[Ranma][Fanfic] Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty - Chapter 13: Ally or Foe? ======================================================================= Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty Chapter 13: Ally or Foe? Ranma 1/2 characters/situations created and copyright by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan/Kitty/Fuji/Viz - Used without permission Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty series created, written, and copyright 2000-2001 by Jim Lazar An ongoing series set after the end of the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime. For maximum enjoyment of this fanfic series, please read my Childhood of Modern Dynasty series before reading Adulthood. E-mail comments and/or criticisms to: jim [at] animeprime.com Make sure to check out my Modern Dynasty website for all released AMD stories, graphics files, and other information: http://www.animeprime.com/ff/md ======================================================================= April 29, 2009 - Giza, Egypt (Black Wars Day 0) "Kenage didn't do it!!" Genma insisted as he looked up at the broken nose of the Sphinx. Anyone else would be struck by the beauty of its shape or awed by the sheer size of the huge twenty-meter high statue. Not even the three Great Pyramids that dominated the skyline behind the Sphinx made Genma stop and ponder the meaning of life. His only thought was that his son had broken something yet again. Pavlov called this a 'conditioned response'. Nodoka chuckled and adjusted her infant daughter's position on her chest, making sure Tsugi was shaded from the hot desert sun by the parasol she held in her hand. "I think the nose fell off some time ago, dear." Genma relaxed. "Thank goodness. I hear they're pretty tough on law breakers in these Middle East countries." "I'm the one who warned you about that, dear," Nodoka reminded him of their very long talk about stealing and the punishment for thieves. She knew her husband had his faults, but the back massages he gave his wife every night weren't something she was prepared to give up if he was caught stealing and had his hands cut off. Genma gulped and nodded, unconsciously rubbing his hands together to make sure they were still where they belonged. He looked up again at the face of the statue, this time actually looking at it instead of jumping to the conclusion that his son had broken it--understandable as that was considering the long list of things Kenage had broken on their long training trip. "It's pretty big." Nodoka nodded. "Yes." She looked around. "Where is Kenage anyway?" Genma grew worried and looked around. Taking a step towards the backside of the sphinx, his worse fears were realized when he heard a ground shaking crash. "Uh oh..." Nodoka closed her eyes and prayed. "Please don't let it be something too expensive this time." She opened her eyes when the earth continued shaking. "Wha..." As large square stones started to topple off the nearby pyramids, Genma spun around. "I don't think this is Kenage's doing!!" He scanned the desert for signs of his son, but saw only other tourists running for their lives. Nodoka had come to the same conclusion. Shielding her baby from the sand that was being kicked up by the falling debris around them, she looked up. She screamed as the large head of the Sphinx cracked at its base and started to slide down towards her. "Nodoka!!" Genma shouted and ran towards his wife, reaching her just in time to push her away from the crumbling statue. Genma wasn't as lucky. It seemed like an eternity passed before the ground stopped shaking under Nodoka and her daughter. When it finally did, she looked up. "Genma?" Rising to her knees, the sand that had covered her slid off her back. "Genma?" She looked behind her. She screamed when she could only see her husband's severed hands sticking out from in front of a large chunk of the Sphinx's face. A patch of expanding red sand flowed out from under the stone. Little Tsugi started to wail as dark clouds of debris started to roll in from the south behind the family, almost obscuring the bright golden beam that arced upwards towards the moon that hung in the afternoon sky. "Daddy?" Nodoka tore her eyes away from the grizzly image in front of her and looked towards the sound of her son's voice. "Kenage..." *********************************************************************** >From the personal journal of James Davidson August 22, 2058 "We all took my father-in-law's death pretty badly. Although they were always denying it, Ranma, Ranko, and Sanma were very close to their father because of all the time they spent together training on the road. The same thing was true of Kenage, but for a young boy to lose his..." she faltered, as if another memory threatened to resurface. "...father like that was a devastating blow to him. He never was the same afterwards." "I can't imagine how hard it must have been for a ten year old boy to see his father killed like that," I said, shifting the bundle on my lap. Akane nodded, a sad memory causing a frown to appear on her face. "I was even younger than that when I lost my mother. I tried to use my own experience to help him cope, but I don't think I made it any easier on Kenage." "It's never easy to lose a parent." "No... no it's not." "So... " My question was cut off when little Red started to cry. "Uh oh..." I picked up my infant son and tried to calm him down. "Shhh.... what's wrong, son?" Folding back the blanket he was in, I checked his diaper. "He's not wet and he was just fed... um..." "James, let me," Akane said, holding out her hands. "Um... ok," I muttered as I placed my son in her hands. Akane took him and put him against her chest. Patting his back, she started to bounce him gently. The crying stopped and was replaced with a contented gurgle. I sighed. "I wish I could do that." "You'll learn... my husbands always figured it out eventually." "Yeah... I just hope I can keep up my work on the book while I help out Hanaki with Red. It seems like the dirty diapers, feedings, and everything else never stops." "The first month or two is always the hardest to cope with." "So it gets easier?" Akane shook her head and smiled slightly. "No, mostly you get used to it and it doesn't seem as bad." I rolled my eyes. "Great." "But the joys of fatherhood do make up for all the hassles," Akane said, running her fingers through my son's red strands of hair. "I'll have to take your word for it." Akane smiled. "Well, I did father two of my own, you know." I laughed. "Yeah, I know. Of course, a lot of my readers don't believe that part of your life's story." Akane nodded. "I read some of the scathing reviews of your book. It's nice to know my life is so unbelievable that people would burn you in effigy." "Did they? I got so sick of all the complaints that I stopped reading the reviews and reader responses." I took my son back from Akane and smiled at him. "Besides, I've had more important things to worry about for the past month." Akane laughed softly. "Well, I'm sure in time people will actually read my afterward to the book where I confirm the events happened as you wrote them." She sighed and then added, "Unfortunately..." "So what was it like after your mother-in-law returned with her husband's ashes?" "It was a rough time for us all. Kenage was almost uncontrollable, Nodoka spent a lot of time crying... and hacking stuff up with her katana. I think the only thing that kept her sane was having little Tsugi to take care of. Ranma and Ranko tried to keep the kids busy with training, but I think it was mostly to keep themselves from thinking about their father too much." "Did that work?" Akane sighed. "Not really, they just ended up remembering all the time they spent training with their own father." "And Sanma?" "According to Ukyo, Sanma lost interest in training for a while and spent most of his time with his own children while he could." "And you?" Akane looked out the open doors at the south lawn. "I realized I had celebrated a bit too soon. I was so happy that my immediate family was safe, that I overlooked the millions that died in Africa. I even overlooked the four Amazons who died defending my family." "I think that's natural..." "Maybe, but it wasn't until we lost my father-in-law that I really saw how small my world view was. I think the worst part about it was that I didn't even know the names of the four Amazons who died protecting my family. I didn't even bother to find out at the time." She clenched her hands. "Toenail, Fragrance, Peachfuzz, Swab... just four of many that have died to protect me and my family." "Akane..." "In a sense, that's when the war really began for me. My priorities shifted from focusing on my immediate family to realizing that no one in the world was safe from the madness that had engulfed us." "Although no where near on the same scale as that, I know my priorities have shifted since Red was born." I rubbed my fingers across my son's small face. "I've barely opened my files on Adulthood over the last month." "I was kind of wondering when you'd call me to continue our interviews." "Considering what follows the First Black War, I figured you weren't in any hurry to cover them." "You'd be surprised at how calm things were for the months that followed." "The calm before the storm?" "Something like that, but more like the calm before the end of the world..." *********************************************************************** August 8th, 2009 - Nerima, Japan (Black Wars Day 100) Akane stared into the bathroom's full-length mirror. No matter how hard she looked, she didn't like what she saw in its reflected image. She traced the faint scars on her arms and legs, wondering how many more she would have before the world was at peace once again. Not for the first time, she imagined seeing a grizzly old woman covered with ugly scars reflected back at her in the mirror. An old woman who was tormented by lost friends and family She rubbed a large red welt on her left forearm and then rubbed the two on her right, wondering if they would leave scars when they finally healed fully. *IF* they healed fully. Over a month since the Buyierfei attack on the Compound and they still hadn't healed completely as normal welts should have. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the similar welts covering her back, knowing that it was a small price to pay for the lives of her oldest child and... She ran her hand over her naked stomach and tried to touch her unborn child that grew within it, wondering what kind of world he or she would be born into. Or even if her baby would be born at all. She paused at her swollen breasts, wondering if they were bigger now than her first husband's. They were. Her hands reached her long hair that was draped over her shoulder and hung down her chest. Slowly she ran her fingers through the fine strands of dark blue hair, wondering... -A- -M- -D- Later that day, Ranma and Ranko lay on the floor of the dojo and stared at the small shrine that hung on the far wall. They hadn't said anything since they had finished their kids' training session for the day. Some might have assumed they were tired and trying to relax. But after spending a month in Africa fighting the Buyierfei a good workout with their children was not tiring; it was the most enjoyable and refreshing thing they could ever imagine. Which was why they were now laying on the floor and staring at the urn that was placed in the shrine. The engraved panda face on the urn clearly identified whose ashes were within to those who knew about Genma's curse. "Do you think Pop enjoyed working out with me... err... us as much as we do with our kids?" Ranko asked suddenly. "Yeah, probably." Ranma sighed. "He was a pain in the ass sometimes, but he made us what we are." "Yeah, I know I wouldn't be here if the old man hadn't taken us to Jusenkyo." "True." "Or Cologne hadn't split us." "Yeah..." "Why do you think we only appreciate them after they're gone?" "I donno... maybe we did appreciate them all along, but it's only when they're gone that you really realize it." "Yeah..." Several minutes went by while they silently stared at the urn once again. "We should have searched more for Mom and Pop when the war started," Ranma said, breaking the silence once again. "If we had known they had gone to Africa, we would have." "Yeah... I wish they had kept us better informed of their whereabouts." More silence followed until the unmistakable sound of a wall collapsing was heard. "Kenage isn't taking it well." The sound of a kakana chopping into a block of wood in grief was heard. "No. Neither is Mom." "We have to do something." "What?" "I don't know." "I do." "Akane?" Ranko said, nodding her head back to look at the open doors to the dojo. "What we have to do is fight to protect our families... and the world... from those demons." Ranma and Ranko sat up and turned around to face their wife. They gasped in unison when they saw her hair. "Wha..." Ranko gasped. "What did you do?" Ranma asked. Akane patted her short hair, a noticeable sadness in her eyes. "I can't fight effectively with long hair, so I went to the beauty parlor and got it cut like it was in high school." "But you shouldn't be fighting now anyway," Ranko said as she walked over to her wife and patted her round belly. Akane nodded. "I know, but the Buyierfei aren't going to wait for me to have my... OUR baby. They'll be back and I'm going to be prepared to fight them." Ranma put his arm around Akane's shoulder. "If this is what you want..." Akane shook her head. "It's not what I want." She frowned. "What I want is the life I had before this horrible 'Black War' began." Ranko and Ranma nodded, unconsciously glancing at their father's urn. Akane continued. "But I can't have that any more. So... I'll do the next best thing." Ranko nodded. "Yes, we will." Ranma vocalized the thought they all shared. "We fight the Buyierfei until they are gone for good." Akane and Ranko nodded, and the triple couple all hugged. "Until our peaceful life is back," Akane said softly as she felt the strengths of her husbands flow into her, steeling her resolve to fight the darkness that had engulfed the world. And, most importantly, engulfed her family. They pulled apart slowly, Ranma looked at his wife's new haircut. "You look cute," he said, fingering her short bangs. Akane smiled slightly. "For an un-cute tomboy, you mean." "Yeah," Ranma agreed and leaned in for a kiss. "Icky!" The kiss interrupted, Akane and Ranma looked behind them and saw Rar stumbling up to the dojo with Ayami right behind him, prepared to catch the one-year-old should he fall. Ranko smiled and knelt down. She held out her hands to her young son. "That's my big boy." "Dada!" little Rar blurted as he fell into his birth mother's waiting arms. Akane giggled. "I see you've been teaching Rar to call you Daddy." Ranko looked a little awkward. "Well, I didn't want both of the kids I gave birth to calling me Mommy like Daiji does." Akane laughed and gave Ranko a peck on her cheek. Ranma scooped up Ayami, the eight-year-old girl a slightly heavier load than Rar was for Ranko. "Where's your other brother and sister, Aya?" Ayami smiled. "My brothers are training with Kenage." Ranma frowned a bit. "They're not being too rough with him, I hope?" Ayami shook her head. "Nope, but after the first hour I decided it was boring and went to see if Rar was more exiting to play with." She looked at her little brother. "He wasn't." Ranma laughed and looked at Ranko. "Care to go see how our kids are doing against the ten year old who almost beat you?" Ranko thought back to her little sparing session with Kenage when they were in Paris before the war. "I keep telling you that I took it easy on the kid!!" Akane laughed and pushed her husbands toward the doors. "Let's go see, shall we?" Their worries forgotten for the time being, the happy family made their way out of the dojo towards the sound of the training. It wasn't hard to find with all the crashes and explosions. Unfortunately, their brief moment of happiness was interrupted when Nipplering walked up to them halfway between the dojo and the west wall. "Leader, we have captured some unfriendlies." She gestured behind her to three Amazons carrying three large sacks casually over their shoulders. Akane and her husbands snapped into their battle stances, Ranko making sure Ayami and Rar were behind her and out of the line of fire of the sacks. "Drop them and we'll blast the monsters!!" Ranma snapped, cupping his hands and forming a chi ball. Nipplering shook her head. "They aren't the Buyierfei." After kissing her fingers and pressing them to her forehead, she turned her head and nodded to her warriors. The three large Amazons dropped the sacks, which started to squirm around. One of the sacks was noticeably smaller than the other two. Akane frowned. "What are they then?" Nipplering knelt down next to the smallest sack and undid the rope holding the end closed. "This..." Pulling the sack open and down, a man wearing dark glasses and wearing a black suit was revealed. "Untie us," the man said firmly, without a trace of emotion. The commanding tone of his voice was surprising considering his prone position with his arms and legs tied up. Akane gasped and looked irritably at Nipplering. "What are you doing, Nipplering?!" "They were caught spying on the Compound." Nipplering fingered a crystalline rod tucked into her belt. "We tested them with the rod, but they could still be agents of the Blackness." Akane flinched, as if she was kicking herself for not thinking the same thing. She looked at the man's face. He wasn't Japanese. she thought as she appraised the man. Reaching down, she removed the man's sunglasses and relaxed slightly when his green eyes looked back at her. "Who are you?" "We are here to gather information on this Amazon outpost and report back to Control." Akane took a step back. "Did Shuma send you?" The man frowned. "Shu...ma?" He shook his head. "I don't know who that is. We're part of an... an organization formed to combat the Buyierfei." The four Amazon warriors all kissed their fingers and placed them against their foreheads. This necessitated dropping the other two sacks, of course. The sacks grunted as they hit the ground, causing the man speak again. "I really must insist that you let us go." "As soon as we're sure you're don't pose any threat to our families," Akane said softly, still trying to decide what to do with the man and the two sacks. She glanced to the side and made sure Ayami and Rar were safe behind Ranko. "Families?" the man asked, looking around. "It doesn't seem wise to have families on a military base this small." Akane frowned. "This is my home, not a military base." Her statement was ruined when two dozen Amazons rushed up to the group in a fast march and halted in front of them. Rant was at the front. "Leader, Nipplering, we have completed a full search of the area immediately around the fences and the first two buffer zones. No more unfriendlies were found." Nipplering nodded her understanding and looked at Akane for orders. It was moments like these that Akane hated being the highest-ranking Amazon in the Compound. "Um..." "Mrs. Tendo-Saotome, if I may?" the man asked, seeing Akane's indecision. "You may speak," Akane said, trying to sound leader-like. "As I said, we are part of a organization that is dedicated to fighting the Bu-" He glanced at the two sacks, which had been picked up by the Amazons again. "-our common enemy. As it was, we were planning on making contact with you shortly, but your-" He looked at the warriors that had caught them. "-troops found us before we could." Akane nodded. "Perhaps we should talk. Unfortunately, we have to be careful since we've already had one attack from the Buyierfei recently and they could come after us again at any time." The man frowned. "Recently?" "A month ago." "But... there were no reports from the police, self defense force... or even the press," the man said, his voice showing signs of confusion for the first time. "Yeah... they never did take notice of any of the attacks on our house in ninety-nine either... even before the monolith appeared here." The man's jaw dropped open. "Bring them inside and we'll talk," Akane said, glancing at her husbands and then at where she had hoped to be spending some time with her kids. She sighed before heading towards her house. While the other two sacks were carried behind Akane, the short man was tossed over the shoulder of a large Amazon. Before following Akane, the Amazon paused and then spoke to Nipplering in Mandarin. Nipplering looked a bit surprised, but turned towards Akane. "Leader, Toilettissue is asking permission to keep the small one if he doesn't turn out to be an enemy." Akane stopped and turned around, snickering. "She has been looking for a husband for a while, I guess." The short man looked up at the Amazon--who was easily three times his size if you took all her measurements into account--and for the first time since being removed from his sack, his face showed fear. Some might even call it a look of pure terror. -A- -M- -D- "Who are you?" "I have no name." "Ok... what's your designation?" "I have no designation." "Your number?" "No number." Akane rolled her eyes. "You're taking this men in black bit a bit too far. Fine... what's your initial?" "No initial." "Well... what's the way you are referred to as?" "I am not referred to as anything. As far as the world is concerned, I don't exist." Akane put out a hand to stop Ranma when he wanted to slug the man to prove that he did in fact exist. "Of course you exist." "As far as others are concerned, I don't exist. My partners and I are like shadows on the wall, we have no real existence in this world. No names, no records, no identification... no designations of any kind." "So if you're walking down the street and one of you is going to get hit by a car, how do you warn them?" "We don't. Death is irrelevant if we don't exist." "So if I sliced the head off this tall one-" Nipplering put a sword to one of the tall men's necks. "-you wouldn't care?" "Stop that!!" Akane snapped. "He can be replaced," the short man said calmly. Akane glanced at the tall man with Nipplering's sword at his neck and was amazed that he showed no fear or reaction to his possible death. "Life is not something to take so lightly." "I do not have a sword to his neck, you do," the short man said softly. Akane realized he was right and looked at Nipplering. "Put down your sword, Nipplering." For a brief moment, Akane thought she saw the tall man glance at Nipplering's chest as if he was wondering if she lived up to her name. Nipplering sheathed her sword, but stayed alert. She didn't trust the three strange men. Technically neither did Akane, but she wanted to at least find out who they were before having Nipplering throw them out. "Okay, what's the name of the organization you work for?" "It has no name." Akane thought as she pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the man. "Who finances your non-existent organization?" "I'm not at liberty to say." Akane decided to change tactics a bit. "You fight the Buyierfei?" "In our own way." "What way is that?" "Developing weapons, training soldiers, preparing contingency plans, collecting information, acting as a go-between between various agencies." "So why were you spying on us?" "We have been trying to make contact with the Amazons for some time. Unfortunately, your appearances at the front line were often in view of people who cannot know of our existence, so we have tracked you to the village in China and your fortress here." Akane frowned. "This is my home." "Your home is very well fortified." "We'd like to stay alive." "So the Buyierfei know you are here?" "Yes." "Why don't they attack in force?" "They have in the past, but we've been able to defend against them." "But could you defend against the numbers that were fought in Africa?" Both Ranma and Ranko smirked. "We were in Africa, so don't think we can't defend our families." "Yes, we know. We saw you appear out of nowhere in Mexico City and arranged for you to be given assistance to leave so we could find out where you lived." Ranma didn't like being used. "I don't like being used, you bast..." Akane put her hand over his mouth to silence him. "So you're financed by the U.S. government, huh? They were the ones who helped Ranma and Ranko get to Africa." The short man frowned slightly. "I did not say that." Akane smiled slightly at her victory. "Look, this isn't the time to keep secrets from each other. The whole world is in danger from the Buyierfei, we have to work together." "We agree." "You do?" "Yes. As I said earlier, we were planning on making contact after we had a better idea of who you were and why you have a fortress in the middle of Tokyo." "It's my home." "Maybe you would like to visit 'our' home?" Akane frowned. "Why?" "So we can exchange information and better prepare for the Buyierfei when they return in force again." "We can do that here." "There are certain things we'd also like to show you." "What?" "I cannot discuss that here." "Then we're not going." "Don't you want to know why the Buyierfei blasted the Moon again?" -A- -M- -D- August 13-18, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Days 106-111) As she emerged from the hatch of the converted seven-ninety-seven troop transport plane, Akane gulped at the endless desert stretched out in front of her. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Ranko emerged from the hatch and smiled. "We want to help wherever we can, don't we?" She slipped her arm around Akane to reassure her wife. Akane nodded. "Besides-" Ranma said as he emerged from the hatch. "-who are we to turn down a free vacation to... Amer... i..." He trailed off when he got a good look at his surroundings. "-ca." His jaw dropped as he scanned the area again. "This doesn't look anything like Florida." He didn't mention that it almost looked like what Florida might have looked like AFTER the First Monolith blew, but then Ranma hadn't been back to Florida since ninety-nine. Except for the fact that it wasn't charred and burnt, the landscape did look remarkably like the aftermath of a monolith explosion; nothing but endless wasteland for as far as the eye could see. In one direction, the desert sands and very infrequent scrub brush led up to the nearby hills and mountains; in the other three directions the endless sands stretched to the horizon and beyond. As she scanned the 'airbase' where they had landed, Akane didn't see any of the normal sights one would expect at a military airbase. Including the vehicles, buildings, and hangers one would normally expect to see. Akane started down the stairs that had been moved up to the plane. "It's a big country." As she stepped onto the desert 'sand', Akane realized that it was actually pavement of the same color as the surrounding desert. She looked back up at the plane, which was also painted to blend in with the surrounding desert. In fact, it was the perfect match for the exact color of the desert around them. Looking down the runway where the airplane had landed, she saw the runway lights turn off one after the other and lower under the sand. She started to feel a bit uneasy. At the bottom of the stairs, several U.S. Air Force officers waited in a short line. The senior officer, a general, saluted towards Akane once she and her husbands were together at the bottom, The other officers followed suit. "Welcome to Area Fifty-two, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome," he said in English. He was a middle-aged man, just a hint of gray in his shortly cut hair. His stern, chiseled face showed both intelligence and authority. His body showed that he wasn't one to sit behind a desk and that he could probably bench press a desk if he wanted to. Akane frowned and replied carefully relying on the English she had learned in high school and had practiced with the other English speakers on the plane during the flight from Tokyo. "Thank you... but I always thought it was Area Fifty-one?" The general chuckled. "Area Fifty-one is just a cover. The base in Nevada is just to attract the nutcases there instead of here. We even stage fake UFO sightings there to keep the conspiracy nuts happy." "I see. Um..." Akane looked around. "Well... this is my husband Ranma." She indicated Ranma, at which point the officers saluted again. Ranma smirked at the welcome they were receiving. "This is my oth... um... my sister-in-law," Akane said, gesturing at Ranko. Again, the officers saluted, one of them in more ways than one. Ranko was a knockout, after all, and spending an extended amount of time in the desert does things to a young officer. "And of course our little group of Amazons." Akane glanced at the top of the stairs where several Amazons waited their turn to come down the stairs. They had wanted to be the first out of the plane to secure the area, but Akane thought that would be rude. That didn't stop them from scanning the area for any signs of trouble from their high perch and making a mental list of the high security airbase's security shortcomings. The lack of an anti-Buyierfei fence was at the top of the list. Not to mention the lack of ANY fence. Just inside the Boeing seven-ninety-seven's doorway, a very green Mousse waited. In his hands, he clutched a handful of airsickness bags in case something suddenly came up. Needless to say, the half man-half duck didn't like flying unless his wings were doing the flying. He took a deep breath and composed himself like he had had to do every time he accompanied Nabiki on a business trip. His experience dealing with Americans was why Nabiki had insisted he accompany the entourage after Akane and her husbands had accepted the three men in black's invitation to visit the secret airbase in order to exchange information about the Buyierfei. And--just to keep things really interesting--about forty Amazons were on board the plane to protect them all. Mostly since Nipplering didn't trust the three men in black. The rest of the Amazons were left behind to keep an eye on the Compound and their families. In short, the plane flight from Japan had the most heaving breasts ever recorded on a passenger flight--or would have been recorded if this wasn't a secret flight. The previous record had been the Dallas Cheerleaders, but it was hard to truly compare the two since there hadn't been any silicone on this flight. As the Amazons--all dressed in full armor and carrying a wide assortment of weapons--started to make their way down the stairway, there were an assortment of comments, gasps, and wolf whistles from the enlisted men who were servicing the large military passenger plane. "Ten hut!" the general called out, causing the enlisted men to snap to attention, in more ways than one. "These Amazons are our honored guests on this base, and you will treat each and every one of them as you would any officer. Is that understood?" "Yes. Sir!" the enlisted men all replied in unison. Akane was a bit overwhelmed by events, but she tried to take it in stride. "Um... at ease." As one, the two dozen soldiers all put their arms behind their backs and relaxed slightly. "Even the Amazon's aren't this formal." Ranma laughed. "That's because you don't order them around like that." Akane blushed. "It... it was just the first thing that popped into my head." The general cleared his throat and looked at Akane. "Mrs. Tendo-Saotome?" "Yes, ummm... what was your name, General?" "I'm afraid that I'm not at liberty to disclose that information, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome. Feel free to call any of my people by their ranks." Akane sighed and glanced at several nearby officers, all of which had no nametags like most soldiers would have. "But you do have a name, right? Not like those three identity-less men who invited us?" "Since they don't exist I can't discuss those men, but I do have a name. In time, I will be able to share it with you, but for now it's safer for all of us if you don't know." "I don't like all this secrecy... we aren't the enemy." "I understand. We can get started with a tour and then our military intelligence officers have a few questions for you all." "Military intelligence," Ranma snickered at the oxymoron. Akane glared at her husband. Ranko couldn't understand English that well, but she knew that look well enough to know Ranma had said something stupid. She had been on the receiving end of that look many times, after all. "Shall we go?" the general asked. "Go? Go where?" Ranma asked, looking around the empty desert for a car or something that would take them to the airbase they had expected to land at. The general glanced at a lieutenant at his side, who reached for a hand mike and spoke into it. "Open up the gates of heaven, the promised land is upon us." Akane's eyes blinked in surprise at the overly melodramatic code phrase, as she suspected it was. Then her eyes shot fully open when the nearby mountain opened up. Yes, the whole mountain. A dozen large, roughly triangular-shaped boulders lowered into the desert 'floor'. As the key boulders holding the side of the mountain together lowered, a seam appeared about ten meters in front of the nose of the plane. With a slow--but graceful--grinding of metal and gears, the slabs slid to the side and revealed a large hangar inside the apparently hollow mountain. The entrance was wide and tall enough to allow the large seven-ninety-seven to enter with room to spare. Beyond the opened 'gates of heaven', a dark metal corridor stretched into the mountain. Only some widely spaced lights along the right wall gave off any light and seemed to curve to the right for as far as they could see, which wasn't far. The general gestured to the entrance. "Shall we?" Awed into silence by the massive gate and tunnel, the newly arrived group started towards the right side of the tunnel where the general had pointed. The Amazons came in behind them, still scanning for any signs of trouble. "Man, you could at least have pulled the plane inside so we didn't have to walk so far," Ranma commented after the awe had worn off. The general smiled and pointed to four red lights arranged in a square and set about ten meters apart into the floor near the right wall. "Please, step between the red lights." "You first," Ranma replied suspiciously. The general laughed softly. "Very wise." That was when one of the Amazons shoved a rod onto the general's neck. "Gaaaa..." The soldiers' handguns came out very fast, but not as fast as the Amazon's swords or Ranma and Ranko's chi balls. "Toefungus!" Akane shouted. Toefungus withdrew the rod. "He's clean." "What..." the general gasped. Akane sighed. "I'm sorry, general, she was just checking to see if you might be possessed by the Buyierfei." She glared at Toefungus. "I had told her to ask before shoving her rod anywhere." "Sorry, Leader, but I didn't want to give them a chance to disguise their energy." Akane opened her mouth to complain, but the general spoke first. "That's alright, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome. We were informed of your test, I was just a bit surprised, that's all." He gestured to the officers and soldiers to put away their weapons. "We'd like our scientists to inspect that rod later, if that's okay?" "I will be glad to probe them with it," Toefungus offered. The general was a little worried about that. Usually it was the scientists that did the probing. "Um... shall we continue?" They made their way into the corridor and walked between two red lights recessed into the floor about three meters apart. The visitors were shocked to find themselves stepping onto a wide movable walkway that whisked them deep into the mountain. As they moved deeper into the mountain, Akane looked around and noticed that the other side of the tunnel had another row of lights, but angled so they could only be seen from the other direction. Another moving walkway was on the other side as well, as indicated by various technicians moving towards the entrance. Akane thought as the tunnel's curvature took them out of sight of the entrance. Soon, a large metal gate could be seen at the end of the tunnel. Lights clearly marked the end of the walkway where they all stepped off into the large circular area in front of the gate. As Akane and her husbands looked around, the general stepped forward and spoke. "Damned to hell, we are here to burn." Akane thought, then flinched when the large gate at the end of the tunnel opened up in several large pieces going in all directions. All thought and words left her when she saw what lay behind the gate. She had envisioned some sort of hidden hanger to hold the plane they had arrived on and several other vehicles and aircraft, but she could not have imagined anything like the large complex that was spread out in front of her. The general turned back to Akane and the others. "This facility started as a small cold war facility-" "Ssss... small?" Ranma managed to gasp. The general continued. "-but we've been expanding and fortifying it since ninety-nine to be a secure base to fight the Buyierfei from." Expanding was right. Not only was it big enough to hold the four-hundred passenger seven-ninety-seven they had flown in on, but it was big enough to hold the other identical plane already inside, four large cargo planes, three dozen attack helicopters, various land vehicles, and just over two hundred fighter jets on a series of elevated platforms. It was not unlike an aircraft carrier that had been built inside a mountain instead of a shipyard. And that's just what they could make out from where they stood. Various side chambers spread out from the central chamber, making it painfully obvious that this complex dwarfed even the most elaborate James Bond set. There are no words that could describe the look on Akane and her husband's faces as they tried to take in the enormous facility. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before. "That must have cost a lot of money." Akane looked back at Mousse. "You've been married my sister too long if your first thought is about money at a time like this." Mousse shrugged. -A- -M- -D- "When did you first encounter he Buyierfei?" the military intelligence officer asked in perfect Japanese. "It was in early ninety-nine... in the Australian outback," Akane answered, feeling a little uncomfortable in the small room without her husbands or Amazons around. Behind the single U.S. Army officer, a mirror was positioned. She was sure there were other people watching behind it. "Then that crazy Australian who is giving tours of Devil's End Canyon was telling the truth about there being a monolith down there?" the officer asked. Akane nodded, remembering the last letter she got from Kodachi almost a year earlier. The officer looked behind him at the mirror for a few seconds. Turning back to Akane, he asked his next question. "How many Buyierfei were there in Australia?" -A- -M- -D- "None, we only fought with them after getting pulled into the Buyierfei's realm through the monolith," Ranma answered the latest question he was asked in the room he was being questioned in. "There must have been thousands of them there... maybe millions." "And you defeated them all?" the officer questioning Ranma asked. "Well, we are the world's greatest martial artists, after all." -A- -M- -D- "Well, we are the world's greatest martial artists, after all," Ranko remarked, smirking. "Who... what is this thing?" the officer asked, sliding a grainy picture in front of Ranko. Ranko stiffened when she recognized the image. "That's... Shuma." She took a deep breath. "At least that's what he calls himself." "Shuma..." The officer leaned closer to Ranko. "Who is he?" -A- -M- -D- "He's the Buyierfei's leader," Akane replied. "Sort of." "Sort of?" -A- -M- -D- "Well, it's complicated," Ranma said, rubbing his head. "The Buyierfei don't really have a hierarchy like humans do. Shuma is the center of the Buyierfei." "The center?" "Yeah... he's kind of like the brain of a human. As long as he's around the Buyierfei have a purpose instead of being mindless blobs." "So if we kill him, we win this war?" -A- -M- -D- Ranko shook her head. "It's not that simple. We thought we had killed him at the end of ninety-nine, but he survived somehow and came back with the rest of his kind." The officer nodded. "So, he's immortal?" -A- -M- -D- Akane shrugged. "He claims he is. He survived being cut entirely in half... which is why he looks like he is now, but we have been able to injure him at various times, so..." She sighed. The officer nodded and slid two more pictures forward. "Now, about this..." Akane looked down at the photos and cringed, having dreaded having to discuss what the photos showed. -A- -M- -D- "Well?" the officer prodded, gesturing at the two photos. "Um..." Ranma hesitated. "Mr. Saotome... I'll ask you again. Why does half of 'Shuma' look like your face and half like your sister's?" "Um..." -A- -M- -D- "Um..." "Ms. Tendo, please answer the question," "Um..." -A- -M- -D- "During our first encounter with the Buyierfei, Shuma took on both of their appearances since they were the first humans who entered the Australian monolith. He/she could actually change forms between their two appearances, but after he returned this year, he was split half way between male and female." The officer appraised Akane for a moment, thinking the explanation sounded a bit to neat and rehearsed. Mostly because it was. Akane wondered if the story they had thought up to explain Shuma's appearance would work, since none of them were eager for anyone outside the family to know that Shuma was Sanma's immaculately conceived child. -A- -M- -D- "I guess he just picked the most handsome man around at the time to mimic," Ranma boasted, his ego flowing out of his ears in an effort to distract the officer from delving too deeply into this issue. Ranko had an easier time distracting her interrogator from delving into this subject too deeply. -A- -M- -D- Ranko smiled seductively and struck a pose that drove Akane wild. "I guess they chose the foxiest woman around at the time to mimic." The officer gulped. -A- -M- -D- More questions and answers followed. Most were answered truthfully, but there were certain things they weren't willing to share in order to protect their family. When the questioning went into its third day, Akane snapped. "Look, we were told that we were coming here to discuss the Buyierfei, but all you've done is ask *US* endless questions!" The officer remained calm. "I'm sorry, but you all have had such close contact with the Buyierfei and their leader that we need to find out as much as we can to fight them effectively." "I know that, but this is more like an interrogation," Akane said as she shifted her position on the chair. The officer glanced at her pregnant belly. "I'm sorry, if we can get you a more comfortable chair... I know it must be hard to sit still in your condition." Akane smirked. "The chair isn't a problem. I've been pregnant in much worse places." "Well, then... just a few more questions and then we'll stop for today." Akane knew she was being placated. She didn't like to be placated. Especially not after three days of being placated. "I think we're done now. Tomorrow, I think I'd like to discuss what YOU know about the Buyierfei." When the officer didn't show any sign of agreeing, Akane prodded further. "Like those three men promised when we were invited to be your GUESTS?" The officer remained impassive as Akane stood up and walked towards the door, hoping it would open like it always did when the officer ended their Q and A sessions. She wasn't sure what she'd do if they insisted on continuing the session, but knew it wouldn't be pretty. As she neared the door, the officer finally spoke. "Yes, I think that is a good idea." Akane exhaled in relief as the door lock clicked open. -A- -M- -D- In one of the many nooks and crannies that made up the underground base, Mousse ran his fingers along the sleek surface of a fighter jet. He flinched when a voice interrupted his appreciation of a fellow flier. "Hey, hands off!" the air force pilot said as he came out from behind the jet's aft section. Mousse pulled his arm away. "Sorry, I was just admiring her form," he said in perfect English. Recognition downed on the pilot's face. Remembering the base's commanding officer's orders in regards to the Amazons, he relaxed. "Oh, you're one of those Amazons." Mousse smiled. "Once upon a time I was, now I'm just married to one." The Tendos were honorary Amazons after all. Visions of large breasts danced in the pilot's head, causing him to drool slightly. "Lucky you." He scanned the area and spotted a few Amazons patrolling the area, like they had insisted on doing since arriving in the 'unsecured' base. At least that's what they considered it. "Which one is she?" Mousse laughed. "She didn't come with us." "Sending the men to do the dirty work, huh?" Mousse shook his head. "Traditionally, Amazon men rarely leave the village in China, but my wife is hardly a traditional Amazon." the pilot thought, but decided not to bring up the subject. Instead he touched the skin of his F-35, or 'Buyierfei Killer' as he called it. It had yet to live up to its name. "She's a beauty, isn't she?" Mousse nodded. "Yeah, looks like she'd cut the wind with almost no resistance," he remarked as he examined the sleek fighter jet. The pilot looked at Mousse in a new light. "You fly?" Mousse laughed. "I've been known to sprout wings every now and then." Never one to turn down a chance to show off his pride and joy, the pilot made an offer. "Want to go up with me? I've got a test flight in an hour and it seats two." Mousse gulped and eyed the double seat cockpit. "I'm not sure, I..." "Come on, she's every flier's dream." "Well..." Taking that as agreement, the pilot smiled. "Great!!" He stepped forward and offered his hand. "I'm Captain Justin Tyler, pleased to meet you." Mousse took the offered hand and shook it. "I'm Mousse Tendo." "Mousse, as in the animal or the dessert?" Mousse laughed, having had the same reaction whenever he interacted with Americans. -A- -M- -D- Mousse gulped as his stomach attempted to jump out of his throat. "I really need to stretch my wings more often," he said, gripping the armrests on his rear seat. Misunderstanding Mousse's comment, Captain Tyler called from his position in the front seat of the F-35. "You probably have never flown this fast before." Mousse nodded. "No... my wings would break off." "Well, don't worry about that here. This baby's made to take a beating. She and her little sister, the F-33, were the first jets specifically made to combat the Buyierfei." "She did look a little unusual to me." It was hard to tell under his oxygen mask, but Captain Tyler smiled. "The tailless design and rounded wings are designed to prevent Buyierfei from grabbing hold of the jet in flight." He nudged the throttle up a notch. "At the same time, the design makes it very fast and agile." He put the plane into a tight turn. "I can... urk... see that." "Then we have a front-mounted directional jet that allows us to maneuver in almost any direction." Captain Tyler twisted his control stick in a way that no previous fighter jet's stick would have moved, rotating and bending the end at the same time. The jet followed the movements almost perfectly. The jet engine nozzle mounted directly under the forward pilot seat turned towards the side and pushed the front of the plane in the opposite direction. At the same time, the onboard computer feathered one of the rear engines and caused the rear to move up and to the same side as the front. The result was that the plane slipped quickly to the side and upward. Only the jet's unique design and flexible airframe allowed it to stay in one piece whereas a normal jet would have been torn into multiple pieces by the maneuver. Mousse might have been impressed if not for two facts: He'd performed the same maneuver several times while in his feathered form and his stomach was doing its best to leap out of his throat and continue forward in the jet's previous flight path. "After all the jets that were lost in air to air combat in ninety-nine, there were several projects to build better jets that could combat the Buyierfei. Up until then, the jets were primarily made to combat other jets. They just couldn't handle fighting something organic. Unfortunately, a lot of those projects got canceled when it started to look like the Buyierfei weren't coming back." "So why was this one completed?" "Because not every part of the U.S. Government knew what we did." "What was that?" "I can't tell you." Mousse raised an eyebrow. "Anyway... this fighter jet has some of the most advanced anti-Buyierfei weapons we could devise. Some are on the regular military's jets now, but not all of them." "Like what?" Captain Tyler smiled again and pushed his jet's nose down. "I'll show you." Within moments the sleek two-seater was screaming over the desert below and Captain Tyler started to call out the weapons. "Buyierfei locator rounds..." As he toggled one of his weapons triggers, the jet was surrounded by thousands of tiny metal pellets that screamed away from the jet in every direction except directly in the jet's flight path. "I know the avians aren't invisible, but we don't want to take chances and we'll also occasionally help in ground operations. We have a number of different dispersal patterns we can use." He continued with his list. "Blades of death..." "That the real name?" Captain Tyler laughed. "No... no... that's just what us pilots call them." He hit a switch. "Watch." Two crescent-shaped blades flew out from the wings, spinning so fast that they almost looked like a completely circular blade. "We just think that name is better than 'rotary angle cutters type B'." Mousse laughed. "Yeah, I can see how that name wouldn't be a very popular one." He saw the blades impact the ground below, kicking up a large cloud of sand with the force of their impact. "I actually have used some hand weapons like that." "I'd love to see your weapons sometime. Maybe some of them can be adapted to air combat." Mousse thought back to all the weapons he'd used in his duck form. "Yeah... some might be very useful to you." Captain Tyler continued his weapons demonstration. "Air to Buyierfei missiles..." The jet shook as a slim missile blasted away from under the plane. "There are currently four different styles of these missiles, which one we use depends on the mission and situation." Mousse frowned, since he hadn't seen any missiles attached to the jet before they took off. "Where did that come from?" "All the armaments are attached to racks that can be raised and lowered as needed from the fuselage. There's also several torpedo tube-type launchers. It's all designed to present as minimal of a target to the Buyierfei as possible," Captain Tyler explained. "We have full two-way control over all our missiles." Using a thumb-operated joystick on his control stick, Captain Tyler caused the missile to turn around and fly circles around his own jet. Mousse almost threw up trying to follow it with his eyes. "A fiber-optic camera in the nose lets us see exactly what the missile sees, so we don't even need to be in visual range of the Buyierfei we attack." Captain Tyler squinted as he positioned the missile to get a look at his guest in the rear seat. "You're looking a bit green, are you okay?" "Yeah... I think so." "Good. We have several ways to detonate the missile, of course. Including a new sensor that should be able to detect when it enters the flesh of a Buyierfei." "Should?" "Well... the F-35 hasn't been used in actual combat against the Buyierfei yet." "Why?" "The Air Force is currently using the F-33 in limited quantities--which is a variation on this jet, but not as advanced. They had some success with it in Africa, but they didn't have a lot in the area to use. It's only a one-seater, so it's not as versatile in air to Buyierfei combat. In this two-seater, you would normally be the weapons handler while I concentrate on piloting up here, but either seat can run all the operations of the plane if needed. You just have to be able to deal with piloting and fighting a demon from hell at the same time." Mousse thought of the one or two times that he had to fight Buyierfei in his duck form. It wasn't easy. "That's not something I'd recommend." "Yeah, the Air Force had to limit their combat to long range attacks using the F-33 and older jets, otherwise they lost almost all their pilots." Captain Tyler said, saying a silent prayer for his fellow aviators who had taken off for the last time. -A- -M- -D- Just when they were headed back to the hidden base and Mousse had hopes of keeping his lunch from messing up the high-tech cockpit's controls, Captain Tyler made an offer. "Hey, do you want to take the controls?" Mousse's stomach contracted at the mere mention. "Huh?" "You're a pilot, aren't you? Come on, she's a flyer's dream." "Um..." Mousse looked at the totally unfamiliar controls in front of him. "I couldn't possibly handle this thing." "Come on... the computer does most of the work, you just move the stick where you want to go." Mousse gulped. He didn't exactly want to admit that he wasn't the kind of 'flier' that Captain Tyler thought he was. "Okay, you've got control on your stick." As the stick between Mousse's legs unlocked and started wobbling around, Mousse's eyes shot open and his thoughts quickly changed to survival. "Oh, shit!!" As the plane's nose started to inch downwards, Mousse grabbed the control stick out of instinct. The quick movement, caused the jet to veer to the left. Mousse pulled his hand to the right, but over compensated, causing the jet to roll to the right. "Oh, crap!!" He pulled the stick back to the left and forward, bending the stick slightly. The jet dutifully followed the direction indicated and plunged towards the ground and then flipped upside down. "Urk!" Surprisingly, that sound came from Captain Tyler and not Mousse. Mousse calmly moved the control stick and the plane leveled off. Further movements caused the plane to gracefully paint circular patterns in the sky. As the sky spun around Mousse, he started to feel less like a passenger and more like a bird in flight. Somehow, having control of the jet negated the nauseous feeling that plagued him whenever he flew on a plane as a passenger. Except for the absence of the wind on his wings, Mousse could sense the movements of the jet's wings through the control stick. The sensation was so real to him he was startled when he heard Captain Tyler's voice over his helmet's headphones. "Wow, that's impressive. You're a natural." Mousse grinned as he put the jet into a graceful climb. "I have been know to sprout feathers now and then to take to the skies... this isn't much different." Captain Tyler smiled. "You know... we could always use a good pilot with Buyierfei combat experience." "Huh?" "Do you want me to teach you how to fly this thing for real?" "For real?" Captain Tyler grinned slightly. "Well... the jet is in maximum assist mode at the moment..." "Oh..." "Don't sound so disappointed. Even with my years of flight experience, I almost crashed this puppy the first time I flew it in full assist mode. So what do you say, want to learn to fly the world's most advanced fighter jet?" he asked, knowing no pilot could resist. "Well... I'll have to see what my wife thinks." "Buyierfei Killer, this is Control." Captain Tyler flinched at the unexpected intrusion into their flight. Most test flights were done without any communications at all with the secret base. "Go ahead, Control." "Your wife has asked me when you're going to get back to the base so she can have dinner ready." Fortunately, Mousse couldn't see the deep shade of red Captain Tyler suddenly turned. "We'll be back in fifteen minutes." "Understood." Captain Tyler click off the secured link to the base and looked over his shoulder. "Mousse, you want to do the honors?" "Um..." "Just get us on a heading of two-five-one and take us down to two-thousand feet, I'll take over when we near the base." "Um... okay." Mousse nervously scanned the instruments in front of him for anything that would tell him what that meant. He usually relied on his duck senses to find his way in the air. His instruments were built-in, after all, not digital like the F-35's. -A- -M- -D- Instead of the one-on-one sessions the next day, they invited Akane, her husbands, and the high ranking Amazons to meet with them in a large circular briefing room. In front of a series of large wall monitors, Akane sat with her husbands. The other Amazons were spread out within the two hundred person briefing room. In the front of the room to the right side, a row of ten military officers sat at a marble table. Trying to be inconspicuous, the two tall men and one short man in black suits stood stiffly at the back of the room and silently observed. Akane couldn't help but glance at them every now and then to see what they were doing, which was usually just standing there stiffly and staring straight ahead. Finally, the general that had greeted them when they had first landed walked in and stood in front of the room. "Sorry to keep you all waiting. I'm General Maxwell Smart." He paused slightly, returning Akane's smile at finally learning his name. "Everything you see and learn here is confidential information and is not to be discussed with anyone not presently within this room and should not be discussed in any non-secured location." Ranma leaned over and whispered to Ranko. "And I thought the stiffs that questioned us were anal about security." Akane cleared her throat. "The information you have so graciously provided us will be very helpful. As we promised, it's now time for us to return the favor. "As you well know, back in ninety-nine two teenagers disappeared from a bus in the Everglades. That led to the discovery of the--apparently misnamed--First Monolith. After collecting energy from the immediate area and by using its 'roots' to gather energy from a larger radius, the monolith reached what we are calling 'critical mass' and imploded." "Imploded?" Akane asked. "Basically, the data we have from the event indicates the monolith folded in on itself before generating a shock wave that devastated Florida and disgorged an untold number of Buyierfei. We also now believe that the shock wave itself was used to convert matter directly into energy and fed it back to the vortex, instead of just being a force for destruction. "The other monoliths that appeared in ninety-nine exploded and only destroyed small parts of the surrounding areas. Thanks to our guests, we know now that this is due to our guests imploding the hearts of the monoliths with their magic." Ranma spoke up. "It's not magic, it's focused manipulation of our well honed chi." "Um... yes... of course. This process of imploding the hearts, seems to prevent the full scale activation of the monoliths. As far as we've been able to determine, the monoliths serve many uses for the Buyierfei. They act as doorways to and from the Buyierfei's 'realm', which we still have no way of knowing where or what that 'realm' is or if it even exists." "Oh, it exists alright..." Ranko muttered, doing her best to keep up with the English lecture. "The scientists studying the data have no way to determine what the 'realm' is, but they do know that it is a single location that can be accessed from multiple monoliths no matter how far apart they are. Considering our guests have documented movements between monoliths spread out on all corners of the Earth, the Buyierfei's 'realm' doesn't appear to share the same spatial coordinates as the monoliths. There also seems to be some discontinuity between time in the 'realm' and the time in our world." He took a deep breath. "Our scientists would like to talk to you all directly, if that would be okay?" Akane nodded. "We can meet with them in the rec room near our rooms." She grinned. The general looked at the men in black and the short one nodded. "Yes, that would be fine." He continued. "Fast forward to this year and we have the explosion of the Fourth Monolith in Africa." He clicked a button and a satellite photo dated 'April 29, 2009' appeared on the array of monitors above his head. It was focused on the Sinai Peninsula between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but you could see most of the north-eastern part of Africa in the shot. "This was recorded by a weather satellite on day zero." He clicked another button and the still picture started moving in one second increments. In the lower left-hand corner, a small point of light appeared. At the same moment a black wave cascaded over the brown dessert terrain pictured in the satellite images. Akane's gut tightened and she clenched her teeth, two hands quickly grasped both of hers from either side of her as her husbands tried to comfort her. On the monitors, the black shock wave reached its maximum size, which was helpfully marked in computer graphics as the shock wave receded back to it's origin, also marked with a 'Fourth Monolith' marker now. As the energy fed back, a golden beam arced to the side of the image. As it disappeared from the image's range, the image started to break up with all sorts of digital dropouts and lost data indicators. Finally, the image turned off. "Unfortunately, the beam and the debris blasted from the Moon's surface combined to damage a lot of orbiting satellites, so we lost a lot of communication and surveillance capability. During the aftermath, the governments of the world had to commandeer most of the world's land-based and under-sea communications systems to coordinate emergency and military operations. We, and others across the world, are working hard to replace the satellites lost and to design more hardened versions to survive under the severe conditions we now have in Earth orbit. "Our calculations show that the African blast was at least twice as strong as the Florida blast, maybe as high as five times as strong. We suspect this is due to the longer period the Fourth had to gather energy allowing its implosion and energy converting shock wave to reach out further, and thus gather more energy at the moment of implosion. The amount of debris blasted into lunar orbit was also significantly greater than in nin..." Ranma interrupted. "Um... how do you know how long the monoliths were in Florida and Africa?" "Ah... yes..." The general looked down at his podium and typed something on the integrated keyboard. "These pictures show the approximate arrivals of the Monoliths." Akane, her husbands, and the Amazons all gasped as eight satellite images appeared. Some were very clear and detailed, while others had obviously been blown up from pictures taken of a larger area. Each had a monolith numbered from zero--that being the Australian monolith--through seven and a date listed. The images were toggling between two images: one showing a featureless terrain and the next clearly showing the monoliths in various positions. The two photos for each monolith had before and after dates ranging from a few days apart to almost a year apart. The picture of the African monolith was dated 'June 28, 2008' and clearly showed the monolith lying horizontally and partially covered by sand. "You knew where they were?" Akane asked, incredulously. Then her eyes grew angry. "You knew the African.. and the Iranian monoliths were there?!" She stood up and clenched her fists; Ranma, Ranko, and the Amazons were right behind her. "All those people..." she growled, a fierce red aura appearing around her. The general gulped and backed away. "No... no..." He waved his hands frantically in front of him and then dived out of the way of the three chi balls that homed in on his position. Barely missing him, they blew the wall behind him apart. Akane turned towards her husbands. "Let's get the other Amazons and get out of here fast." "Mrs. Tendo-Saotome... please...." the general said from under the upturned marble table where he and the other military officers had taken refuge. "Shut up!" Akane snapped. "There's no excuse for not warning the world about the African monolith." She turned towards the exit and was a bit surprised to see the three men in black still standing calmly near it. "And especially not the Iranian one!" "Mrs. Tendo-Saotome," the short one said calmly. "We didn't know beforehand. We went back and searched all the satellite photos on record to narrow down when the monoliths first appeared. The Australian monolith was just identified yesterday based on your interviews, for instance." He gestured at the monitors; those that hadn't crashed to the ground, at least. "Although we have been looking for signs of the Buyierfei's return ever since ninety-nine, the desert sands covered the Fourth and the mountainous terrain around Tehran hid the Sixth from discovery until it was too late. It was only after we knew of their exact locations that we could go back and look at every satellite photo taken of those locations. Not only from our own surveillance satellites, but photos taken by other countries and private surveillance companies. Unfortunately, only in hindsight were we isolate the approximate date of their appearances." Akane looked between the short man and the monitors and then at the military officer's cowering behind the marble table. "Oh... sorry." "No problem," the short man said, just as a couple more monitors crashed to the ground in a thunderous crash of tearing metal and breaking glass. -A- -M- -D- In another meeting room that looked identical to the first one--except for the gaping hole in the wall and destroyed monitors, of course--the general resumed his presentation. For some reason he was wearing a bulletproof vest and standing closer to the exit. The other officers were nowhere to be seen. The three men in black, were standing calmly in the back, just like before. "Now then... the Australian, Middle East, and Florida monoliths were clearly placed to avoid detection. We always wondered why the Tokyo monolith appeared there, since it was so easy to locate." "It wanted us," Akane muttered, her trembling hand putting on the baby she carried within her now, remembering the pain of giving birth to Yohachi within the Buyierfei's realm after being pulled into the Tokyo monolith. The general nodded. "Yes. Now that we know that, it might help our analysts predict the Buyierfei's actions." He gestured to the undamaged monitors in this room and the images turned from photos--either satellite or regular photos taken from the ground--of the first four monoliths to the next four. "Likewise, the African and Iranian monoliths were carefully hidden to avoid detection as long as possible. In contrast, the Moscow and Mexico City monoliths were in the middle of cities and seem to have been placed there to collect energy faster, but we can't be sure at this point since we can see no particular motives in their placement in those cities. This 'Shuma' seems to have a number of different motives influencing him. "Gathering energy, releasing his kind into our world, coming after you and your family, destroying the Amazons, and... the beams that have blasted the Moon." He hit a key and the monitors showed three changing faces of the Moon; pre-ninety-nine, after the first blast, and after the recent blast. "The blast in ninety-nine hit a monolith on the moon with amazing accuracy and then hit another spot where there was another monolith until mid-ninety-eight. Neither monolith appears in pictures taken of the moon's surface before ninety-seven. We now believe they might have only arrived or became visible along with the arrival of the monolith in Australia. "Based on how the first monolith on the Moon channeled and redirected the First's blast, our theory is that something happened to that second Moon monolith and thwarted the Buyierfei's plans in ninety-nine. That and your... incapacitating, of their leader helped the world survive those horrible events." "You mean when we chopped the bastard in half?" Ranma commented. "Um... yes." The general continued. "As for the purpose of this recent blast from the Fourth..." Akane's grip on her husband's hands tightened as the images on the monitors changed to show another monolith rising over the gray features of the moon. The fact that the words 'live feed' were prominently displayed on the digital static-filled video filled her with dread. "Another..." "Yes, there's another monolith on the Moon. This one is on the far side of the moon, so it is not visible from Earth-based telescopes. It's been there since at least late in the year two thousand, when a satellite in lunar orbit found it during surveys of the damage, but we suspect it was there since ninety-eight like the other two. The three monoliths together were all equidistant to each other along a straight line that circles the moon, so we believe the loss of one of them prevented the beam of energy from being redirected and possibly strengthened. For what ultimate purpose, we still don't know." Akane stood up suddenly, causing the general to duck and take a step towards the exit even though he knew what Akane was going to ask as soon as Akane thought to ask. "Yes, we knew about it, but since there was no other signs of Buyierfei activity a decision was made to keep it from the public in order to avoid panic." "But if we had known..." "Unfortunately, we didn't know who you were or where to find you or the Amazons. A public announcement would have surely led to a panic." "Did you try my sister's Amazon Fan Club web site?" The general's jaw dropped. "Tha... that fan club is connected with the real Amazons?" Akane nodded, noticing that the three men in black looked a bit surprised as well. Not only did they know of it and dismiss it as a unrelated business venture to cash in on the Amazon name--which it pretty much was in Nabiki's case--they were also members. As mentioned earlier, they may not exist, but they were still males. "Please..." The general motioned towards the seats, looking a bit nervous. He visibly relaxed when Akane sat down again. "Thank you. I know it seems like it would have been better to tell the world now in retrospect, but at the time we were very wary of a worldwide panic. So we arranged for the lunar landing in order to investigate." Akane and her husbands gasped again. "So that whole mission was..." The general nodded. "A cover for a second group of astronauts to examine the remaining monolith on the moon while the world watched the first group." "Then President Gore knew..." Akane commented, remembering the speech President Gore had given that had led to the Moon landing. The general put up a hand, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. "I'm afraid I am not at liberty to say what any president--past or present or future--knows or doesn't know about our operations, what we are discussing here, and our three friends in the back." Akane glanced back at the three men and fell out of her chair in fright when she saw they each had a handgun pointed at the general. Ranma and Ranko followed her gaze and jumped into a ready position. The thee men in black looked at the glowing balls of fire forming between Ranma and Ranko's cupped hands and then lowered their weapons in unison. Silently, they holstered them and returned to their stationary stance. "What the hell is going on here?" Ranko asked in rough English. The general relaxed a bit. "I'm sorry, but there are certain subjects that are beyond any classification level and disclosure means death." Akane was really starting to regret coming to the base. "You keep your weapons holstered in front of us and the Amazons or we will defend ourselves as necessary! And I assure you-" She formed a chi ball in her hands. "None of us are defenseless." The general seemed to consider this for a few moments before nodding towards the three men. "Of course. I will make sure the entire base is notified." The short man in black nodded as well. "We will restrain ourselves as well." He calmly looked at the assortment of Amazon weapons that were still pointed at him and his two taller comrades. Akane paused for a moment and then addressed the Amazons after letting her chi ball dissipate. "Lower your weapons for now, but you can defend yourself as needed." The Amazons complied. "I am sorry about all this, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome," the general said, gesturing to their seats. When Akane and her husbands took them, he continued. "It will probably be difficult at first for us to understand the different ways we have of going about things, but in time I'm sure we can come to trust one another. We really have no choice under the circumstances." Akane wasn't sure about their 'hosts' yet, but knew that they couldn't fight the Buyierfei alone any longer. The world was too big of a place for just her family and the Amazons to defend it alone. "Now about the monolith on the Moon..." the general started to say before Ranma interrupted him. Ranma looked at Ranko, who nodded. Looking back at the general, Ranma spoke. "You've got to get us up there and we'll blow that monolith in a flash." Akane's jaw dropped open and she looked at her husbands. "Of all the lame brain ideas... I'm not letting you two go to the Moon!!" she yelled in Japanese. Ranma smiled smugly. "How much worse could it be than all the other places we've fought the Buyierfei?" "Akane... we can't afford to leave that monolith intact," Ranko added. "No, there's no way..." "Excuse me," the general interrupted in English. After the three of them stopped arguing and looked at him, he spoke. "We have already decided against sending anyone back to the moon to destroy that monolith." "Why?" Ranma asked in English. The general clicked a button and three pictures of some kind of burned masses appeared on the monitors. "This is what happened to the three astronauts that got within about twenty meters of the monolith on the moon." There was dead silence from Akane, her husbands, and the Amazons as they studied the pictures for some sign that the masses were once human. "But nothing like that has happened when we approached the monoliths before," Ranma finally said. The general nodded. "Yes, we know." He clicked a button and all sorts of technical information appeared on the monitors. "If the rover they were tethered too didn't automatically drive away from the monolith, we'd have never known what happened." "What did happen?" Akane asked, not sure if she really wanted to know. "An incredible amount of energy was released. It fried some of the sensors on the rover, but those that recorded the event showed energy discharges all across the energy spectrum." He paused and took a deep breath. "Although it only extended out about two kilometers and left no trace of radiation, the energy had the power of a small nuclear bomb." Ranma gasped. "Like what happens when we collapse the hearts of the monoliths." The general nodded. "Yes. Several follow-up unmanned rovers had the same results." He clicked a button and the live image of the monolith returned, an obvious ring of blackened material around it. "So this isn't like the monoliths on Earth and we believe that anyone attempting to go near it would meet the same fate as the three astronauts." "Dammit... what can we do then?" Ranma spat, feeling a bit useless if he couldn't blow up his problems. "We're not sure. Due to its location, we weren't able to try any conventional attacks on it. Not that those proved effective against any of the other monoliths." Now then... the beam that hit the moon back in April of this year-" The general gestured to the monitors, which currently showed a recently dated photo of them moon. "-blasted a great deal of additional debris into lunar orbit, which have since started to settle into several rings around the equator of the Moon." Akane frowned. She hadn't really had a chance or the desire to look up at the Moon recently with everything that had been happening. "Rings?" "Yes, the cause of this is..." The general clicked a button, and the monitors changed to a series of overly detailed, computer representations of the moon with all sorts of equations and orbital vectors displayed. Which meant nothing to Akane and her husbands. Most of the Amazons were quite overwhelmed as well, except for the single warrior who had studied orbital mechanics in her spare time. She gasped as she figured out what the general was about to explain. "The reduction of mass has caused the rotational period of the Moon to be increased ever so slightly, so..." Even Ranma knew enough about the Moon to know what that meant. "So, the monolith on the Moon will eventually face the Earth?" "Yes, the Fourth Monolith's beam was designed with pinpoint accuracy to change the Moon's rotational speed so that the far side of the Moon will now face the Earth half of the time instead of always facing away from us." "Then..." "We're unsure what they plan to do exactly, but it's a sure bet that when that monolith is within a line of sight of the Earth that something bad will happen." "Real bad," Akane commented under her breath, unconsciously gripping her stomach--and her unborn child within. "The first time that will happen is in a little over three months." Akane grip on her stomach tightened. [End - Chapter 13] Coming soon: Chapter 14 - Training to Die ======================================================================= The real author's (Jim Lazar) notes/ramblings: Here's another chapter that ran a lot longer than I planned and ended at an entirely different spot that I anticipated. Sigh. I'm sorry if this chapter was a bit drawn out with lots of new sights and people (mostly nameless people, due to the secrecy of the organizations and base) and not much action. It was a necessary interlude in the story, as the next chapter will hopefully demonstrate. It also took me forever to write the damn thing. With work, personal problems, a trip to Europe and finishing Garden of EVA... it probably was the longest time between starting a Modern Dynasty chapter and finishing it. Now that Garden of EVA is done, I hope to get more of my Modern Dynasty story out of my head and into electron form within my computer. Portions of this chapter were written while waiting on the tarmac in Boston during a United flight from hell, flying over the Atlantic, in the United Kingdom, and France. I'd like to thank my pre-readers Micki Hibiki, Michael A. Chase, and Thomas C. Kinnen for helping me find and fix problems with this story. Thank you all. Of course in the end, any mistakes and botched characters are my fault. Revision 0.0 - Rough draft began (March 17, 2001) Revision 0.1 - Rough draft finished (July 21, 2001) Revision 0.3 - Pre-reader draft (September 15, 2001) Revision 1.0 - Final version (November 18, 2001) Revision 1.1 - First RAAC posting (December 11, 2001)