe infantry.
*Koom!* *Koom!* *Koom!* The ground shook slightly as the mech advanced with heavy footsteps, and Asuka quickly determined that a number of the noises were out of synch with the visible mecha's footfalls. Meaning that there were more coming behind it.

Asuka quickly ducked back into the garage and headed toward the locker behind her booth. She didn't need to see the cobra entangled in barbed wire that was painted on the lower leg to guess who the war machines belonged to. They were the Freedom's Angels' mechs, which meant there was an assault in progress.
'Which means I have work to do,' she thought, taking a tool box out of the locker.
By now the smokescreen had had ample time to expand, and the dust cloud was already leaking into the parking garage as it completely hid the streets from the structure's only occupant. Not that it mattered. Asuka wasn't planning on taking one of those things on ground level.
Dashing up the nearest stairwell, the former police captain grimaced as she heard the steady rumble of Earth-shaking footsteps. Apparently the terrorists were becoming a little more serious about their pointless assaults. The last terrorist machination she had seen were the junk mechs back when the FAs had stolen a cargo truck of Lipton tea, and though the guys had claimed to have seen a robot at the oil platform, that had only been one unit. To send a group of them out had to mean that the psychos were building up strength faster than anyone had guessed.
Asuka exited the stairwell and rushed to the edge of the garage tower, which was closed off from the street by a three-foot concrete barrier.
Placing the tool box atop the barrier, Asuka climbed on it herself and looked down at the street. The smokescreen was mostly spreading out along the streets, but the buildings had caused enough smoke to build up that only the very top of the mechs were visible to her. One the monstrous vehicles lumbered directly below, the soldier atop it searching the clouded streets for signs of attack.
Asuka was about to jump, but then froze. 'Wait. Why am I doing this?' she thought, staring down at the multi-ton death machine as it slowly moved out from under her. 'I'm not a cop anymore. I don't get paid for this. I'm not expected to do this. I'm not equipped for it, prepared for it, or have any kind of backup to call.' She scowled and grit her teeth. 'Hell, I used to risk my life like this all the time, and they fired me! Laid me off without a word of thanks for all the lives I've saved! This is their problem! Why should I...'
And then, suddenly, the image returned to her. A panicking driver in a '92 Honda, smashed flat in a split second. It could have been anyone in that car. A criminal. A cop. A civilian. A family...
*Koom!* *Koom!* *Koom!*
Asuka's gaze hardened as the last Prometheus mech lumbered by beneath her. "It doesn't matter if I have a badge or not! Nobody screws with my city and gets away with it!" Picking up the tool box, she leapt off the edge of the short wall.

*Wham!* The Russian soldier had absolutely no warning before a fifteen-pound steel toolbox crashed into his skull. Given that Asuka was driving the object downward as she dropped roughly two meters herself (and given the way the man's skull caved in and cracked like an egg), it was safe to assume the man had died instantly from the blunt trauma.
Asuka took a moment to steady herself on the top of the massive war machine, becoming used to the rise and fall of the primary body as the feet moved.
"Well, it looks like you don't need this any more," Asuka grabbed the soldier's corpse before it had a chance to slide off, and quickly stripped it of everything of immediate use. This included the AK-47 and a sidearm, spare clips for both, and a walkie-talkie whose twin was undoubtedly in the hands of someone she wanted dead as well.
"Come on, come on..." she began going through the man's backpack, and was rewarded with a few blocks of codex plastic explosives. "Jackpot." She removed the backpack from the soldier's corpse, and then saluted the dead man. "This is where you get off, soldier. Have a nice afterlife." Then she kicked him off the edge of the machine and into the clouds of smoke obscuring the streets below.
"All right, let's find something I can break," wiping some of the blood off the toolbox with her jacket, Asuka slid down the side of the mech torso, landing in the crevice between the right shoulder cannon mount and the main chassis.
Humming to herself, she took a socket wrench out of the toolbox, and began to unfasten the bolts that secured the hatch to the ammo port. After taking off several of the securing bolts, she exchanged the wrench for a crowbar, and then pried open the hatch, breaking several other bolts straight off.
"Now THOSE are some big bullets," she murmured, seeing the huge shells that armed the cannon she was riding next to. Any one of them looked like they could knock out the Firestorm in a single shot.
Without another word, she calmly took a single block of codex from the soldier's backpack, deftly set the timer, and then unceremoniously tossed the brick into the small opening afforded by the crowbar.
Then she began humming again as she put the iron bar back in the tool box and slid down off the mech completely, landing heavily on the ground and calmly walking in the opposite direction as the hefty war machine.
"And... three, two, one."
*KA-KROOOOM!!!* The right side of the Prometheus exploded outward, ripping up that side of the chassis and blowing the leg apart. The crippled machine slowly teetered toward that side, and then fell over, flames still bursting out into the cloud of smoke and raining shrapnel.
*CHAKOOOM!!* Then a fuel supply under the torso finally ignited in a less violent, but even more luminous explosion as hundreds of gallons of combustibles all flooded out into a blazing firestorm. Even within the smokescreen, Asuka had to shield her eyes from how bright it was, and could still see the rising tower of fire as the entire mech was consumed in flame.
Asuka frowned. "The way that stuff burns... is that flamethrower fuel? Is THAT what all those fuel lines were for?" She shook her head and turned away. Then she took out the walkie-talkie and pushed the button on the side to turn it on.
*Ahem* {"Hello, this is Freedom Angel report,"} she said in deliberately bad English while dropping her voice a few octaves, {"big machine under attack. One just go boom. Stop machine march now or all might die."} Smirking, she let go of the button on the side. Turning up the volume, she could hear a lot of shuffling, as well as several people speaking and shouting in fast-paced Russian.
*{What is going on there?!}* A voice demanded back in English, *{What happened to the man who owns this radio?}*
{"I tell you, he go boom with machine."} Asuka began to check her nails as she continued butchering her sentences with as heavy an accent as she could manage, {"I no know why machine go boom. We be attack? No can see. Stop machine march now, or walk into trap maybe?"}
*{What are you doing there?! There are not supposed to be any Angels with the Prometheus units!}*
'Prometheus, eh?' Asuka thought curiously. {"I group told guard you machine. No can do if no can see enemy. No can do if Prometheus keep moving. We get close, we go splat. Understand you?"}
For a short time, the voice on the other end went silent. *{I want to speak to your superior officer.}*
{"Yes."} Asuka waited a few seconds, the spoke again, this time in Japanese. "Yes, what is it? I don't speak English or Russian though, so I hope you have a translator."
*{Hello? Do you speak English?}*
"I don't speak English. I just said that. But then, none of you dolts can understand Japanese, can you?"
*{Damn it! What the hell is going on over there?!}*
She switched back to English. {"That why I talk to you. He no understand English or talk English."}
*{Fine. We are going to re-route the column heading toward the Nimiaka technology expo down the main streets heading toward City Hall, and we are going to stop using the ashburn-12 rockets. You are far enough away from the diversionary force that the screen will not make much difference anyway. This should allow you to avoid ambush, and better defend the mechs.}*
{"Yes,"} Asuka said, before letting go of the button and tossing the walkie-talkie into a nearby garbage can. "Sucker."
Slipping the backpack onto one shoulder while taking up the semi-automatic rifle in the other, she prepared to move after her new targets.
While debating whether or not to drag the toolbox along with her, she caught sight of someone walking down the street nearby. It was impossible to make out any features within the smokescreen, but the person was close enough that she could make out a large shadow through the dust.
"Who...?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Scrrrrch!* Kyle's car skidded to a halt in front of Ranma's new house, and the pigtailed man immediately jumped out.
Then he opened the door to the back seat before racing toward his home, leaving Kyle to wonder just what his co-worker was planning now.

Ranma quickly opened his front door, then stepped aside as he cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Yo! Feeding time!"
A sinister growl floated from the homestead's interior, and Hunter immediately leapt out the front doorway, skidding to stop just outside as his claws dug into the concrete walk.
Ranma sweatdropped as he looked at the gouges that the pet zergling had dug into solid concrete. 'Hmm. I hope he isn't running in the house.' "All right boy, into the car. And try not to rip up the seats, okay?"
Hunter snapped his jaws in the air viciously, giving Ranma no clue whether the warbeast understood or not. Nevertheless, Hunter then lumbered into the waiting vehicle, causing the automobile to shift on its side as the distribution of weight shifted greatly.
Kyle bigsweated as he heard several parts of his car groan softly at the kind of mass they now had to support. "'Don't buy one of those gas-sucking SUVs,' Sakura says," Kyle muttered irritably, "'it's a waste,' she says, 'what are you going to need that kind of room and power for?' she says. Bah."
Ranma stuffed Hunter's tail into the footspace of the back seat, and then slammed the door shut before getting in the passenger seat himself. "Okay, to the technology center!"
Kyle blinked. "With Hunter? Are you sure? He might start eating people."
Ranma frowned, then shrugged. "Uh... well, as long as he eats the right people, it's not a problem, right?"
Kyle, being Kyle, accepted this simplistic logic quite easily. "You're right! Let's go!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Squads 6, 8, and 3 have reached the checkpoints and have been dug in.*
*Charges have been set and anti-armor mines are in place.*
*Sergeant, four units are requesting clearance to return to base to suit up and equip anti-armor weaponry.*
*Then tell them to shut up and get into position! If they're afraid to face this scum without a metal shell to hide in, they're not worth protecting anyway!*
* *Sigh* I'll relay that sentiment, sir.*
Igov smirked as he held his hand to the communications unit over his ear, intercepting and listening to the Core radio signals as they prepared their ambush. Core encrypted its messages like any modern military force, but that encryption was easily broken by the superior technology built into Igov.
He idly toyed with the idea of targeting Yujikata in the diversionary assault. It disgusted him greatly that a man would aid the enemy and still possess the gall to issue commands to the soldiers that trusted him. Regardless of whether the slime was aiding him in particular, the sergeant's actions easily made him worthy of being crushed underfoot.
In the end, though, it wasn't his decision. He had chosen his masters in this land, and he would obey them for as long as their exploits held the promise of armed conflict.
He took his hand off the radio transmitter over his ear, and the stream of communications ceased.
Then, just as quickly, the unit activated again as a transmission was beamed directly to him.
*{Sir, we have a problem. The Prometheus column is under attack. One unit has already been destroyed.}*
Igov frowned deeply. {"Origin of assault?"}
*{Unknown, sir,}* the captain said regretfully, *{The other units only report hearing the explosion, and of course we've lost contact with the lost unit itself. Afterward, a Freedom's Angel unit reported in that the unit had been destroyed.}*
Igov raised an eyebrow. {"Did they also report what they were doing there? The transport convoy to pick up the targets at Nimiaka Tech Center has only just been deployed."}
*{They only said that they had been ordered to protect the Prometheus mechs, sir. I think. There was a bit of a language barrier. Nevertheless, I redirected the column to take them out of the smokescreen and out of the way of any dug-in ambush. If the enemy can concentrate enough fire to kill a Prometheus, best that they at least have a clear view so that they can fight back.}*
Igov scowled. This didn't seem right at all. {"No. Call the Prometheus units into the city. Have them spread out and each find their own way to the tech center. Anything with a gun is to be labeled a target of opportunity. Have the recon teams attached to the retrievement convoy move ahead and try to spot anything that fires upon them."} Already the general had a sinking feeling about this operation. At worst, the Japanese forces would have noticed the separate smokescreen moving in a different direction and diverted forces there while leaving the prison open to the diversionary forces. As it was, it didn't seem possible that they had arrayed their forces so fully to fight the tank squadron while still being able to muster enough firepower to stop the mechs (which they shouldn't even know about).
{"Tell the FAs that we are approaching a minefield. Let them decide what to do about it."} With that, Igov deactivated his communications relay.
The terrorists were just cannon fodder. Which made them an excellent diversion. Igov knew very well that the World War II-era IS-2s were simply metal coffins when faced with the advanced weaponry that Core was equipped with. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't have other surprises in store for the defenders.
{"Driver, pull over. I will walk from here."}
It was a perfect day for a war.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Sergeant! We have a report from the recon units!"
Yujikata ignored the corporal as he continued watching over his arrayed troops listlessly. 'I wonder if I should be here... are those guys really going to pass me by if I'm in the line of fire? I should probably get behind the front line...'
"We have reports of several war machines scattered through downtown Tokyo, Sergeant. It's unclear what their target is at this time, but a number of potential targets have already been assessed for vulnerability. What should we do?"
That caught the sergeant's attention. 'So they got caught already, did they? Oh well.'
He opened his mouth to dismiss the corporal, when a sharp, feminine voice came from behind him.
"I don't believe Mr. Yujikata is of proper rank to be making those decisions."
The traitorous soldier grit his teeth and slowly turned around to face Mia. "Ah... Colonel Tokima. There you are...."
Mia nodded and turned toward the corporal. "You say there are enemy units moving through downtown Tokyo?"
"Y-Yes ma'am!" The corporal shouted a bit nervously. "I was ordered to bring all field intel directly to Sergeant Yujikata, ma'am! That's why I didn't attempt to contact you first!"
The colonel frowned. "Trying to run the whole thing yourself, Sergeant? You're barely able to keep your own squads in line. Don't try and bite off more than you can chew, alright?" then she addressed the corporal again. "I'm in command now. All field intel is to be brought to me, and I'll handle all long-range strategic planning. If you find someone sleeping, then bring that to the sergeant."
Yujikata grit his teeth, but his gaze softened as he looked over his superior officer out of the corner of his eye. Mia was wearing a black jumpsuit with a heavy ammo belt, and while the legs hung down loose and baggy, the top of the outfit was snugly fitted to show the contour of her waist and bust. Chesty and full-figured, physically Mia looked exactly like Alexandra, but had a spicy girl-in-action attitude that contrasted greatly to Alex's frosty aura of control.
Mia saw Yujikata staring at her stealthily, and shot him a warning glare that turned the man all the way around.
She'd be the first to admit that she showed off her body more than was strictly professional, and in fact enjoyed some of the ogling by the male soldiers, to a point. Goda Yujikata, however, had always bothered her for some reason. She knew the man didn't belong in Core; Goda was the son of an influential senator that had pushed Remerick to do some 'rearrangements' in the hierarchy to let the man in above the ground floor. Unfortunately, Remerick didn't have much choice in the matter, as Core was as almost much a political organization as a military one.
Mia sighed. With the senators and prime minister bickering over the use of Core's resources and dividing up the forces to protect their homes and personal interests, it was no wonder that Japan's most powerful military force hadn't had time to launch deeper investigations of the Freedom's Angels' suspected fortifications. As it was, Core was too often divided into tiny, easily ambushed units as they tried to protect everything at once.
"Ma'am? What should we do?" The corporal asked, somewhat uneasy from the tension between his superior officers.
Mia frowned deeply as she looked at the preparations about the ambush site. "Yujikata, why are only a fifth of your men in combat gear? And the rest armed with pistols?"
"Several units were on patrol when the attack began," Yujikata murmured, "I brought 'em in right away for the shortest response time. This is just another FA stunt. They won't need armor."
"'They won't need armor'?" Mia parroted, twitching. "We have reports of an armor battalion approaching, and an advancing smokescreen that could hide anything! Artillery, advanced armor, mutants! We have only a vague idea about what we're up against, and YOU decide that ten minutes' extra time to sit around on our haunches is worth putting these men and women's lives in even more danger?!"
Yujikata swallowed nervously. He had been staring at Mia's breasts the whole time, so he didn't know what she had said, exactly, but she sounded mad. "Co-Colonel! I can explain!"
"Shut up." Mia commanded, turning toward the corporal. "Corporal, order any heavy weapons units without protect-gear back to HQ. They are to gear up and move to intercept the... 'war machines' moving downtown, provided we don't receive any new intel on those units. Take half of the remaining unarmored soldiers and give them the same orders. The other unarmored units are to take cover in the buildings for better firing positions."
"Colonel, we were ordered to avoid damage to civilian structures as much-" Yujikata began.
Mia cut him off. "Sergeant, I'm not sure what they taught you in your prissy little private school, but around here 'shut up' means stop talking."
The corporal couldn't help but smirk, though he made sure he was facing away from the sergeant. "Yes ma'am! I'll relay your orders immediately!"
Mia nodded, then turned toward the seething Yujikata. "As for YOU, get your sorry ass out to the front. After the charges go off, our guys are going to need to know which targets to shoot."
Yujikata frowned. "I, uh, was actually going to direct one of the rifleman squads down the flank after the anti-armor unit-."
Mia rolled her eyes and cut him off. "Fine, whatever. You can go home, for all I care. Your absence will probably bring up morale, anyway." Not bothering to watch whatever look the sergeant shot at her, she turned toward the main forces.
"Snipers, into position! Demo teams, on your marks! Let's move, move, move!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"You ever get the feeling," Snake said suddenly, startling Tycho out of his half-asleep state, "that something big was going on that you should be a part of, but you're not?"
Tycho stared at his co-worker. "Uh...... well, yes, actually. Just once. When I watched an American monster truck derby on TV."
Snake frowned. "No, that's not what I mean. Something... greater than that. Something in which lives hang in the balance, and I'm the one who should be tipping the scales."
"Despite that colorful and evocative metaphor, for the most part you've lost me," Tycho mumbled.
"There's a battle starting," Snake said irritably, drumming his fingers on the cash register, "and I'm here selling food items instead of killing. It makes me... uneasy." Then he noticed a man standing at the counter with a beer in hand. "Oh, I'm sorry, can I help you?"
The man trembled as he slowly backed away, puttin the beer back in the storage cooler. "Uh... no, that's okay. I think I'll just stop by the supermarket..." as quickly as he could, the customer turned around and ran out the door.
*Sigh* "Ya know, between my flipping off half the customers and you scaring off the other half, this place is going to have a really bad year."
"Whatever," Snake muttered, "go check on the robber and see if he stopped bleeding yet."
Nodding once, Tycho exited the counter and headed for the storage room where the bound and gagged criminal had been placed.

Unlocking the storage room door, Tycho immediately spotted the tied-up miscreant sitting on top of a small reddish brown stain.
"Yo, you still alive?"
The man did not respond or even move.
"Well, damn. Now I gotta check for a pulse. Ugh..." Tycho stumbled wearily through the room, and reached out for the criminal's neck.
He froze when he noticed that there was a hole in the man that he hadn't noticed before. Specifically there was a hole on the top of his head, though in the dim lighting Tycho could only make it out because of the patch of hair missing.
"That's weird... Snake didn't shoot him in the head..."
"Hsss!"
Tycho blinked in surprise as a head forced its way out of the hole. An eyeless mouth full of sharp, crooked teeth grinned at him, attached to a thin, worm-like body.
"Oy. Creepy." Turning around, Tycho calmly walked out of the storage room. Then he secured the door and rejoined Snake behind the counter.
"So, he okay?"
"No."
"Oh...... Bummer."
__________________________________________________________________________________

*KA-KROOOM!!*
"Look out!"
"Son of a-!"
The terrorists nearest to the afflicted tank dove away as the anti-armor mine ripped the outdated tank to shreds, killing its pilots and spraying bits of shrapnel about the column.
The other tanks behind slowed down in a panic, and the advancing group as a whole began to get even more nervous.
They were aware that government forces were sent to intercept them, and that the mines had been placed in preparation for an ambush, but as the dust rockets had continued to generate an expanding smokescreen before them, seeing the mines before somebody stepped on them became very difficult. Several terrorists had taken to prodding the ground ahead of them with their rifles as far as the guns could reach, as if half a meter distance was going to save them from a detonation designed to wipe out war machines.
"Just keep your cool! We can always take cover in the buildings once we reach the enemy! Keep moving forward!"
With uneasy murmurs, the terrorist forces continued marching down the street, doing their best to watch where they were stepping.
One such man was slightly more afraid of being shot than blown up, and thus didn't see the metal object at his feet until he had tripped over it.
*Thud!* "Ow!" After cursing for a moment, he then realized that his foot had hit something metal in an area where metal objects tended to explode violently.
"Oh! Oh God!! SHIT!!" Scrambling away on his belly, he got clear of the object and stopped to stare at it.
"What?! What's going on over there?!" one of his superiors yelled angrily. Even if the enemy knew they were headed here, they still didn't want to give away their position!
"Th-That's not a mine..." the terrorist mumbled, as if in a daze, "that's... that's a bomb."
The commander frowned and cautiously approached, trying his best to make out the offending object through the smoke.
What he found made his face whiten slightly. "Damn it... I know these bombs. These are fragmentation charges. Must be remote, too, since it didn't blow up when that fool stepped on it." Then he turned toward the center of the column. "HALT!! All units, hold position and wait for target acquisition!" then, in a quieter voice, he explained his reasoning to those close enough to hear. "The smokescreen's clearing, anyway. Might as well get a clear shot and fight these dogs to their faces than just let them cook us as we advance."
Indeed, the smoke was beginning to clear, and many of the terrorists swallowed uneasily as they watched the bomb in the corner slowly become more apparent.
"What the-hey! There's another one over here!"
"Eh?" The terrorists turned toward the other side of the street, where a second charge was hidden under a bench.
"Geez! Another one!" a different man backed away fearfully as he spotted the rectangular explosive mounted next to a rubbish bin.
"Gyah! There's one over here!"
"Holy-the tank's almost on top of this one!"
"They're everywhere!"
The commander twitched, and then groaned heavily. "I knew I should have called in sick today..."
*Beep-beep-beep!* At once, several small LED lights turned from a blinking yellow to a solid red.
"Well, shit."
*KA-BLAM!!!* *BOOOM!!* *KROOM!!* *KABOOM!!!*

Panicked shouting and chaos barely penetrated the Earth-shattering chain of explosions, and everybody within the dissipating smokescreen hit the ground, either to cover themselves or because they were already dead.
One such terrorist grimaced as a thin shard of shrapnel pierced his thigh, and began crawling forward, not having the presence of mind to remember that he was heading toward the enemy that had them pinned down.
As it was, he mostly got clear of the vision-obscuring smoke, and froze when he saw what laid ahead.
A dozen armored Core troopers, all lined up in a row, marched forward in perfect synchronization, a heavy rocket launcher on each one's shoulder.
Just behind them, a squad leader raised his arm, and began shouting commands, the transceiver in his helmet making his voice coarse and monotoned.
"Salvo one! Aim! Fire!"
Down the row of troopers, one right after another, the soldiers raised their weapons and released a shot, and the terrorist clenched his eyes shut as a wave of armor-piercing warheads sailed into the smoke behind him.
*Bwoom!!* *BOOM!!* *Ka-BLAM!!*
The sound of a tank's fuel and ammo supplies detonating were followed by another chain of explosions only slightly quieter than the bombs had been, and the terrorist hugging the ground trembled in fear as waves of heat washed over him from behind.
"Salvo two! Aim! Fire!"
In a well-practiced motion, each soldier dipped the head of the launcher down and hit a lever on the side, loading the next munition stored in the three-shot rocket clip.
*Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* Once again, the rockets sailed overhead in a closely-knit wave, and once again a few thunderous explosions were heard from within the smoke, followed by a chain of them as they hit the more tightly concentrated units farther back.
"Well, this 'aint going well at all..." the man on the ground mumbled, trying his best to crawl away from the fighting.
"Salvo three! Aim! Fire!"
By this time there was actually some light small-arms fire coming from the interior of the dust cloud, though the only bullets that hit any of the exposed rocket soldiers were random lucky shots, and those bounced harmlessly off the thick armor of the protect-gear.
*Ka-kroom!* A tank shell flew from the obscuring dust and detonated harmlessly two meters in front of the line of Core troopers. The soldiers continued loading their weapons, unfazed, and then released the last salvo into the smokescreen.
As more explosions rang out among the chaos of the terrorist ranks, a radio communication burst into the rocket soldiers' helmets.
*Anti-armor units, fall back and reload! Rifleman, advance under cover! Sniper teams, fire at will! Cut into the sides of the line and use the buildings to your advantage! Move out!*

Among the rampant destruction within the smokescreen, the surviving FA commanders desperately tried to rally their troops, who were mostly fleeing in terror as flames swept over the streets.
The bombs had broken the line, and the rockets had shattered it. Despite only a dozen soldiers having directly taken the field against the FA assault so far, the terrorists had lost all confidence in their victory, and even the unscathed warriors in the rear were mostly waiting for the order to retreat.
One group, having more or less collected itself, rushed into a nearby apartment building, planning to fire upon the Core forces from the windows.
Breaking down the door to the nearest room that faced the street, the terrorists were quite surprised to see a table laying on its side, and even more surprised when soldiers armed with handguns popped up from behind it and opened fire.
*Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!*

*Thud* Mizu smirked as the last body hit the floor, gasping from a chest wound. As the terrorists weren't exceptionally trained, not a one had entered the room ready to shoot, and had all been dispatched before they could even aim their weapons.
Two other Core soldiers immediately moved toward the door, one covering the entryway while the other holstered his gun and picked up the AK-47s that the FAs had been armed with.
"This should give us a little more firepower."
Mizu nodded. "Kona, you take the window and see what you can hit. Yamaka, you cover the hallway. I'm going to drop down into the alley through the fire escape and see what I can nail."
Her compatriots nodded, and each assumed their proper positions.
Mizu herself moved past Kona and slowly climbed out the bedroom window, falling onto the fire escape ladder and hugging the semi-automatic rifle parallel to her body.
*Rattattattatta!*
*BOOM!!*
The sounds of combat flooded easily into the narrow alleyway, but Mizu couldn't see anything that she could shoot easily or that could shoot her, so she continued climbing down the fire escape.
*Foooooosh!*
She paused as a soft, constant roar became apparent, barely audible over the chaos happening just several meters away.
'What the...? Is that a rocket? No... it's not passing by quickly enough.' She looked up, and squinted as sunlight flashed off of something shiny directly above her.
"............ Oh, HELL no!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"We're here!" Ranma shouted, watching as several signs with barely coherent, largely irrelevant, and mostly misspelled exclamations on them became visible.
Kyle frowned as he parked his car on the edge of the protesters' blockade. "Why are they burning an American flag? The US has nothing to do with this."
Ranma shrugged. "Force of habit, I guess. I think they've forgotten how to do anything else even remotely meaningful."
Kyle nodded and stepped out, and Ranma did the same, leaving Hunter secured in the back seat.
The two former officers, dressed as they were in Core military jackets, immediately caught the crowd's attention. Arrayed as they were in a human wall in front of the NTC's parking lot, the throngs almost closed in around Ranma and Kyle threateningly, as they were the only non-protesters outside the center.
"Look! It's the government's loyal dogs!"
"Go back where you came from, you murderous drones!"
"We don't need your kind mucking up the world with violence and killing!"
Ranma sighed. "Oh boy... if Snake was here he'd flip..."
Kyle cleared his throat. "Listen to me! We have strong suspicions that a strong terrorist threat is headed in this direction! You're all in danger! Evacuate this area immediately!"
The warning, predictably, didn't quite get the message across.
"Yeah, right! Pack up your killing machines and hit the road, pig!"
"'Terrorists'? Ha! You mean 'freedom fighters'!"
"We won't let you continue to harbor these murderers!"
"Elitist swine!"
"Zionist conspirators!"
Ranma sweatdropped as he looked around at the crowd surrounding him, wondering what to do. They were in his way, but somehow, it seemed wrong to beat up a bunch of peace protesters, even if they were incoherent morons. And he couldn't ask Kyle to do it, since he wasn't strong enough.
"Graaaaaaugh..."
The angry crowd fell silent as a fierce, throaty growl echoed from the confines of Kyle's car.
"Hey..." one of the sign-bearing fools squinted as he stared through the car window, unable to make out what the armor plate pressed against the door was. "What is that in there?"
Ranma frowned. Then he shrugged and raised two fingers to his mouth before whistling sharply.
*Crash!* The door flew off its hinges and skidded across the parking lot, and Hunter jumped out of the vehicle, snapping his jaws left and right and raising his claws for the attack.
"SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!!!"
"What the hell is that?!"
"Something's wrong here... I'm seeing hideous monsters, but I'm not high!"
The crowd began to flee chaotically from the pet zergling, rushing behind trees and hiding between bushes.
"So this is what the government overlords have been doing!"
"Hideous biological mutations! It's a government conspiracy!"

"Weirdos," Ranma mumbled as he beckoned Hunter to him with his index finger.
"It's odd," Kyle thought aloud, "I can understand what they're saying, but they're still not making any sense."
"That's what marijuana does to people. Terrible thing." Ranma nodded somberly as Hunter approached.
The zergling's head swayed back and forth at the surrounding protesters, and menacing clicking sounds came from the back of his throat. Finally he reached Ranma, who patted him on the head as the killer alien glared at the foolish fodder that surrounded his masters.
"Easy there, big guy," Ranma said soothingly, patting down the armored head crest. Then he turned and addressed the crowd. "What Kyle said is still in effect! If you stay here, it will be at your own risk! You've been warned!"
The protesters failed to muster the courage to continue goading the soldiers, and continued staring fearfully at Hunter.
Kyle scratched his head and began to follow Ranma into the technology center. "I don't think they're gonna leave."
Ranma shook his head sadly. "There's just nothing you can do for some people. Oh well." Not overly concerned about the potential loss of life, Ranma led Hunter and Kyle toward the center.

The Nimiaka Technology Center had opened its main display room for the expo, and a short tower of glass panes greeted the soldiers and their warbeast as they approached the building.
Kyle saw a sign on the door, and groaned as he read it. "Aw, man! It says 'by invitation only'!"
"I think that's just to have an excuse to keep the hippies out," Ranma reasoned. Then he opened the door and held it open for Hunter to go through. "Hey, hey! Keep the claws in! Try not to scratch the glass. Good boy!" After Kyle had followed the zergling, Ranma let go of the door, and then turned to take a closer look at the expo.
Surprisingly, few people paid them any heed, and those that did were mostly nodding appreciatively at Hunter, like they would at a nice statue on display.
Most of the people there were dressed in lab coats or in formal wear, and largely the sparse crowd appeared to be made up of scientists and businessmen that were reviewing the technology displayed.
There were several fascinating things on display; Kyle was instantly mesmerized by a super-shiny sphere that had a laser beam bending around it. Ranma caught sight of a metal robot that looked like a human skeleton, and stared as the machination manipulated a pair of chopsticks (he wasn't very impressed - Ranma had no idea how hard the subtleties of limb manipulation were - but the robot was seriously cool-looking).
Both men snapped to attention as a busty woman in a half-open lab coat approached, chewing on a pen in a suggestive manner.
"Ah, I see we have another exhibit. Big one, isn't he?" she smiled and looked at her clipboard.
"Huh?" Kyle mumbled cluelessly.
"That's odd... it doesn't look like we're supposed to have any genetically engineered monsters on exhibit. It is a bit much for one of these government-funded expos, come to think of it." She tapped the end of her pen against her nose. "Are you a last-minute addition?"
"Um, no. Last-minute rescue, actually," Ranma said, having only the slightest idea what he was talking about.
"Ah, okay!" The woman smiled brightly, "excellent! No paperwork, then!" She turned around and cupped a hand next to her mouth. "Oh doctor! We have a matter that requires your attention!"
Ranma and Kyle awkwardly stood still as a tall, gangly old man with a ring of gray hair around the back of his skull walked up to the woman with the clipboard. He was obviously a scientist, and was wearing a sharp and well-cleaned white lab coat with black shoulder pads, black boots, and black rubber gloves, along with round wire-frame glasses.
"Yes Maria, what is it?"
The woman smiled and pointed to the two soldiers. "Dr. Deth, these men require your attention."
Ranma sweatdropped heavily. "'Dr. Deth'? What?"
"Ah," the old scientist murmured, grinning, "I see you've heard of me!"
"Uh... no, not really," Ranma admitted, "though with a name like that, I probably should have."
"Ohhhhh..." Kyle mumbled, smiling suddenly. "I get it! Dr. Deth!" Ranma, Maria, and the aforementioned doctor turned to look at him. "You're a foreigner, aren't you?"
*Thud!* Ranma fell to the floor face-first.
"So, what do we have here? An unannounced exhibit?" The doctor kneeled down to look Hunter in the eyes. Hunter snorted and stared back, his red eyes glaring an angry crimson that shined on the window of the scientist's glasses. "Ah, yes. A fine specimen indeed. Though I'm not sure if it's appropriate for this exposition. While conventional weapons technologies are on display, the government tries to keep more controversial technologies, such as mutants, cloning, alien spacecraft, satanic hell-borne devices, and doomsday devices, restricted to our secret mountain laboratories or dark, rustic castles."
Ranma picked himself up off the floor. "Actually, we're not here for-" then he stopped. "Wait. Doomsday devices?"
Dr. Deth nodded. "But of course. Such things aren't to be shown around here, of course, but if you think the 'love & peace' simpletons outside are making a racket now, you should stop by the annual mad scientists' tech convention!" He grinned. "Of course, they usually don't stick around long after it starts. We don't suffer fools as well as the government."
"Riiiiiiiight..." Ranma mumbled. "Anyway... we have reason to believe that a terrorist assault force is en route to attack this expo and steal all the technology."
Dr. Death blinked, and cocked his head to the side. "Really now? What makes you think that?"
*BWA-KOOOOOOOOM!!!!* Light poured into the building from an explosion outside, and a fraction of a second later a huge shock wave blasted into the Nimiaka Technology Center, instantly shattering the glass exterior of the display room and blowing it inside onto the marble floor. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and the Earth itself trembled at the force of the Prometheus' neocannon.
Everyone inside the tech center, with the exception of Hunter and the small group standing around him, began to shout chaotically and run for the rear exits.
Ranma grimaced, and stuck a finger in his ear to try and relieve the ringing noise. "Yeah, so, anyway, we're gonna have to go fight off the terrorists now, so maybe you guys should evacuate."
The doctor nodded seriously. "Yes, that may be a wise thing to do." He squinted and leaned his head forward slightly, looking over Ranma's shoulder. "Though, if I may ask, how are you planning on fighting THAT?"
Ranma sighed wearily and slowly turned around to look outside, knowing that he wouldn't like what he was about to see.
He was right. The huge Prometheus mech stomped slowly toward its target, its massive cannons swiveling left and right along with its cockpit as the pilot searched for any opposition.
Ranma grit his teeth. The mech had fired a shot right into the midst of the protesters, and those that could still move were desperately running away from the blackened crater of death that the neocannon had forged in front of the complex.
'It doesn't matter if they were morons! Those morons were no threat to anybody!' Ranma began to stalk toward the frame where the glass doors used to be, but a black rubber glove landed on his shoulder.
"Wait! You're going to fight that thing?"
Ranma stared back at the strange doctor, then nodded sharply. "I'm the only one that can."
Hunter growled.
Ranma frowned at the zergling, then shook his head. "Sorry boy. This one's mine."
Dr. Deth raised an eyebrow. "Well, you seem to think you know what you're doing. Very well. Here." Reaching into his lab coat, he pulled out three small, heavy cylinders. Each one had [DANGER!] written across the body in a bright red, and each one had a button at the top that looked far too easy to press by accident.
"Eh? What're those?" Kyle asked, already feeling the urge to press the button to see what happens rising.
"They're just a few prototype grenades that I was going to put on exhibit, but which the supervisors decided were 'a bit much' for the expo. These grenades have a four-second fuse, at which point they collapse into a neutrino singularity, causing solid matter to fold in on itself while redistributing the allocation of mass in random fluctuations within its three-meter detonation radius."
"......................." A popping noise came from the general vicinity of Kyle's head, and a thin stream of smoke began to leak out of his ears.
Ranma stared at the mad scientist in front of him, then sweatdropped and pushed the offered weapons back. "Uh... that's okay. I've got it covered."
Maria blinked, hugging her clipboard to her chest. "But you don't have anything but a pistol! How are you going to destroy something that big?"
"I'm gonna run up under it and poke it in the leg!" Ranma said confidently. Though he hadn't tried using the bakusai tenketsu since he had hurt himself using it on the Firestorm, he was sure he could pull it off again if he needed to.
The doctor and his assistant stared at Ranma like he was an idiot.
"What?! It works! Really!" Ranma insisted.
"And people say I'm crazy," Dr. Deth mumbled under his breath. Then he gently pushed the explosives into Ranma's hands. "Here. Just take the grenades. In case you... um... can't get close enough to 'poke' them."
Ranma rolled his eyes and took the weapons. Even if he knew the power of the breaking point, he realized just how stupid it sounded trying to explain to other people.
"Come on, Kyle," Ranma muttered, smacking his companion upside the head.
"The answer is twelve!" Kyle shouted spontaneously, breaking out of his daze.
"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said, "hold Hunter here until I finish up with this thing, all right? I'm gonna take it down myself."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Within the cockpit of the Prometheus battle mech, the pilot continued scanning left and right, swiveling the upper torso of the massive war machine as he searched for any targets. Not that he expected any, and certainly none that would be a threat to him.
Which was actually why he was looking so carefully for targets, and why he had fired into the crowd of misguided fools below (well, actually, it was also because they had begun yelling at him. No doubt they had mistaken the mech for another technological innovation for display at the exposition). He was bored.
Aside from a spike of fear when he realized that one of the other mech units had been killed, the 'assault' looked to be nothing more than showing up and scaring off everybody so that the retrievement convoy won't have to waste time shooting people. There had been absolutely nothing that sought to challenge the might of the armored behemoth he was sitting in, and he hadn't even come across any targets of opportunity on the way. And he wasn't allowed to fire upon the tech center, since he was supposed to avoid damaging the valuable technology within. What good was an unnecessarily large explosive cannon if there was nothing to use it on? Even the incoherent whiners parading around the tech center had fled.

Being that the pilot was seated underneath a canopy of three-inch thick armor glass, he had no chance of hearing the gunshot that originated from the tech center entrance.
As it was, he didn't realize that anything had happened at all until the wounded body of the soldier stationed atop his unit fell onto the canopy in agony, leaving streaks of blood as it slowly slid off onto the ground.
The pilot scowled and jerked the torso back around, spotting a single man aiming a gun just outside the building.
Not much of a target, but at least killing this one wouldn't feel as hollow as firing upon an unarmed crowd.
'I just need to check the range...' Using the neocannon was out of the question; he was too close to the center, and the last shot had revealed that the structure might be less sturdy than he might have guessed. He would never live it down if he destroyed the objective trying to kill a single man with an eighty-ton death machine.

Down on the ground, Ranma began to stalk forward, holstering his pistol. He left the grenades in his pocket; whether or not he needed to, it was probably best that he give the bakusai tenketsu another try, just to make sure he had it down. A technique that could blow up a piece of armor with a touch could come in handy against giant robots and vehicles.
As he approached, he noticed that there were several metal tubes underneath the nose of the mech that fed into the sides of the cockpit nose. Further down, near the front of the nose, there were several small pits that faced the direction that the nose was pointed in.
Ranma was largely ignorant of technology and machinery, but to be fair, many who were not would have guessed that the system was meant to feed air into the engine for cooling, even if the pits didn't seem big enough to catch much air.
Of course, they would have revised their guesses once they saw small flames pop up in front of the pits. Ranma didn't really notice until it was too late.
*FWOOOOOOM!* The pigtailed soldier jerked to a halt as huge jets of fire burst from the pits in the nose. He twitched as the flames coalesced into a gigantic fireball, and he turned around to run away as the firestorm blasted forward.
"GYAAAAA!!" Though he made it to the edge of the flamethrower's effective range, Ranma had been too slow in reacting to get out of the way entirely, and he dropped to the ground and began rolling back and forth to put out the flames that had bloomed over his back.
After a few seconds, the fire was out, and Ranma groaned as he got to his feet and began dusting himself off.
"Go Ranma! You can do it!" Kyle shouted from within the building.
'What is he, my cheerleader?' Ranma thought, sweatdropping.
Across the charred landscape that used to be a pristine and well-decorated park in front of the tech center, the Prometheus took a step back, its flamethrowers releasing small puffs of flame tauntingly. Apparently the pilot had taken his comrade who had fallen off the top of the mech for dead, or otherwise didn't care, because a blazing corpse also decorated the field, burning as if a warning of things to come to all enemies of the Russian war machine.
Ranma frowned and then strafed to the right, planning to rush in one he wasn't facing the mech's front any more.
The head swiveled toward him faster than he would have guessed it was capable of, and the flamethrower activated once again, bathing the ground in fire and preventing Ranma from getting any closer to the deadly machine.
Ranma reversed direction and then ran to the left, only to nearly get roasted again as the Prometheus swiveled its head back to meet him.
Ranma growled and jumped away.
"......... Aw, the hell with it!" Ranma fished one of the grenades out of his pocket, pushed the button, and then chucked the high-tech device at an angle that he was sure would keep it out of the flamethrower's way.

The pilot of the Prometheus couldn't hear Ranma expression of frustration, but he could see the grenade as it twirled through the air, aimed to land past his cockpit at the mech's chassis. He wasn't terribly worried, as he didn't know a single type of grenade that could possibly damage the Prometheus' armor.
*Clank!*
With the source of the noise so close, the pilot could barely make out the sound of the grenade bouncing off of the top of the mech.
Oddly enough, the sound of the device exploding was crystal-clear to him.
*BOINK!*

*GWOOOOSH*
Ranma stared as a vortex of purple, green, and black opened up around the grenade in the described radius, fluctuating in a myriad of colorful swirls as it warped the body of the machine nearby.
The Prometheus' cockpit and lower torso, which were out of the effective radius of the weapon, shuddered as the upper torso and cannon mounts were consumed, and their atomic structures randomly rearranged by several theoretical quantum forces that the author doesn't know anything about anyway.
Ranma's left eye twitched as Kyle and Hunter approached him from behind, with Dr. Deth and his assistant in tow.
".................. 'Boink'? What the HELL was that?" Ranma finally asked, watching as the vortex finally collapsed in on itself.
*Thud!* *Thud!* The longer part of the two neocannons, which were out of range of the singularity charge, fell heavily to the ground, followed by the entire cockpit. Little shards of super-dense metal, carbon, and numerous other elements that had been present within the effect radius rained down over the warped remains of the massive death machine, testament to the awesome power of science (even really weird science).
Dr. Deth sweatdropped. "Yes, 'boink'. I know it's... well, it's not exactly a very intimidating noise, but you can't fault the weapon for efficiency."
Kyle scratched his head. "Scientific progress goes 'boink'. Sounds like the title of a comic book."
"Yeah, whatever," Ranma mumbled irritably, stalking up to the cockpit of the mech.
Jumping up onto the cockpit nose, he grabbed hold of the edge of the canopy frame and then knelt down for maximum leverage.
*Krrrrrrnk!* The mechanisms that kept the canopy shut were overcome, and the hinges to the canopy screeched in protest as they were forced open.
Ranma took one look at the utterly dazed Russian man in the pilot's seat, and turned away. "Yo, Hunter! He's yours!"
Kyle sweatdropped as the man-eating alien darted toward the machine, and then he turned toward the man and woman behind him. "Eh heh... Ranma's still... a little uncomfortable with killing people directly."
"I see. So he gets other people to do it for him," the doctor observed. Next to him, Maria chuckled nervously as she watched Hunter rip into the mech pilot with gruesome ferocity.
"Yeah, pretty much!" Kyle forced a laugh and put his hand on the back of his head.
"Yes I do, so let's get a move on!" Ranma yelled back at Kyle, " 'cause if Hunter fills up, then you're gonna have to do it Kyle!"
The blond sighed and turned toward the scientist and assistant. "Yeah, well, thanks for your help. Those... uh... things you gave us should come in handy."
Dr. Deth grinned. "No, no, not at all! It is my duty to help our protectors in any way I can! And besides, someday you might have to foil my attempt to take over the world, so don't be too generous with your gratitude!"
Kyle laughed. "Ha ha ha! Yeah, you're right!" Then he stopped laughing. "Wait, what?"
"Never mind! You have work to do!"
The blond nodded somewhat hesitantly, and began to walk towards Ranma, who was waiting impatiently for Hunter to lick the last scraps of human flesh from the cockpit interior.
Suddenly, Kyle froze, and zipped back around. "Wait! I get it! Dr. 'Deth'! Like 'death'!" He paused. "I'll bet your practice doesn't do very well, huh?"
*Crash!* Ranma, Maria, and the doctor all facefaulted.
__________________________________________________________________________________

*KROOM!!* Another IS-2 exploded as the armor-piercing rocket found its mark, driving straight through the thicker frontal armor and detonating in the interior. Armor plates were thrown among the scattered terrorist lines, which were promptly cut once again as numerous stitches of machine gun fire peppered the Angels' ranks.
"Move into the buildings! Hold them here! You there! Get the heavier munitions and-" the terrorist commander was silenced as a sniper bullet penetrated his skull, and the terrified and disenheartened criminals began to fall back, crawling to safety among the backs of their fallen companions.

Behind the front lines, Mia frowned restlessly.
She would have preferred to be farther forward, moving from building to building along with the soldiers, or perhaps moving in with the second group to cut off their escape. Unfortunately, to leave for the front would be to leave Yujikata in command of tactics and strategic planning, and that wasn't a mistake she was willing to suffer for.
"Colonel Tokima! We have incoming intel!" One of her lieutenants rushed up to her holding a piece of paper, and looking rather shaken. "We have confirmation on the nature of the rogue war machines to the south!"
Mia blinked, and took the paper. She frowned as she began reading the description, and then her eyes widened as she finished.
"My God... units with that kind of firepower could..." she trailed off, her mind racing. "The dispatched anti-armor units! They were ordered to engage these things!"
She ran for the communications van, stopping at the entrance.
"Get me a line to the dispatched anti-armor units that were sent back to HQ right away!" The tech at the controls didn't bother to ask any questions, and immediately set to work.
Mia turned away, massaging her forehead. 'Damn it! If the intel is accurate, my guys don't stand a chance against those things! We're going to need air power to bring them down!'
Her brooding was interrupted as the tech shouted back at her.
"Colonel! We have an emergency communication from one of the soldiers near the front! ...... Something about... robots in the sky?"
Mia didn't think, she didn't speak, she didn't even blink. She looked up.
Six shiny blue boomers looked down on the rear of the Core lines as they stood atop the surrounding apartment buildings, large black cannons lowering themselves over their bulbous shoulder mounts.
"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!!!"
*Ba-boom!* *Ba-boom!* *Ba-boom!* *Ba-boom!* *Ba-boom!* *Ba-boom!*
__________________________________________________________________________________

"This is unit 13-A, en route to intercept enemy armor unit. Do we have any more intel on the terrorist units?"
The soldier pulled the radio mouthpiece away from the transmitter in his mask, and there was a short burst of static on the radio.
*Pssssht...* *Units 13, 14, 17, and 20! Pull back! Withdraw immediately! The enemy units are-! Wait, what? What's tha-* *PSSSSSSHT!* Heavy static followed the interrupted transmission, and the soldier at the radio frowned as he tried to reach the communications van again, to no avail.
"Damn it. All right, you heard the man. We're going back to the ambush point. It looks like they're having trouble."
The driver nodded and accelerated, heading toward the next intersection.
The six soldiers that made up the heavy weapons squad were seated in a Core APC, which was specially suited for urban travel and combat, much like the Rhino (the big 'ole DAPC machine that Tycho never did put back together). It wasn't small or agile enough to make a U-turn on the same side of the road, not with the street lights and such, and thus the armored transport dove out into the road intersection to make the necessary change in direction, followed by the other APC in its unit.
The soldier at the wheel, taught like all halfway decent drivers to look in both directions before making a turn, easily caught sight of the armored behemoth stomping toward that very location, and his eyes grew wide underneath the protect-gear's expressionless goggles and mask.
"What the HELL is that?!"
Neither he nor his companions were ever offered an answer to that question, as the Prometheus pilot caught sight of the target of opportunity and swung the mech's massive neocannons down to firing position.
*BWA-KOOOOOOOOM!!!!*

Asuka grit her teeth as she watched the APCs get blown into the ground, along with the entire length of road they had happened to be on. The monstrous war machine ahead of her watched the intersection for more targets, pausing in its advance.
She gripped the strap of the backpack she was wearing, her mind racing. She had destroyed that last Prometheus, but that was because she had been able to jump onto the top. From street level, there seemed to be no way to get onto the machine short of climbing up the leg, and to make that attempt would have been idiotic at best. Meaning that if Ranma were here, he'd probably do it.
'Well, it's stopped now, so maybe I can get ahead of it...' Asuka thought, scanning the buildings on both sides of the street. She quickly abandoned the plan, though; there was no way that she would have enough time to get past the mech, climb to a high enough floor, and then jump down before the Prometheus started moving on again.
'Damn...' resigned to tailing the machine, Asuka ducked into an alleyway, sticking her head out to check on her target. 'I wonder where that guy in the trench coat went, though. I never did manage to follow him in the smoke.'
*C-click* Asuka grimaced as she felt the barrel of a pistol poke into her shoulder.
"Drop the gun and turn around."
Asuka frowned, and did so slowly, dropping her confiscated automatic rifle on the ground.
She was only slightly surprised when she saw a Russian-looking guy pointing a Luger at her face, and that was because the man spoken flawless Japanese (it had only been a short sentence, but still...). He was obviously the figure she had glanced earlier, wearing a brown trench coat and carrying some sort of large bundle on his right shoulder. He also wore an expensive-looking crucifix around his neck, which seemed largely irrelevant at that time.
Rayden frowned as he looked over the woman in front of him. "You... do not have the makings of a terrorist..."
"Congratulations, Sherlock," Asuka said irritably, "you kind of have the makings of a Russian gunman, though. No offense."
"Don't worry, I'm not one of Yutchzky's men," the vigilante assured her.
"Oh! That's great! What a relief!" Asuka said in an overly-joyous tone, "THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU POINTING THAT THING AT MY FACE?!"
"I cannot afford to make any mistakes," Rayden replied calmly, "do not worry, I won't shoot you."
Asuka immediately turned and kicked with her right foot, striking the gun in the bottom of the handle with her toe and knocking it out of Rayden's grasp. Turning the rest of the way around, she then snatched the AK-47 back off the ground, and aimed it at the super-soldier's chest.
"For a guy who can't make any mistakes, you were pretty quick in making that one," Asuka chided, switching to single-shot mode on the rifle, "you don't tell someone you're holding at gunpoint that you're not going to shoot them. They might believe you."
Rayden stared at her expressionlessly, and then glanced toward the back of the alley, where his pistol laid. "Impressive. You are very skilled."
"Oh, thank you so much!" Asuka said mockingly in a high-pitched, super-girly voice. Then it went flat again. "Now back off jerkwad. I've got bigger fish to fry."
As if in response to that statement, a distant pounding noise was heard as the nearby Prometheus began moving forward toward its objective.
Asuka cursed under her breath. "Well, great. Okay pal, this is how it's going to work. I'm going to-"
Rayden responded by walking around her into the street, apparently unconcerned that she had a semi-automatic weapon aimed at him. "We must hurry if we are to stop that machine."
Asuka's left eye twitched, but she lowered her gun. "Yeah? You got any ideas?"
"I have guns," Rayden responded in a totally unhelpful manner, "you destroyed the other machine; do they have any weak points?"
Asuka frowned as she followed the vigilante down the street. "Well... I destroyed it by hitting the ammo compartment under the shoulder mount. But there's no way you can hit that without getting right up there on top of it."
"I see," he mumbled, once again being incredibly unhelpful. "There are no other weaknesses from this angle? It would be most difficult to try and assault this machine from the front."
The Russian started to move faster, and Asuka grit her teeth as she started jogging to keep up. "You're the big, bad gunman! Why don't you figure out where to shoot!"
Rayden shrugged. "I could likely destroy it with what I have, but I don't have many shots that could damage something that big, and there are other machines out there. If I hit it, the hit must count."
This, unlike his other statements, was somewhat helpful. "Wait! I remember!" Asuka said suddenly, "there's some kind of fuel compartment on the bottom that just sticks out into the rear, I think. If you can pierce the outer armor, it should do some serious damage!" She pointed to the rear of the machine. "There, near the bottom."
Rayden responded by sticking his left hand into his coat, and pulling out a sniper rifle. Then he handed it to Asuka. "Do you know how to use this?"
She didn't bother responding as she dropped her rifle and snatched the offered one. Instead she checked the cartridge, hit the safety, and then lined up a shot at the soldier standing at attention atop the assault mech.
*Pchoo* The silencer masked the noise of the gunshot as the soldier fell over limply, eventually sliding off the mech and landing heavily on the ground.
"............" Rayden gave Asuka a cautious sideways glance. "I take it your career as a security guard has been... eventful?"
"Take a look around, dork," Asuka said snidely, holding the rifle over her shoulder, "just another day in Tokyo, you know?" She didn't bother informing him of her actual career that had been recently terminated. After all, she didn't want to scare off the guy before he got the chance to help her some more.
Rayden calmly watched the Prometheus stalk down the street, and pulled out a plastic-coated box from his coat pocket.
"What, you're lighting up now? Isn't there a better time for you to be taking a smoke break?"
Ignoring her, he took one of the cigarettes between his teeth and then lit it with his usual lighter (this time without having several explosives keyed to detonate). The mech seemed to be moving slowly, no doubt searching for more targets as it went.
"Ugh. Just keep away, all right? I can't STAND cigarette smoke."
Rayden put away his lighter, and then flipped the bundle on his shoulder down into his arms. Then he grabbed the cloth cover and ripped it off.
Asuka's eyes bulged. In Rayden's hands was the biggest gun she had ever seen that wasn't mounted to a vehicle of some type (and remember, she had worked with Snake). The stock was block-shaped like a shotgun's, and had both a .50 caliber belt feed on the top, and a huge revolver-like cylinder that held six munitions that looked like tank shells. The barrel, likewise, had two parts: a perforated barrel that stuck out on top and was obviously for the machine gun function, and a larger, shorter cannon barrel that was shielded to protect the rest of the gun from the discharge. The entire device gleamed brightly in the mid-afternoon sun, and Asuka felt just a little bit nervous as she looked at it (remember again, she had worked with Snake).
"Uh... okay... is that thing really going to pierce that armor?"
Rayden let some smoke blow out of the corner of his mouth, and then raised the massive weapon, pulling back a lever on the side that switched firing modes. "I have been crafting weapons since I was old enough to understand how they work."
The haze of the tobacco swam over him, and his altered senses fragmented; he could see his shot moving through the air, and going low. He budged the weapon upward slightly. Explosions seemed to ring in his ears, a ghost of things to come. "There is no armor Yutchzky can craft that can protect him from Judgment."
Asuka sweatdropped. "Uh... great. You gonna shoot, or what?"
"Lord, guide my aim," Rayden murmured, causing Asuka to groan tiredly, "let my power carry your word, and my bullets carve the defilers from this land."
*Shtoom!* The shell burst from Judgment's barrel, and Asuka was amazed that the bottom portion of Rayden's trench coat was the only thing blown back, for how powerful the recoil looked to be. Then again, she supposed that she didn't know many people who could have even kept such a big gun up with both hands.
*CHAKOOOM!!* The shell punched through the heavy armor over the flamethrower ammo basin, and the entire mech was lost in a huge vortex of flame as the fuel reserves detonated like a napalm bomb.
The Prometheus stopped as all of its internals were subjected to far more heat than the coolant sinks could handle, and fire flooded through the ammo compartments and into the more sensitive mechanical components.
Asuka shielded her eyes and gagged slightly as a wave of intense heat washed over her. Rayden simply walked forward, apparently unaffected.
Aiming at the same spot, Rayden lifted his weapon into the air and fired off another round.
*CHOOM!!* This time there was no brilliant firestorm, but there was a devastating explosion that threw chunks of armor and bits of what was formerly the engine and power core all over the street.
With its center of gravity severely altered, its hydraulics shot, and its failsafes inoperable, the Prometheus teetered unsteadily on its flame-weakened knees before toppling forward, the huge cockpit nose digging into the melting asphalt below. The firestorm, meanwhile, continued to rage all around the now-helpless unit, and Asuka shook her head as the cockpit was quickly lost within the flames.

Rayden took a deep drag from his cigarette, then blew out a thin wisp of smoke. "He is finished. This unit is done." Then he turned toward Asuka. "Your assistance is appreciated, but it would be most wise of you to return to..." he trailed off as Asuka walked right past him.
"I don't take orders from the likes of you," the former police captain reminded him coldly, "now you can either follow me, or you can take off. Either way, I'm going forward."
Rayden stared at Asuka's back as she walked away, an unreadable expression on his face. Then he took another drag from his cigarette, slung his gun Judgment over his shoulder, and walked briskly to catch up with her.
"You go to very great lengths to protect whatever you guard. It's... commendable, I suppose."
"Yeah, whatever," Asuka said dismissively, snatching the cigarette out of Rayden's mouth, "if you're coming with me, then no smoking!" She rubbed the lit end on the belt of Rayden's coat to put the cigarette out, then tossed the rest of the tobacco stick in a nearby rubbish bin.
The vigilante sweatdropped as he watched her do this, and stared at the small ashen smudge on his belt as Asuka continued on down the street. Then he followed her once again. "You seem very much at ease, considering I'm carrying a gun almost as big as you," he said, just the tiniest edge of bitterness in his voice.
Asuka stopped, and turned around. "Please don't threaten me," she said evenly, "not even one of those veiled, halfway-subtle threats. I don't enjoy it." She turned back around and calmly continued forward.
Rayden wasn't sure if the flames behind him were finally starting to die down, but for some reason it suddenly seemed a bit colder outside. 'I see my luck with women continues... at least these Japanese are hardy folk, to deal with things like this so well.'
The poor man didn't have a clue in the world.
__________________________________________________________________________________

The pilot of one of the two remaining Prometheus mechs searched the street warily as he continued attempting to contact his comrades, particularly the unit that had reached the tech center already. However, to his bewilderment, he could only reach unit 3, who had broken off from him just a little earlier.
This didn't bode well at all. That the Prometheus units could fall so quickly without half the city lighting up with explosions meant that the Japanese government was far more prepared to deal with a heavy conventional assault than the Freedom's Angels could have possibly guessed. And even worse, it meant that he wasn't nearly as safe in the armored cockpit of an eighty-ton war machine as he seemed to be.

It was, with those admissions, only moderately ironic that he never noticed a small metal cylinder the flew out of a nearby window and landed between the massive feet of the heavy machine.
*BOINK!* *Fwooooooosh!* A vortex opened up (well, sort of opened up. It wasn't exactly there, you see - it's a quantum thing) and immediately got to its work of rearranging the atomic balances within its area of effect, reducing both legs and the lower torso of the mech into so many composite metal scrunchies.
*CRASH!* As the vortex closed in on itself, the cockpit and upper torso of the Prometheus came crashing down onto the street, and the soldier riding on top of the mech stumbled over and slid down the canopy, stunned and completely unsure of what had happened.
*Pow!* That soldier was thrown across the street and into unconsciousness as a flying roundhouse connected with his shoulder, and Ranma slid to a stop on the ground directly in front of the armored canopy.
Cupping his hands together, a ball of blue ki began to form in his hand.
"Feh! This is too easy!" Ranma shouted, shoving his arms forward. "Moko takabisha!" *BLAMMO!!*
The ki blast was heavily concentrated, so while it managed to break a hole in the cockpit canopy, it didn't do much to the area surrounding it. Even so, Ranma wiped some sweat from his forehead, having poured more energy than usual into the blast to break through the heavy armor.
"Yeesh! Okay, this one's done!" Ranma jumped onto the cockpit and reached inside, grabbing the shell-shocked pilot and managing to pull him out onto the street in only three tries (his head kept hitting the area outside the hole).
After dumping the second Russian onto the ground, Ranma turned around to look for his companions, only to quickly turn away uneasily as he saw Hunter gorging himself on the previously dispatched opponent.
Kyle didn't seem quite as perturbed as Ranma was as he walked up to the Prometheus remains, but still looked worried. "Hey, we're not expected to arrest any of these guys, are we?"
Ranma gave him a blank expression, then stared at the remaining soldier, who was lying on the street, dazed.
Hunter licked some blood from his beak, then growled as he stalked up to the semi-conscious victim. When he was only a meter away, Hunter stopped and looked at Ranma, as if waiting for a decision.
Ranma sweatdropped. "Uh... I'm going to say 'no'."
Hunter happily jumped toward the remaining Russian, who was sensate enough to give a short scream of terror before he was silenced permanently.
"Oh! That's a relief!" Kyle laughed, holding his chest. "Cause we already got in plenty of trouble for today, you know, with stealing a car and then ditching it and all. Don't want to overdo it."
"Riiiiiight," Ranma drawled, "anyway, I'm going to climb on top of that building there and see if I can spot any more of those things. I want you to... Hunter?"
Ranma blinked as the zergling looked up from its current meal (dead, but unfinished), and began to sniff the air, though it was only possible to tell from the grating sound of air being sucked powerfully into the hardened slits of the creature's beak.
"Yo, something wrong, boy?" Kyle asked, patting the zergling on the head.
"Grrrrrrgh..." Kyle flinched away at Hunter's dangerous growl, though the killer alien had his eyes locked on something down the street, obviously too far away for either of its masters to see.
"REEAR!!" With a bloodthirsty screech, Hunter sprinted forward at a speed that no one would have expected from something of his size, leaving a trail of dust (along with the occasional piece of shattered scrap metal) to mark his path.
Ranma scratched his head as he watched the zergling disappear into the distance. "Huh. Well, I guess he's got other plans."
Kyle looked worried. "Do you really think we should let him run off on his own like that?"
"No, I don't!" Ranma answered as he jumped up to a third-story window, "do YOU really think we should try and stop him?"
"You know, that is an excellent point."
__________________________________________________________________________________

The terrorist retrievement convoy lumbered by along the deserted Tokyo streets, their hastily constructed, slipshod escort trucks (a Toyota with a Squad Assault Weapon duct-taped to the roof) a stark contrast to the sharp and devastating Russian mecha (not that it had done the Russian mecha very much good so far).
Their job was to travel to the target location and steal everything that looked more complex than a screwdriver, and they were well-suited to their job.
On the way, however, the rag-tag convoy trip was pretty boring. Much of the time these routes were devoid of any targets of opportunity, which included anybody holding, possibly hiding, possessing, or having heard of a gun, which was thanks to the semi-successful efforts of whoever went ahead of them. Thus, the death toll of stray dogs and cats that tirelessly wandered the streets and alleyways tended to rise dramatically each time one such procession rolled past (the terrorists, despite being stupid and illogical, tended toward the opposite ethical policy as animal rights enthusiasts).
However, when one gunner happily shouted that he saw a dog coming, and then a moment later remarked that it was the biggest and most hideous dog he had ever seen, it occurred to many that this routine operation had hit a bit of a speed bump.
*Rattattattattattattattattatta!*
*Ptang!* *Toom!* *Twang!* The spray of bullets bounced harmlessly off of Hunter's reinforced carapace, and he continued his 50 mph clip headlong toward the side of the old pickup truck that was heading the convoy.
Front claws digging into the pavement, Hunter turned and smashed sidelong into the head vehicle, causing the truck to flip over sideways and then crash into a utility pole, to say nothing of its occupants.
Hunter stopped in the middle of the street, and his crimson eyes scanned over the remaining vehicles, like a cat deciding which mouse looked tastiest.
A few of the gunners still hadn't stopped firing their machine guns at him, though they were reasonably sure at this point that it wasn't doing anybody any good.
"RAM IT!! NOW!!" Nobody was sure who called the order, or precisely what drug he was under the influence of at the time, but the new head vehicle of the convoy, another pickup truck, accelerated suddenly and bolted forward straight at the deadly alien.
Hunter snorted, and then leaned down, bunching up his legs.
The driver died fairly quickly as the zergling's claws ripped through the cabin windshield, tearing through glass and metal heedless of the sensitive human flesh sitting just beyond. The gunner sitting in the passenger seat bravely attempted to open the door to escape, but instead fell into a tumble toward the invading claws as the unbalanced and still-moving truck slowly teetered over onto its side.

As they watched the truck fall onto its side and skid to a stop, with the vicious warbeast's front end still poking into the cabin, the remains of the convoy seriously considered the possibility of turning around telling Igov that some kind of freakish mutant, that wasn't on their side, inexplicably enough, had attacked and eaten several of their comrades.
Apparently they dwelled on the matter too long, for a few seconds later, the roof of the downed truck ripped open like a sardine can, and Hunter made a run for the next vehicle in line.
The occupants of the car made the assumption that they were slightly safer trying to make their escape in the car than outside it, and put the vehicle in reverse to try and get some distance to turn around.
Hunter merely ripped into the hood with his upper claws, then bit down hard through the hood and into the engine, arresting the vehicle's acceleration. After that, it was only three more strokes of his claws until the alien warbeast once again stuck his head into the vehicle through the front windshield, his beak snapping fiercely with uncontrolled bloodlust.
"OH MY GO-AAAAAUGH!!!"
"Oh God! Oh God! Please, NO!! GET IT AWAY FRO-Gugh!"

At this point the remaining terrorists were seriously worried about their chances of destroying this rogue monster before they were sliced up in an extremely painful and visceral manner.
One man had finished rummaging through the emergency weapons supplies, and jumped outside of his truck brandishing an old RPG launcher.
"Ha! Let's see it shrug THIS off!" As plenty of blood was still flying from the shattered vehicle, the puny fool took plenty of time to line up his shot properly, and then released the explosive projectile.
*Kaboom!* Hunter was blown off of the shredded remains of the automobile, and landed hard on his side before skidding to a painful stop on the sidewalk.
"Ha! Got the bastard!" The terrorist cheered, raising his weapon.
The other men sweatdropped as they watched the alien slowly get to its feet, a darkened, charred patch on its armor where the RPG had hit. No actual damage was evident. *Screech!* *Vroooooom*
The terrorist who had fired the projectile, unfortunately, had spent more time gaping than the others, and only realized that his comrades had abandoned him when one of the vehicles rolled over his foot.
"OW!! Hey! Watch where you're... uh..." the man gulped as he watched the last two vehicles speed away in the direction they had come from, apparently deeming the operation a failure.
"Tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk," a rapid-fire clicking noise echoed from deep within Hunter's throat, and leftover blood dripped from his beak as he slowly advanced upon the final victim of the hour.
"No! Somebody! Anybody!! Help me!! WAAAAAUGH!! AAAH!!! AAAH!!! MY LEG!! NO, PLEASE!!! IT'S-Gurk!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Get down! Get behind cover, now!!" Mia shouted, dashing away from the lines of explosions that ran down the street.
Pulling her arms over her head, the Colonel winced as the rain of munitions blasted past her in a formulated track that followed down the entire stretch of road, annihilating Core's assets that had been placed behind the front lines.
'Damn it, intel didn't include the possibility of airborne threats!' Mia thought, frustrated.
The boomers atop the buildings stopped firing, and Mia got up into a crouch. The whole street, as far as the robots were able to hit from their angle, had been blasted in two parallel lines, which left two deep trenches in the shattered asphalt.
Looking up at the boomers, Mia could see the shoulder cannons slide backward out of firing position. Then their arms started moving, and Mia grimaced as the boomers began to move away from each other, apparently searching for actual targets rather than general bombardment.
She scanned the area. The communications van and both munitions trucks had been wiped out by the bombardment, and several Core troopers lay on the ground, wounded. Unfortunately, there was no time to help them while those shiny blue death machines were stationed above.
She spied an abandoned autorifle laying next to the flaming metal skeleton of a shredded car, and Mia ran for it while fishing an armor-piercing clip from one of the pockets on the leg of her jumpsuit.
Luckily, the boomers that had remained to clean up that segment of street apparently didn't notice her, because Mia was able to snatch up the rifle without having to dodge armor-piercing fire.
'They must hold the protect-gear as a higher priority,' Mia guessed as she popped out the normal autorifle clip and inserted her special one.
Regardless of why they hadn't fired up until then, Mia grimaced as she heard a few heavy rounds drive into the shattered metal hulk she was using as cover, and she took a deep breath before jumping out into firing range.
*Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-!!* The boomer that was gunning for her shook slightly as the autorifle rounds dug into, but not through, its thicker torso armor, and continued to return fire.
*B-Twang!* *Bwoom!* One lucky shot slammed into its optical sensors, and then bored all the way out the other side, blowing out a mess of electronics out through a hole in the back of the automaton's head.
*WARNING! WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!* *Bzzt!* *CPU DAMAGED. COMMENCING AUTOREPAIR.* *Brzack!* *AUTOREPAIR FUNCTION FAILED! COMPUTATIONAL INTEGRITY DAMAGED!! GREEN PARTY POLITCAL PLATFORM FALLING INTO LOGICAL SPECTRUM!! ERROR!! ERROR!! BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!*
From below, Mia sweatdropped as several electric arcs curled around the greater body of the boomer. Subsequently, the battle robot lost power and tilted forward off of the building, causing the colonel to flinch away as the heavy metal hulk slammed onto the ground.
"Well... that was... odd," Mia allowed, still staring at the non-functional droid.
Which someone of her experience and wisdom definitely should not have been doing, considering she was still in a warzone.
*Bam!* Mia whirled around as she heard something land heavily behind her, and her eyes widened as the boomer's triple-barreled cannon began to rotate in preparation to fire.
*TARGET IDENTIFIED: COMMAND UNIT. PRIORITY TARGET. EXTERMI-* *KABLAM!!*
Mia was blown back as the boomer detonated, an armor-piercing rocket having been driven into its back, where the fuel for its rockets were also stored.
"Colonel Tokima, ma'am! Are you all right?!" Mizu rushed forward while keeping her eye on the tops of buildings, looking for any signs of blue armor. Behind her, an armored Core trooper lowered his rocket launcher and advanced at a slower pace.
Mia nodded gratefully and stood up. "Thanks to you..."
Mizu picked up on the hint and stopped to salute. "Private Kotetsu reporting, ma'am! And this is Corporal Mako from the anti-armor unit."
The corporal nodded as he stepped forward. "Private Kotetsu alerted us to the presence of the boomers before they could take us by surprise..." looking around, he amended "from the front, at least. Two more were taken down before we moved back out of the heavy fire zone, and the last two aren't making easy progress, assuming there aren't more surprises out there for us."
Mizu nodded seriously. "The terrorists seem to be holding the line rather than fleeing as expected, but we estimate that with the attack bots down, they'll be dispersed easily."
"Excellent work. We should..." Mia stopped talking as she heard the sounded of slow clapping, and turned around, her eyes narrowing.

Igov strode down the street, his hands clapping slowly and a smile on his face. "Well, well. You have done well, yes? I would say you have won battle. Yes, indeed."
Mia hefted her weapon in her arms and pointed it at the Russian. Behind her, Mia and Mako both fell into crouches and took more careful aim, the latter exchanging his launcher for his autorifle.
"So... you're here to surrender then?" Mia asked cautiously, an eyebrow raised.
"Ha ha ha ha!! I like you, woman!" Igov grinned, and the light of his artificial eye flashed red. "Igov lives for war. To watch on sidelines is not way of a soldier. Igov will make his own kills."
"I don't like the words that are coming out of your mouth, Russian," Mia spat, "you have five seconds to convince me that those words were a mistranslation on your part. Otherwise, you go back to Moscow in a casket."
"Igov likes that prospect. Shall we began?" *Shrak* Metal wires and plates suddenly burst out of Igov's hands and forearms, shredding the gloves and sleeves of his outfit.
Core personnel weren't so stupid as to sit gaping while an opponent strengthened himself, however, and all three of them opened fire.
Predictably, to everyone reading this right now at least, even the armor-piercing munitions in Mia's rifle failed to do anything more than put holes into Igov's trench coat.
The general's arms, which had already split open to reveal a series of plates and metal tubes that had been fashioned into working hands, further split apart, and the hands collapsed and were sucked into the wrists as a long tube extended outward. After that, the plates that had initially ripped away the covering fabric fell into place over the tubes, covering all but the tips in a metal box.
The Core soldiers knew what was coming, as unbelievable as they still found it for a man's hands to suddenly burst and reconfigure into machine guns. Mizu dove left behind the broken remains of the Core communications van, while Mia dove right and rolled into an alley.
*BrZa-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-ow!* The corporal lacked the maneuverability of his compatriots while in his protect-gear, and shook violently as Igov's guns ripped through even the heavy armor of his protect-gear chestplate.
"Give me a break!" Mia shouted from within the alley, priming her rifle. "Machine gun arms?! That is so cheap!"
Igov smirked as smoke wafted from the barrels of his arm cannons, and he laughed uproariously as the armored corpse in front of him fell lifelessly onto its side. "Ha ha ha ha!! Run, little mice! Run! Or the Red Death shall cut you down!!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Do you see it?" Ranma asked, leaning out the window.
"Just barely," Kyle answered, holding the quantum grenade in his hand, "but explain to me again why I have to do this."
Ranma sighed and ducked back into the apartment room they were using as cover. "Because Hunter took off, that's why. I told you that."
Kyle frowned. "Dude, you're going to have to kill people yourself sometime. What's the problem, anyway?"
Ranma grit his teeth. "Would you knock it off?! It's just not easy for me, okay? Now just get ready to chuck that thing at the cockpit." The Prometheus was walking down the street toward them, so the soldiers had a good shot at the front of the mech, and the semi-vulnerable canopy.
"I don't get it, though. I mean, you kill the mutants with no problem, right?"
"That's because they're mutants," Ranma explained irritably, "it's like killing a poisonous spider, or swatting a mosquito. They're not humans, they're like menacing animals." Against most people, Ranma wouldn't have the highest degree of success in an intellectual debate. Versus Kyle, Ranma was in an altogether superior league. The former police officer accepted his words in silence, and went back to staring at the strange grenade in his hand.
*Koom* *Koom* *Koom*
Ranma poked his head out again. "Okay, it's getting closer. Get ready."
*Click* "... Oops."
Ranma's eyes widened, and he swiftly kicked the weapon out of Kyle's hand before it could explode. "You idiot! Get down!"
*Boink!* *Kshoooooom!* Both Core soldiers ducked down as the vortex opened up on the side of the room, ripping apart the wall and furniture within the folds of the multi-dimensional flux.
Ranma and Kyle, who had jumped behind a couch, slowly stood up as the singularity collapsed, leaving bits of plaster, metal, and plastic lying around the twisted remains of the carpet that had been within the sphere of destruction.
"........." Ranma massaged his forehead. "Kyle... you suck."
"Eh heh heh..." Kyle laughed uneasily, "so, uh, what now?"
Ranma sighed, then cracked his knuckles. "Well, so much for stupid, unexplainable scientific gadgets. Looks like we're going to have to do things my way."
"You mean by poking it so it explodes?" Kyle asked, scratching his head.
Ranma nodded. "Of course. I'll have that thing in pieces."
"You're sure now."
"Of course I'm sure!"
"By poking it."
"Yes, by poking it! It works! Seriously!"
"By poking it."
"Oh, shut up and watch!"

The Prometheus pilot was only momentarily distracted when half of a sphere suddenly appeared on the wall of an apartment building, and didn't even stop moving in order to observe, immediately chalking up the occurrence as 'a Tokyo thing'. The city was always being victimized by monsters and occult phenomena, after all. Some local was probably just trying to summon Satan or something.
That explanation, though perfectly logical, didn't account for the young man that subsequently jumped out of a second story window and jump-kicked the soldier riding atop the mech, knocking him down onto the street. Nor did it properly explain why that person then yelled something in Japanese at him (Ranma was, at this point, directly on top of the mech, so the pilot couldn't see what he was doing). In any case, nothing happened afterward, so the pilot shook his head and hit a few buttons on his console.

Ranma blinked as he continued applying pressure to his finger, which was pointing straight down at the top of the mech. Nothing happened.
'Wait, there was a short period before it exploded last time. Just wait...'
A few seconds passed. Nothing. It occurred to Ranma that he could use this time to get out of the blast zone. Nothing. Instead, Ranma stood up and tapped his foot on the armored head of the Prometheus. Still nothing.
"Dammit! Are you trying to tell me this thing can't be broken?!" Ranma shouted angrily. That couldn't be though; it was just some kind of metal, which was simply a more processed form of rock, which the technique was designed to work on! And besides, it had worked on the tank.
"Huh... maybe I didn't do it right. That must be it. I've only pulled it off once on a guess." Ranma flexed his fingers and cleared his mind. Ryoga had spent days being pounded into boulders to learn this technique, so he had probably been conditioned well to pull it off perfectly every time.
"Bakusai tenketsu!" Ranma shouted, once again poking the top of the mech with his finger.
To his pleasant surprise, something spontaneous then occurred. To his great disappointment, it was simply numerous large slits opening below him.
*Hwooosh!* "Gyaaaaah!" Ranma yelled in surprise as the Prometheus blasted him with hot air, venting its power core through the top of its armor and incidentally also blowing him off the mech onto the street.
*Thud!* "Ow!" Ranma growled as he got to his feet, rubbing his head.
"Stupid rassafrassan..." Ranma trailed off mumbling, and pulled back his hands, a sphere of blue appearing in his palms. "Moko takabisha!" He yelled, throwing the ki blast forward.
"Unfortunately, given that the Prometheus' leg was heavily armored, added to the fact that Ranma's confidence wasn't at its peak at that exact moment, the energy ball didn't do much except char the outer armor of the leg. The mech continued forward, unopposed.
"Sonuva-!" Ranma fell to his knees and pounded the ground with his fist. "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Aren't there any martial arts techniques you can use to destroy giant war mecha?!" He complained angrily. Then he jumped onto the back of the mech, jabbing at random points.
"Bakusai tenketsu! Bakusai tenketsu! Explode, damn you! EXPLODE!! Bakusai tenketsu! Blow up! Be destroyed!! STOP MOVING!! Bakusai tenketsu! Bakusai tenketsu! Bakusai tenketsu!" He never did figure out exactly what he did right, but for some reason, when he had crawled onto the side of the shoulder cannon in an effort to jab every square inch of the machine, the section of armor that he poked suddenly glowed and blew outward, exploding with enough force to knock Ranma's grip loose.
*Thud!* "Ow!" Rubbing a second lump on his head, Ranma looked up hopefully to see what kind of damage he had done. And then he groaned.
"You gotta be kidding me! That hole's less than half a meter wide! Last time I blew up a whole bloody tank turret!"
The Prometheus evidently didn't care about his problems, and continued stomping onwards.
Ranma was preparing to jump back up and try again, when his danger sense flared. Given that he was just a few feet away from a towering war machine, it was understandable, and most fortunate, that he assumed it was the threat, and jumped away from it as far as he could.
When he landed several meters away, Ranma couldn't see any weapon of the Prometheus that seemed to be a threat to, or were in fact even remotely aware of him.
A moment later, however, he did see a big explosive bullet sail right into the hole he had put in the side of the neocannon.
*KA-KROOOOM!!!* The ammo supply for the neocannon ripped the left side of the Prometheus apart, sending hunks of armor and shredded metal shrapnel all over the street. A moment later a second shell plowed into the ravaged metal hulk, creating a less spectacular explosion, but destroying any internal components that escaped the first detonation.
"What the hell was that?" Ranma mumbled to himself, shielding his eyes.
"Ranma? Ranma! Over here!"
The aforementioned martial artist blinked and pointed to himself like an idiot, then turned around to look down the street that explosive had come from.
"Asuka?"

Asuka turned and nodded appreciatively to the heavy-set man behind her. "Good shot, pal. We owe you one." She frowned. "Though I don't know what the deal is with you not being able to aim right unless you light up. That's pretty weird."
Rayden took a drag from his cigarette, then shrugged. "It does not matter. You need not thank me, for I do the Lord's work."
Asuka sweatdropped. "I never heard about Jesus Christ running around gunning down evildoers, but nonetheless, thank you anyway."
Rayden shrugged. "I like to think of it as 'smiting'."
"Riiiiiiight," Asuka mumbled, turning away. 'Crazy religious nuts. And does he ever smile, or what? It's like his face is chiseled from stone!'
She smiled as Ranma finished jogging up to her. "Hi Ranma! On the job, I see!" She gestured toward Rayden. "Ranma, this is some vigilante gunman who's apparently on our side. Mr. Vigilante Gunman, this is Ranma Saotome. I used to give him orders before I became a security guard."
Ranma chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Uh, yeah. That's a, uh, big gun you have there."
"Heavy opponents call for heavy weapons," Rayden said simply. Then he bowed. "My name is Rayden Shikodan. From the insignia on your jacket, I expect you have heard of me."
Ranma shook his head. "Nope. Should I have?"
Rayden raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps... Core does not take... 'vigilante action' as well as some people. It is most unfortunate."
Ranma shrugged. "Hey, anybody who runs around blowing up bad guys without even getting paid for it can't be all bad." He put and arm around Asuka's shoulders, who started in surprise. "Right, Captain?"
Asuka blushed a bit, but smirked. "Well, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing. They might have damaged the parking garage."
Rayden suddenly stood up straight, which wasn't a very significant movement, but somehow captured both Ranma and Asuka's attention. "It warms my heart that there are such people in Japan that seek to unite against the enemy."
'Not that you could tell by looking at your face,' Ranma and Asuka thought simultaneously.
Rayden bowed again, while taking a brown cloth out from his coat. "It has been a great honor to meet with you. May the Lord's light protect and guide you through the oncoming darkness." Wrapping up Judgment in the cloth, he than began to tie it up with string. "One such darkness I would discuss with you, Saotome."
Ranma blinked. "Eh?"
"I have heard... through various sources, that the terrorist organization known at the Freedom's Angels has a mole inside of Core. As the only member of that organization to not fire at me on sight, I ask that you look into the matter."
Ranma and Asuka blinked in surprise.
"In Core?! You've gotta be kidding me!" Asuka said, a bit indignantly, "Core is the most well-organized and disciplined faction in Japan! There's no way one of those idiot FAs managed to dig their way into it!"
Ranma merely remained silent; he didn't know anything about Core's policies as far as their recruitment went, but he did know that they had accepted Kyle into their fold. So obviously, Asuka's assessment of the situation was less than realistic.
Rayden raised a hand peaceably, slinging his packaged gun over his left shoulder. "I know only what comes from the frightened mouths of murderers and rapists, those marked for death by the holy light." Seeing Asuka and Ranma's uncomprehending stares, Rayden plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it into a wastebasket standing nearby on the sidewalk. "Even Christ's presence was infiltrated by the traitorous shadows. I only ask that you be aware, guardians." He bowed once more. "I take my leave of you. We will likely meet again."
__________________________________________________________________________________

*BrZa-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-Za-ow!* A line of bullets tore into brick wall above Mia, and the Colonel waited for the burst to end before she rose up behind the car and fired.
*Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!* Having used up the remaining ammo for her autorifle, Mia was forced to resort to using her sidearm with regular ammunition. This proved, predictably, to be about as effective against Igov as thrown gravel.
*Toomp* *Toomp* *P-tang!* Igov's head jerked to the side slightly as one round deflected off his skull, tearing through the nerveless skin and bouncing harmlessly off the metal skull underneath.
"You fool. Die!"
Mia ran for it as the Russian general fired another spray at her, running forward and tucking into a rolling somersault.
Igov's cybernetic eye flashed as his target successfully escaped his fire, rolling behind the blazing remains of a munitions truck. "Moderately impressive. But you will not escape."
The targeting reticle of that same eye flashed off to the side in Igov's sights, and he turned around just as Mizu finished arming the dead corporal's rocket launcher behind him.
*Fwooosh!* The rocket blasted forward, and Igov leapt backward, letting the explosive warhead detonate harmlessly on the street below.
*Tomp* Landing heavily on his feet, Igov flexed a muscle in his arms, and both guns suddenly released hundreds of bullet casings, dropping them onto the shattered asphalt. A lever on the side snapped forward, and new belts of ammunition being fed from inside Igov's coat were attached to the ammo feeds on his arm cannons.
Another explosion detonated in the background, and Igov grinned as several more soldiers walked down the street toward him, apparently breaking off from the mop-up battle between Core and the terrorists. "Excellent! More toys to break!" He raised his weapons as Mia began shouting for the soldiers to take cover.
Then he halted as a beeping noise originated from his communicator.
{"......... What? All the Prometheus units, destroyed? ALL of them?"} It didn't seem possible. Not at this point.
Down the street, half the Core soldiers were listening incredulously as Mia swore that the target ahead of them was absolutely bulletproof, while the other half stared curiously at the target, who seemed wholly preoccupied by something that they couldn't make out. Also, he seemed to be mumbling to himself in Russian. Most odd.
Igov bit his lip. {"All units are to withdraw. What? Okay, fine, all remaining units are to withdraw. We can spend no more time or resources on this operation."}
Sighing deeply, the Russian general mentally deactivated his communicator, and then looked forlornly at the lines of soldiers that were hiding behind cars and around corners, all of them waiting for him to make a move.
'Today was a good battle... but it is not my battle. Not yet.' And so, he turned and fled.
__________________________________________________________________________________

The unfortunately named Dr. Deth nodded in satisfaction as the last of the major exhibits were loaded into the armored truck and then locked inside, safe from the panic and chaos of the evacuation.
Everywhere, scientists, businessmen, and government officials were running around trying to get minor exhibits into cars, lead their superiors out of the parking lot, clear up a collision that was blocking most of the traffic out, and generally try and make sense of the huge mess of people that were primarily trying to get the hell away from the Nimiaka Technology Center as quickly as possible.
Those who were more used to weathering such assaults rather than escaping them, such as the good doctor and a few of his colleagues who were mumbling about their exhibits being shown up by a colossal war mecha of obviously inferior Russian design, mostly wandered about the tech center and saw to the recovery of the more promising technology (or in some cases, the sneaky and not entirely legal acquisition of such technology).
Dr. Deth had mostly helped the government officials pack the top exhibits in a special transport, which would take it to a secure area until the panic of the evacuation had died down and a recovery plan could be assessed.
"Hmmmm... Maria?"
"Yes?" His attractive assistant turned toward him, blinking her eyes and still clutching her clipboard against her ample chest.
"I'm not sure what it is, but something about this still leaves me... uneasy."
Mari blinked again. "Well Doctor, you did give away several unstable weapons of incomprehensible power to a couple of strangers."
"Oh, no, it's not that," the doctor assured her, "it's just that... I can't help but feel that all is not well..."

It was at that moment that the driver of the exhibit truck, who no one had noticed looked like an extra from the show Jackass, accelerated the vehicle and then sped out of the parking lot. And by "out of the parking lot" I mean he went through the hedge on the border of the parking lot, nearly ran into a tree, smashed into the corner of the tech center itself, and then turned unsteadily onto the street, where he then drove in the direction opposite the supposed "secure location".

"Yeah, okay, I think that was the problem."

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

Terrorists toasted: 124
Russians roasted: 10
Enemy vehicles blasted, shredded, or devoured: 13
Enemy mecha sent to the scrap-yard in the sky: 5
Hippies creamed: 49
Other civilians lost: 4
Scientific achievements captured: 11, + the prototype Game Boy Advanced SP EX
Core personnel annihilated: 21

End Chapter 14