And so it continues. Quick notes here: Minako, for the sake of my sanity, knows that Kunzite was behind the Dark Agency (whatever it was really called) the first time around and assumes that's who is doing it now. She's right, but she doesn't know that for certain. Hmm... none of my usual babbeling... so I guess... well, if you like it or not, send me an e-mail telling me what it was you (dis)liked about it and/or any suggestions you have for future/present chapters. Believe me, ideas that get thrown at me tend to stir up things that get put in :) As the party scene in this chapter will attest. Disclaimer goes here! Tales of V&J Part 2 Minako glared at her class schedule again. "I don't want to do this." Makoto frowned but placed a reassuring hand firmly on her back as she sat down on the bed beside her. "We don't have a choice." "I know! We can just go destroy the gateway and be back in Tokyo by tea time! There's no reason for us to be playing at college students." "No," Makoto said, shaking her head solemnly. "We're not here to destroy the gateway, we're here to distract the Dark Kingdom. If we destroy the gate now, it'll just be that much harder on the girls back in Japan." Minako whimpered but let it lie. It had been her plan, after all. Once again she turned her attention to the schedule. "I can hurt Ami, though, can't I?" Thoughts of her own hideous schedule fluttered through her head. "Maybe you should call and apologize." "Why should I apologize? I didn't do anything." "You know how touchy she is about her name," Makoto said with a sigh. "We're the only ones that ever call her Ami and I guess she just got a little bent out of shape about you calling her "M" all the time." Minako mumbled something that Makoto didn't quite catch. "How would you like it if everyone called you Venus all the time?" Minako sighed. "I guess you're right. But it's her own fault for hanging around in the Royal Laboratories all the time. You can't keep a secret identity when you work with the same people for hundreds of years." Even as she said it, however, she was picking up the laptop to place her call. *** General Kunzite's latest reports told him that none of the other Generals were faring better than he was in the invasion. Zoicite was having no luck with the Silver Crystal, Nephrite's research was dead ending at every turn, and Jadeite was just messing everything up. Heaven forbid Beryl would actually deign to do any of the work on her own. From what he could discern, however, Jadeite's failures were more due to his own incompetence than anything else. His own problems seemed to be because of an immensely strong foe or foes that had decided to pop up here, in London of all places. The reports of the incident with Gisei, the youma that had been used to break the last seals on the gate, indicated that these new enemies were very similar to the ones Jadeite was facing. The biggest difference seemed to be that these were tougher by several orders of magnitude. Most of the reports were gathered from more mundane sources than he was used to. Evening news broadcasts, for instance. He reviewed the shaky video taken by one frightened tourist again and tried to make sense of it. The youma was out of control. Reckless, but ferocious. The girls show up, one starts making a speech and then, when the monster interrupts her, kills him almost effortlessly. The first question was, where had these girls come from? Possibly Tokyo, but that implied that they were here because they knew about his operation. If that was the case, he was going to have trouble no matter how he proceeded, which made no difference in his plans save adding an edge of caution. Secondly, why the long speech? Since the youma was apparently no threat the them, why had they hesitated to kill it? It was almost as if they were toying with it, which didn't bode well, either. Sadism in one's enemies is rarely to be desired, though it was somewhat better than righteousness. He sat back to brood on the matter. However he decided to handle this, he would have to act swiftly and quietly. Maybe his foes wouldn't react quickly enough to stop him. After all, if there were only two of them... *** Things were quite a bit better now. It was pretty hard to get Ami mad, and it was fairly easy to get her to forgive you if you were truly sorry about it. Of course, she had a knack for MAKING people sorry about it, but that's something else entirely. Minako looked over the new schedule. The word "quantum" was entirely absent and the word "theory" only appeared once as "Societal Impact of Technological Theory" which appeared to be one of those social awareness courses. Ami had refused to relent, claiming it would be an educational experience for the both of them. Minako wasn't so enthusiastic, but other than that it was a very reasonable schedule, though Ami, apparently deciding on one last jibe, had placed both of them in Japanese 101. Somehow, Minako got the feeling that it was going to prove her most annoying class. She didn't, have any classes she was really looking forward to, either. Some computer classes would have been nice, since her skills with machines from this time were not very good. She could do amazing things with a comp, but only if it was circa 2800 AD or later. That meant there would be a lot of spare time for scouting out Kunzite's operations, which, if their welcome had been any indication, might well be in full swing. She sighed lazily and stretched out on the bed and then shivered a bit at the chill. There was almost a full blown storm raging outside, but it was a bit light on the lightning for that. She found one of the blankets they had bought the night before, snuggled into it, and settled down for a nap. Right now, there was nothing to do. Of course, there was the Dark Kingdom to fight and classes to attend, but those weren't real worries. After all, there weren't here to make the grade, and youma shouldn't actually prove to be worse than a good morning workout. Back home had been worse. Here, at least, she didn't have to worry about handling pirates or other matters of security. Well, not yet, at least, but who knew what the future held? She knew some of it, but not so much that she couldn't act surprised when it happened. She stretched her arms out slowly above her, colliding slightly with the head of the bed. Well, bed was a bit liberal, it was really just a glorified cot. This was another one of the things she'd have to fix as soon as those credit cards arrived. The room was small, even by dorm standards. The university, being situated near the heart of London was finding space a scarce commodity and living space was low on the list of priorities. One room, about the size of a van, one closet about the size of a shoe box. That's all they were assigned. It was clean and it was dry. In short, cozy, but it could have been worse. She lay there in a hazy nonthoughts for a while, savoring the total lack of anything to do. She was starting to miss Artemis a bit. Not that she usually saw much of him after he and Luna had made themselves court fixtures, but there was something about London that reminded her of the old times. The two of them against the world, or so it had seemed. Lazily, she rolled over onto her side and immediately fell out of the narrow cot. She hit the floor lightly, the fall being only a couple of feet, and lay on the floor for a few minutes, trying to figure out what she was going to do about the bed. With the way she tossed about in the night, there was no way she was going to manage to sleep on something so narrow. After a bit of examination, she managed to get the mattress roll off the frame and dropped it on the floor. She did the same to the second cot and started rearranging things with a passion. When she was done, the collapsible frames of the beds had been stored away in the closet, taking up fully half the space, and the mattresses were now occupying one corner while the little dresser slash desk took up the other. She was just about to settle in for another naplike reverie when the door opened and Makoto walked in wearing a soaking overcoat and carrying two arms full of damp shopping bags. "What did you get?" Minako asked, relieving Makoto of her burdens. "Some food, soap, books, and some clothes," she paused to take in the room. "Been redecorating?" Minako nodded happily while rummaging through the bags. "So, what are we going to do for the rest of the night?" "Well, there's a little party on this floor so that everyone can get to know everyone, and after that I want to go out and see a bit of the town." "Sounds good to me," she had gotten to the clothing bags by this point. "Mako-chan, I wish you'd told me you were going clothing shopping as well. You didn't get much that I can wear." "Don't worry, we'll get you some stuff tonight or tomorrow. It's just that I saw those coats on sale and decided they would be a good idea in this weather. That took most of the money I had on me," she said as she removed the damp coat she was wearing and hung it up to dry. She found one of their few towels and began trying to get her hair dry. "Any word from Mercury on those credit cards?" Something about the room caught her attention again. "Say, weren't those beds taller before I left?" *** Minako sipped gently at her cup of soda and shifted a bit on the sofa. In total, there were only about a dozen people living on their floor. That was rather surprising, but the dorms were usually less than half full during the summer. That's what Sandie, said, anyway. Sandie, a shortish black girl, was one of their new floor mates. She, Makoto, Minako and three other girls, Jillian, Susan, and Cassandra ("call me Cassie"), and one guy, apparently Cassie's boyfriend, were sitting in the small common room at the end of the hallway and chatting. Most of the rest of their new neighbors had only put in brief appearances before disappearing for other gatherings and activities. The room was essentially just a spare dorm room that had been converted to a TV room as part of a project to make the older dorms more livable. One folding chair, a rocking chair, a handful of small tables, and two small sofas were the extent of the furnishings, but even that was woefully inadequate for a floor that, during fall semester, would house several dozen people. Right now, however, it was cozy, but sufficient. Jillian, who appeared to be of Indian decent, though her name made that questionable, had commandeered the rocking chair beside the small television (which only got one channel, heaven knows why) and was going on about how excited she was to be starting college. Most of the others were bearing it with a smile as she echoed their own feelings. "And I can't wait to find out what my professors will be like. Do you think they're going to give a lot of homework because I've heard that university professors like to do that." "Nah, they're usually no worse on you than other teachers," Susan, who was still a freshman, but had been there for the fall semester, said knowledgeably. She reached up one hand idly to brush a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. "Depends on what kind of teachers you had in high school as to whether that's a good thing. I've had a couple I really wouldn't want to see again." Cassie, the tall, blond American, winced a bit and snuggled closer to the guy she'd brought to the party with her. She was nearly a full head taller than he was and they made an odd couple. His name was Mike or Mitch or something. No one was really certain. "It's not that bad unless you're in one of the really tough fields. I had a friend in law last semester and they have it pretty bad," Susan said. She was overly pleased with her knowledge and Minako was starting to dislike her. Jillian whimpered theatrically. "I'm in law..." Makoto shifted uneasily away from Minako as best she could on the small couch. Sandie, who was sitting on the couch with them, had been giving her an odd look for the last half hour and she couldn't help wondering if it was because of the way Minako kept snuggling up to her. She would have to ask Minako later if their kind of relationship was reviled in England during this period. It happened periodically throughout human history, but attitudes were as regional as periodical. Sadly enough, such things still appeared even in the Crystal Millennium. She still remembered with some distaste the incident with the South American Union's prime minister a few hundred years back. "So, Markio," Cassie's question snapped her out of her internal worrying. "Why did you and Misato decide to study in London of all places?" "Well-" Makoto began, but Susan cut her off. "Yeah, did you guys totally mess up or what? I've heard that most students that come from Japan can't get into schools there." Yes, Susan was shaping up to be really annoying. Minako leaned forward and said, "No, my father was British and wanted me to study here. Is that such a problem?" She gave Susan a dirty look and settled back against Makoto, who was trying her best to move through the end of the couch. "What about you, Mariko?" Jillian asked, apparently oblivious to the various "looks" going around the room. "Um, I'm studying international politics and there's only so much you can learn in one place," Makoto added. "But you two knew each other before coming here?" Sandie asked, her voice just vaguely suspicious. "Yeah, we went to the same high school," she said levelly. "Well, that's nice. You came with a friend and then you make several more," Jillian said, smiling innocently the whole time. "Say, Susan, you've been here a while, what are the good places to eat around here?" After that, wandered from topic to topic for a while, and the small amount of tension that had been building in the room dissipated without incident. *** The last of the youma saluted and left his command center just before midnight London time. The briefings had taken quite a while, but not as long as he had spent selecting youma that were as intelligent and skilled at covert operations as possible. In all, there had only been available about score that were even remotely qualified. Of those, he had taken the half dozen most suited to the job and given them their assignments. Soon, if things went well, he would be gathering energy regularly, even if it was in small packets. He judged anything else to be too big a risk. After some debate, he'd decided that the best way of dealing with these new enemies was simply to avoid ever having to face them. It was an overly optimistic approach, but hopefully one that would pay off until he could come up with something better. Perhaps he should see how Jadeite was handling his side of things. That might give him an idea of what not to do, at least. *** Some hours after the gathering had ended, Minako and Makoto were back in their room, trying to decide if a night on the town was worth braving the storm, when the laptop started beeping for attention. Minako activated the screen and began absorbing the information going past. "What's up?" Makoto asked, looking over her shoulder. It proved unnecessary since she could easily tell what the computer was going on about. Seven energy signatures had just shown up on the London grid, probably youma, but heavily masked by shielding of some sort. Only Ami's technical knack allowed their scanners to detect them at all. "Someone's trying to be quiet. And a lot of someones, at that," Minako mumbled as she keyed in tracking commands. "Must be up to something big to send seven at once." Makoto nodded to herself. "Can you tell where they're headed?" "Too soon. They've only just cleared the gate. But it looks like they're fanning out pretty widely. May be several diversions and one main action." "Yeah, sounds like a decent plan, I guess. But how do we tell which one's the real target or if they're all real problems?" "I don't know. How about we ask one?" Minako smiled as she punched in the tracking commands that would feed the location of the nearest youma into their visors. Makoto tossed her an overcoat. "Let's go." *** The youma wasn't hard to find. There weren't many people walking the dark streets of London in such heavy rain and Mercury's tracking software proved up to the task. "We need to question it, so try not to kill it." Minako said. She was in her Senshi uniform, but wearing the heavy overcoat on top of it to keep out the rain. Short skirts and damp weather were a bad combination. Makoto nodded. "Just let me take care of it." She was still a little irked with that Sandie girl and was looking to take out her frustrations on someone. She looked down from her perch on the roof of a short apartment building. The youma was sidling along the street below, and as it stepped past her perch, she stepped off the roof and came down on the youma's head with her fists. The youma instantly crumpled to the ground, her force being quite considerable. She picked herself up from the ground, the impact with the youma's misshapen skull having sent her backwards more than she could compensate for, and tried to wring some of the water out of her coat. Minako landed lightly beside her and moved aside the coarse wrappings the youma had been wearing. The only thing she found was a pool of greyish mud which was quickly dissolving into nothing. "You hit him too hard!" she said, bopping Makoto on the arm lightly. "Sorry, his head was softer than I expected." Makoto was nursing her wrist, which had been twisted in the impact. "I promise to hit the next one from the ground." "No, I'll handle the next one," Minako said. "If you keep that up, we'll run out of youma before we get answers. We only have seven, you know." *** The youma pulled his cloak closer around itself as he hurried along the rainy London streets. All his shielding spells were geared toward magical scans and he was relying on the deep hood to protect him from visual observers. With so much rain coming down, there wasn't really anyone outside to worry about. But any delay could still prove fatal, General Kunzite had been very specific on that. He was within only a few blocks of his destination when two figures, clad in bulky trench coats against the rain, stepped from the shadows of an alley ahead of him. Moving quickly, he let his head sink back into the shadows of his hood and made to scurry past them without stopping. The figures, however, moved to intercept. He cursed silently to himself and stopped to face them. "Excuse me," one of the figures, a female from the voice, asked him. "The General sent us as aids on your new assignment. He said you would brief us on what needs to be done." He involuntarily hissed under his breath. Aids? General Kunzite had been very specific about what the assignment entailed and this wasn't part of it. He did, however, have reports on the expected resistance and two figures, at least one of them female, was definitely part of that profile. "General sent?" he queried in a harsh voice. His English wasn't very good, though few of the other youma were any better at it. The taller one nodded. "Come out of rain to talk," and he pushed his way past the two into the dark alley. "Must tell as ordered." The alley, not much wider than a shoulder's width apart soon twisted around a bit till there was a clear shot back the way he had come but cover a few strides ahead. He stopped there and turned to face the two figures. "General say that mission very important. He say that when "aids" show up I to give them this." He reached one hand out of the concealing depths of his cloak and fired a blast of energy above and to the right of the others. As plaster and brick rained down in a concealing shower, he sprinted the three steps backward that provided him with a covering corner and threw back his cloak. His massive hands flexed as the talons drove their way into aging mortar and he quickly propelled himself upward, away from the floor of the alley. He was almost to the roof of the building when a shout came from below and a glowing band wrapped itself around his torso. With one gut wrenching moment of vertigo, he was pulled clear of the wall and almost plummeting toward the ground. Claws scrabbled on brick to slow his decent, but he landed hard, severely damaging one of his legs and making escape difficult if not impossible. One of the figures, the smaller one, stepped closer to him and knelt down beside him. "I believe you were about to tell us about the big plan?" Pain dampened his senses, but still he cast about furiously for a way out. There was none. "Cannot tell. Will die if tell," he knew what was coming, what he would have to do. "Well, if you tell us, you might die. That's true. But if you DON'T tell us..." she trailed off dangerously. "I tell! I tell!" he exclaimed, calming himself as much as possible for what was to come. "Well, talk." "General Kunzite send us out on mission. He say that there two girls who try to stop him. He say they may come for us. Very bad, he say, they come." He moved to get, but found a foot in his chest. "If they come, he say... he say..." suddenly his voice shifted as he allowed the spell to release itself. Three or four arcane syllables rolled forth and then the world was enveloped in blinding white. Orders are orders, after all. END -- Tim Williams http://www.angelfire.com/tn/twillia/ "This time, we're leaving nothing to the imagination. We tried that last time, and, in our opinion, it didn't work." -- Henry Rollins, "Driveby Shooting"