"The art of fighting and killing has evolved over the centuries just as humans have; from the fist-scraping brawls of prehistory, to the mass slaughters of medieval history, to the organized warfare of the colonial era, all the way up to the tactical combat of today. It does not worry me so much that man has such propensity and tendency for violence, but rather that our technology for killing has improved much faster than we have. I've no doubt that the nuclear bomb would have and should have been invented, but it probably would have best happened two more centuries down the road." - Seras Tuko

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

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

Millennium
Chapter 3
I, Robot
**********************************************************************************

Yoshi Konta whistled happily to himself as his supply trucks rumbled through the gate that separated Wraith Labs' on-site storage facilities from the roads that criss-crossed its properties, blissfully unaware of his companion's tension.
Well, unaware as far as Yamiko could figure out. She never could tell if Yoshi was ignoring her because he genuinely didn't care about her feelings or because he knew it pissed her off.
"How did the DAPC learn about the location of our lab in the first place? The speed of their assault was unbelievable!" The panicking scientist said as she carefully watched the trucks, as if afraid they might suddenly vanish or detonate.
"I dunno," Yoshi lied casually, "maybe they followed the Senshi in there or something. In any case, we left behind plenty of traps. The difficulty they'll suffer in taking the complex is much greater than the worth of that which we left behind. Pretty much, I mean."
"Tsk! Even so, we should have taken more precautions!" Yamiko chided. "For the Senshi to have found the facility and launched an assault by themselves... well, I had the impression they weren't so keen, tactically." Then her eyes widened. "Wait! If they tracked their comrade to the bunker, wouldn't they be able to track her here, too?"
Yoshi continued to watch the trucks as the rear doors slid open, revealing hastily-packed arrays of machinery. "...... I wouldn't worry about it."
"How can I NOT worry about it?" Yamiko said, grasping her head. "If they followed us here, it'd be a disaster! We couldn't deploy an adequate defense without alerting defense and police stations all over the city! Wraith would be finished!"
Yamiko began to pace back and forth as she ranted about the ultimate consequences of losing Wraith Labs as a front for the Freedom's Angels' mutant production projects, but quickly noted that the only people that were paying attention were a few of the men unpacking the lab equipment, and decided to fume quietly instead, as the laborers had dubious security clearance as far as the terrorist aspect of Wraith was concerned.
As the men went about their work, however, a thought occurred to Yamiko, and a creeping feeling of unease began to settle in her stomach.
"Say... Professor Konta... in which truck, exactly, did you store... 'her'?" Yamiko asked with a slightly manic edge to her voice.
Once again, Yoshi didn't turn around, nor did his expression change as he watched the unloading of the transports. "...... I wouldn't worry about it."
"Th-This is n-no time for jokes!" the snowy-haired woman said angrily.
"Just as well; I couldn't think of any," Yoshi said, beginning to rock back and forth on his heels.
Yamiko twitched. "Are you telling me... that you LEFT our new cyborg back in the facility when you KNEW the enemy was coming?! Are you insane?! What's going to happen to her?"
"Hard to say..." the diminutive professor mumbled, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "But I'd bet on a long stint of emotional turmoil, followed by a renewed tenure as a warrior for justice and peace and those sorts of things." He nodded firmly, as if certain in his assessment. "Either that, or the DAPC will blow her up. But that would be a shame after putting a good twenty hours into her construction."
"INCONCEIVABLE!!" Yamiko screamed, grabbing portions of her hair and gripping them tightly to keep her fingers from her superior's neck. "THOSE WERE TWENTY OF THE MOST DIFFICULT, TRYING HOURS OF MY LIFE!! WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED IN THAT ROOM WAS AN ACT OF GODLIKE CREATION ON PAR WITH, NO, EXCEEDING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST FUNCTIONAL NUCLEAR WARHEAD!!" She stopped shouting in order to catch her breath, and Yoshi sweatdropped as she quickly gathered enough oxygen to continue her rant. "THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON EVER CREATED, ANYWHERE, UTILIZING TECHNOLOGY WE COULD BARELY OPERATE, MUCH LESS UNDERSTAND!! AND YOU JUST LEFT HER BEHIND FOR THE ENEMY TO FIND?!?!?!"
Several more sweatdrops gathered on Yoshi's brow. "Well... I didn't 'just' leave her behind. I also left behind the alien defense drone that Yutchzky had rebuilt. You know, to guard it."
Yamiko twitched again, this time far more violently. "Well, in that case, you have your choice: would you rather I kill you, or that General Igov do it?"
"Oh, what's your problem anyway?" Yoshi asked, annoyed. "This is an opportunity for a much broader scope of research than the simple development of yet another killing machine to slaughter the unsuspecting public until the DAPC destroys it. The chance to observe a cyborg in an entirely different context! To collect information about a cadre of combatants utilizing MAGIC, of all things! How can we ignore the opportunities presented to us?"
"Because it's a primary directive of our employers?" Yamiko ventured a guess through her clenched teeth.
"Employers that will be quite upset at BOTH of us if they learn the full scope of this incident," Yoshi mentioned, crossing his arms over his chest.
"BOTH OF US? Why should I take the rap for you?" The doctor said in surprise, taking a step back.
"You shouldn't, really. But it's a bit of a universal quirk for terrorists: they're quite indiscriminate when it comes to placing blame, and particularly in doling out punishments." Yoshi shrugged as Yamiko paled. "So it would be best for everyone if we just kept all the details to ourselves."
Doctor Nova frowned deeply, and stared down into the shorter scientist's eyes for a long moment.
Finally, she sighed and massaged her head. "I really wish I could tell if your acts of monumental incompetence are genuine stupidity or incomprehensible genius."
"Would either one make you feel any better?" Yoshi asked.
"No, not really," Yamiko murmured.
Yoshi shifted his eyes left and right for a moment, and confirmed that the momentary attention Yamiko had attracted by screaming at him had faded, and that the various workers were once again ignoring the pair. Then he walked close to his subordinate and raised his head up so that he could whisper to her (though he was still too short to speak directly into her ear).
After a moment, Yamiko nodded reluctantly. "It's... better than nothing. Still, I would have much rather you simply kept her here with us."
The tall, skinny woman crossed her arms over her chest. "No matter what your rationale for allowing her to fall into the hands of the enemy, we cannot possibly hope to recoup the loss of the alien technologies that went into her construction. In fact, I would say that the loss of the prisoner herself, not accounting for the possible value of the technologies, would probably be worth all such research that you..."
Finally, the doctor realized that she was talking to herself, with no one else within earshot, and her speech trailed off as she tried to figure out where Yoshi went.
"Hmph! Just like him to wander off when I'm talking to him. Rotten little bastard," Yamiko muttered to herself.
"Who is bastard?" Came a deep, accented, and grammatically deficient voice from behind her, and Yamiko tensed.
Slowly, she turned around to the expected sight of Igov Yutchzky staring down at her, and the less expected sight of Alexandra Tokima, the local commander of the Freedom's Angels, frowning at her from behind the Russian cyborg.
"Uhm... ooh... Generals! Wh-What a pleasant surprise to see you here!" Yamiko said nervously, her expression making it clear that her surprise had not an iota of pleasure in it.
"Is there a reason you should be surprised?" Alex asked with her eyes narrowed. "We work here, you know."
"Well... I... that is..." The snowy-haired woman gulped. "I-Is there something I c-can help you with?"
As soon as she finished that sentence, Igov reached forward and grabbed her arm firmly, a deep, stony frown on his face. "Igov have many questions. Konta not here, so you will do."
"W-Wait! He's around here somewhere! Honest! He was just here! I can go find him!" Yamiko said in a panic, not feeling Igov's vise-like grip weaken in the slightest.
"I'm afraid we're very busy people, Dr. Nova," Alex said maliciously, smirking. "We can't be running around the facility looking for certain individuals when important issues must be... resolved... immediately." Her smirk became more sadistic as she watched the scientist squirm. While she and Yamiko actually had more in common than not, this created more of a problem than a basis for friendship; as both women had superiority complexes, Alexandra hated the fact that Yamiko lorded her intellect and utility over her, and Yamiko hated the fact that Alexandra lorded her beauty and rank over her. That they both hated Yoshi and would have given much to see him humiliated did nothing to reconcile their struggle.
"No! Please! I don't-ow! Stop this! Konta, this is all your fault!"
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"Ami, what's going on here?" Rei said impatiently, looking over the bluette's shoulder and trying to make sense of the data that was collected on the Mercury computer.
Ami just shrugged the taller girl off. "For the last time, I'll explain what's going on when I figure out what's going on. I don't have the details yet..."
"Well, something obviously has you bothered; can't you just tell us that?" Luna asked from the desktop where Ami worked.
The blue-haired girl continued her work on the computer, unfazed. "No, because as soon as I give you guys a single clue, you're going to panic and start bombarding me with questions. Just give me time to get some answers, first."

Rei growled, but ultimately accepted the answer and sat down on Minako's bed next to her, fuming.
After finding Usagi and parting with the scattered DAPC forces, the Senshi had returned to their princess' dorm room, hoping to figure out the details of her stay in a heavily guarded, automated laboratory.
Although Ami apparently had a good idea of what was going on, she seemed to be having a great deal of trouble coming to terms with it; while she typed furiously on her computer and scanned hundreds of lines of data, the blue-haired girl constantly stopped to shake her head and mumble to herself.
On the flip side, Usagi herself didn't seem even remotely troubled by her experience, or by the slightly disturbing after-effects. Although the green text that appeared in her view had frightened her at first, once she had settled down and started to read it, she had grown quite fond of her new trait. It seemed that after changing out of the black bodysuit she had been left with, the ponytailed girl was willing to completely forget all about her kidnapping.
"Okay, I think I figured it out... if I squint real hard, then it appears sometimes..." Usagi squinted at a very worried-looking Makoto as the ponytailed girl held her hand gently, trying to provide the critical comfort that her poor, victimized friend really didn't seem to need.
"Are you sure you can't remember anything else about the people that kidnapped you? They didn't tell you their names, or reveal any diabolical plans for world domination?" Makoto asked. Most of their opponents either worked for a large invasion movement, or were self-absorbed enough to reveal their carefully-laid plans to their foes through some misguided hope that the Senshi might appreciate their genius.
"Nope. Though they did say they weren't with the government. The guy was short and geeky-looking, and the woman was tall and super-thin. And I never saw that girl with the wrist blaster thingy after she captured me." She squinted harder, and moved her face closer to Makoto, who sweatdropped.
"And you don't know what they did to you? No idea at all?" Minako asked.
"Well, I don't really-Ah! There we go!" Usagi grinned as rows of green text began to appear over Makoto's face in her field of vision. "It says... 'Designation: Kino, Makoto. Codename: Sailor Jupiter. Classification: Magi unit type B, elemental. Species: human.'"
Minako shook her head. "Okay... so 'magi type B' might be new, but this 'scanning' thing doesn't really tell us anything we didn't know before..."
"'Measurements: 87, 55, 91,'" Usagi continued.
Makoto flushed slightly. "Wow. Well, yeah. Right on target." Then she noticed the her friends glaring at her. "What? If you want to stay in shape, then get some damn exercise!"
"Total B.S." Rei mumbled as Usagi turned to her.
"Hmmm... 'Designation: Hino, Rei. Codename: Sailor Mars.' Same stuff, pretty much." Then she raised an eyebrow. "'Special skills: Occult mythology and mechanics, specializing in Shinto and spiritual lore. Elemental affinity: Fire.'"
"So, I don't get it. Is this all information that Usagi already has, and it's just reminding her?" Minako asked, hoping for Ami to tear herself away from her research and give them a hint. It didn't work.
Luna shook her head. "I'm not sure... that 'classification' detail wasn't anything any of us knew about, or the sort of thing Usagi would make up on her own."
"'-fighting ability average,'" Usagi continued, having kept reading while her friends were conversing. "'Other notes: Favorite color is red. Prone to jealousy and anger. Kind of a bitch.'" The blonde girl blinked, and then paled as she realized what he had just said out loud. Unfortunately, her stuttered apology was too little, too late.
Bwack!
"Owwww..." Usagi moaned, holding her head.
After a moment, the ponytailed girl realized that Rei was moaning in pain as well, and Usagi watched, confused, as the fire Senshi cradled her hand tenderly.
"Stupid... fuggin'... bloody..." Rei seethed as she watched her palm turn red to reflect the powerful stinging sensation. "What the hell?! I knew you had a thick skull, but this is ridiculous!"
Usagi frowned. Then the green text in front of her blinked, and the words "kind of" disappeared from Rei's scan profile.
"How did YOU hurt yourself?" Makoto asked, remembering all the times in the past that Rei had clocked their princess on the head without any trouble.
"I don't know! It felt like I was striking metal or something!" Rei complained.
"Maybe it's karma?" Minako ventured.
"Karma doesn't give you the bone density of granite," Rei said irritably, glaring suspiciously at her princess.

By this time Usagi had gotten over Rei's behavior and the unusual results, and had turned her attention to Minako, this time keeping quiet as she read the information that spontaneously appeared before her.
'Hmmm... same thing. Name, superhero name, elemental type... light? I thought Minako was supposed to use love.' After a moment of thought, Usagi decided it made sense; she really had no idea what love looked like or did when it was summoned into a corporeal energy state, but the Crescent Moon Beam probably wasn't it.
Her scan reached the point where it brought up miscellaneous notes about the subject, and Usagi winced. 'Emotional baggage from first serious relationship. Shallow and irrational. Total slut.'
'That's not very fair... let's change it to...' with a moment of concentration, the final two sentences winked out, and were replaced with [Extremely affectionate. Slightly bipolar.]
As scanning her friends was getting boring, Usagi turned and stared intently at Luna, who herself was trying to make sense of what Ami was looking at on the Mercury computer.
[Designation: Lunaris Samuran Johain]
Usagi blinked at that, and gave the glowing green text even more attention as it appeared.
[Codename: Luna. Classification: Psychic unit class E. Species: Unknown. Feline biology is questionable.]
The moon princess scratched her head, which seemed odd to the others since she was simply staring at Luna.
Then Usagi concentrated, and the entry for "Species" vanished, only to be replaced with "Moon cat." 'Heck, I don't know if it's an actual species, but it's not like I really care, either. Hey, what time is it?'
In response to her mental query, a digital readout saying 7:04 flashed near the top of her field of vision, appearing in the same green text as her scan data.
"Oh! Hey! The news is on! Let's see if they mention us!" Usagi said excitedly, scooting over to where the TV was.
"Uh... I don't think we're gonna get mentioned," Makoto said uncertainly. "Those police officers told us to leave before any other officials got there, and it was in an isolated area... the battle might not even make the news at all."
"Oh! Speaking of police officers, wasn't that guy who carried me out of the lab just dreamy?" Usagi said as she searched the coffee table for the television remote. "He was really nice, too! Just a bit showy with his ventriloquism act."
"Uh... I guess," Minako mumbled, trying to recall the man's face. It was difficult, as that particular cop had been singed black at the time and had fainted in front of them. Not a very manly first impression, though in context he had been quite heroic in rescuing Usagi. "Personally though, I dig that guy with the shotgun! He was SO cool!"
"It WAS kind of neat the way he made it look like he destroyed that robot guardian with a beer can," Rei admitted, "but I'd still have to say he was creepy and insane."
"Seconded," Makoto said, causing Minako to pout.
"Thirded," Ami mumbled, causing Minako to frown.
"Fourth... uh... ed," Usagi said, stopping momentarily in her search.
"Hey! You didn't even see him!" Minako said accusingly.
"Eh heh heh... sorry. Just wanted to join in," Usagi said apologetically. "Hey, have you seen the remote? I need to turn on the TV."
Click! Before anyone in the room could offer any hints as to where the remote control was, the television suddenly switched on, seemingly of its own accord.
Everyone but Ami blinked in surprise.
Usagi frowned. "Okaaaay... well, can someone hand me the remote anyway? I need to change the channel."
Click! The television went up a channel, changing from a game show to a sporting event.
"No, no! Further than THAT!" Usagi said, this time addressing the TV directly.
Click! The television went up five channels this time, showing an older episode of Inu-Yasha.
"It's channel forty-three! Forty-three!"
Click! Immediately a weatherman appeared on the screen, and continued his explanations of the current weather patterns.
Usagi nodded in satisfaction, and then froze, finally coming to same realization that her friends had.
Makoto gulped. "Is... Is it... SUPPOSED to do that?"
Rei leaned forward hesitantly. "Mute," she commanded to the television. Predictably, the volume remained the same.
Usagi scratched her head, and then shrugged. "Mute."
All sound from the TV ceased, and Rei twitched.
"Amiiiii," Minako whined, "this is starting to get scary! Hurry up and tell us what's going on!"
"If you find her working the TV without pushing any buttons unsettling, then you're not even close to ready for what I have here," Ami muttered, finally turning away from the Mercury computer.
"Why? Is she gonna be okay?" Makoto asked, wringing her hands as the tension increased even further.
"As far as I can tell, Usagi is in no danger," Ami said slowly, scrubbing her hair with her hands and avoiding eye contact with the subject in question. "That said, I think the best way to begin is..." she pursed her lips, and finally stared Usagi right in the eyes. "Usagi-chan... you've been... changed. Physically altered. The people who kidnapped you didn't just experiment on you or study your body; they ripped your body apart and reconstructed you."

Usagi blinked. Twice.
"Oh. Huh." Then she stared down at her arm, and flexed her fingers experimentally. "Well, they did a pretty good job then, huh?"
Ami massaged her head. "A 'pretty good job' doesn't even begin to describe the scope of what they've accomplished here," she said wearily, somewhat pleased that Usagi seemed unable to comprehend the vast implications of what she was saying. Best for her to absorb it a little bit at a time.
"Well, I look the same, don't I?" Usagi asked, looking around at her friends. "I mean, you guys would have told me if I had weird stitches or scars or bolts in my neck, right?"
"Uh, yeah. It's nothing like that," Rei said cautiously, "though you do look... bigger."
"Bigger?!" Usagi shouted, alarmed. "What? Bigger how? Where? Are you saying I gained weight? I haven't eaten a single thing since I was kidnapped yesterday morning!"
"Weight is an issue we'll discuss much, much later," Ami deadpanned. "But Rei-chan's right. You've gained about five centimeters in height, and your shoulders are broader and about eight centimeters wider. There are other differences, but they're even less significant. It seems clear to me that these differences in form have been minimized to make you look as close as possible to how you looked before you were taken; the only reason WE can notice them at all is because we've known each other for so many years while we were growing up, and even then we probably wouldn't think anything of it in a different situation."
"Hmmm... well, there's one other 'significant' change," Makoto said, smirking as she suddenly grabbed Usagi's right breast. "Looks like someone broke the 'C' barrier!"
"Yeep! Hey! Leggo!" Usagi said, flushing deeply as she swatted Makoto's hand away.
"If we can be serious for a moment..." Ami asked irritably. She recognized that her friends were trying to keep a lighter mood to soften the news that was eventually going to hit them, but the more they fooled around, the harder it was going to be for her to explain the situation properly. "Those are the changes as far as appearance goes. As you might have guessed by now, this matter is not skin deep." She took a deep breath. "Usagi-chan, you're no longer human. When they reconstructed you, they put you back together with machinery, not organs. You're a cyborg."
There was a long, awkward pause as Usagi and the others stared at Ami, who stared back pensively.
"Bwa ha ha ha! That's great!" Usagi suddenly said, holding her stomach as she shook with laughter. "Pft! A cyborg? Come on! Turning on the TV without the remote doesn't make me the Terminator! You've been playing too many games!"
"Heh heh... uh... yeah... there's no way... heh..." Minako said, her own withering chuckles not nearly so confident. Makoto and Rei also gave half-hearted snickers, each of them quite certain that Ami wasn't taking this opportunity to play a practical joke.
Ami shook her head, expecting a reaction like this. "Usagi-chan, when Rei hit you, she felt like she hit metal because now your skull IS metal. Your entire skeleton has been replaced by a high-grade titanium alloy."
Usagi rolled her eyes. "Get real! When she hit me it hurt! If I was a robot I wouldn't be able to feel pain, right?"
The others blinked in surprise at Usagi making a completely rational, valid point instead of panicking or simply denying it. Apparently she was taking this as calmly as she appeared.
"And look at me! I don't have any robot arms or anything! My skin feels the same! There's no way!" Usagi smirked, her arms crossed over her chest as she waited for Ami's inevitable admission of error.
"I realize that these people that kidnapped you did an unbelievable job in what they did; I can't fathom how they managed this in twenty-four hours." Ami turned back to the Mercury computer. "And they're using technology that's totally unfamiliar to Earth science. Personally, I doubt that whoever took you was even human."
"Hello? Not answering the question? Pain? Skin? Robot? How?" Usagi asked, getting annoyed that Ami was keeping up with this silly idea of hers.
"You're not a robot, you're a cyborg," Ami explained, turning her head away from the computer screen. "Meaning that your natural body has been combined with cybernetic parts. Like I said, most of your body has been replaced by machinery, but most of your nervous system and all of your reproductive organs have been preserved, even though they're now supported by machines rather than the circulatory and respiratory organs. Your skin might feel normal, but it's really an advanced thermo-reactive polymer that your nerves have been threaded into. You can feel pain, and you still have a sense of touch. In fact, you still possess all the senses you had as a human. But the fact remains that you have more metal in you than a pickup truck."
Before Usagi could offer another protest or the others could bombard her with questions, Ami hit a button on the Mercury computer and then picked it up to show it to her audience.
"Look. I've done dozens of scans of you up and down, and this is what I found. These are some of the reconstructions of what you look like inside."
The others frowned at the image. The computer screen was broken into nine different frames, each one with a different image of a human-shaped mass of metal pieces. Close inspection revealed that every image was different, with different configurations of tubes and wires and cylinders in certain places where there should have been a metal hand or elbow. The only things that were constant in all the pictures were the head, the web of nerves strung over and through the machines, and her breasts, which were, when stripped of their soft outer layer, a pair of glowing green orbs threaded with wires and more nerves.
"Wait, whoa, hey. This doesn't make any sense," Makoto pointed out. "Which one is supposed to be Usagi?"
"ALL of them are. And there are probably more," Ami said irritably. "This is the most prominent example of technology that couldn't have possibly been developed normally here on Earth. There's some kind of energy field surrounding her which keeps most of the machines 'tucked away' in a sort of dimensional pocket, even though they occupy the same quantum space. When the field is altered, different points of the body access their alternate mass wavelengths, and allow... uh..." She trailed off once she noticed Minako was starting to look dizzy, and that the others weren't much better. "Well, in layman's terms, there's more machinery in Usagi's body than there is space to keep it. When those devices are needed, they replace whatever devices are not needed using dimensional pockets not unlike the ones we use for item storage."
"So this is Silver Millennium technology?" Luna asked hopefully.
"Not even close," Ami said firmly. "Silver Millennium technology of this complexity usually utilizes machines to activate magic constructions. The machines making up Usagi are pure metal and computers, and though I couldn't even begin to reverse-engineer it, the device that's maintaining the dimensional folds clearly uses physics... well, insofar as it's used to violate physics, anyway. Most of the other technologies are actually mundane devices consistent with Earth's current technological process, but the rest are, again, centuries ahead in energy manipulation and transmission. As far as I can tell, Usagi still has all the magical properties she did before she was kidnapped though; that aspect hasn't been altered."
"Th-This is crazy!" Usagi said, starting to become upset as Ami made her case. "I'm not a cyborg! I'm still me!"
"Well, yeah. Of course you're still you," Minako said reassuringly, squeezing Usagi's shoulder. "Now you're just... you with satellite radio!"
"This isn't really the time for your stupid jokes!" Rei snapped.
Ami sighed. "No, she's right. I've isolated the radio transmitter here," she said, pointing at one of the images. "And directly below it here is a broadband router. She's got an entire media center hardwired into her frontal lobe."
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" Usagi said, clamping her hands over her ears and shaking her head. "This isn't right! It can't be true!"
"Simply denying it isn't going to solve anything." Rei said firmly. "We have to figure out who did this and why."
"But it's not true!" The ponytailed blonde cried. "Ami's wrong! I'm not a cyborg!"
Makoto chewed her lip anxiously, well aware that they were on sensitive ground in respect to Usagi's emotional stability. "Well... the evidence is right here... I mean, can you prove she's wrong?"
"Prove it? How am I supposed to prove it if she says I act and feel the same?" Usagi said hotly. "How? Am I supposed to open up my stomach and show you my insides?"
Shoompf! Rip! Two hinged sections of Usagi's abdominal flesh suddenly separated and opened up, tearing her shirt down the middle and revealing, in the middle of an open cavity lined with what appeared to be steel mesh and wiring, a large glass cylinder where Usagi's stomach and intestines should have been, glowing a bright green as it maintained its contents of hot plasma.
A moment of silence ensued as each girl (and feline equivalent) took the time to digest this bizarre occurrence at their own pace.
Then, at some unspoken but universally accepted signal, they commenced freaking out.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
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"What the hell is this? How did this happen?!" Gritting her elongated, pointed teeth as she ran down the street, the young brunette dashed through the oncoming traffic, ignoring shouts and blaring horns as she weaved in and out of the late-afternoon traffic along one of Tokyo's major streets.
"Get out of the streets! You're just slowing yourself down!" Shouted a redheaded teenage boy who ran parallel to her on the sidewalk, sprinting at a speed slightly beyond human potential as he carelessly plowed through the sparse crowds of people who had not yet detected that anything was wrong.
Within seconds, the redheaded boy had gained a significant lead, though his path was marked with a straight line of pedestrians knocked down or out of way, whereas the girl's path was filled with swerving vehicles.
The importance of this difference became apparent as Snake burst out of the alleyway that the two teenagers had emerged from, immediately twisting as he slid into a crouch to aim his heavy rifle straight down the line that the boy had created through the local innocent bystanders. 'Checkmate, bloodsucker.'
"Kisuke! Look out!"
The youth's mind, not being quite as swift as his legs, didn't register the threat until it was too late. A 20 mm. round bored mercilessly into his back, obliterating his spine and the contents of his ribcage as it pitched him forward, adding its own formidable momentum to his own.
The report of the rifle, left behind in the dust by its projectile, reached the boy's ear a split second later, followed a second after that by screams and shouts as he continued his impromptu flight, a wash of blood bursting behind him.
Though it seemed like an eternity to the mortally wounded teenager, only two more seconds passed before his face reached the concrete, and the local bystanders began to actively flee in all directions as the youth skidded along the sidewalk, leaving a trail of smeared blood behind him.

The girl almost stopped her own progress in shock and horror at seeing her companion dispatched so cleanly, but her own sense of self-preservation dictated sense. The same sense that had her weaving back and forth in traffic, and leaving a mess of large, hard targets between her and her pursuers.
"Damn it! Damn it all!" She shouted, hot tears coming from her eyes as she fled. 'I'll make them pay! The sun is almost down! Once dusk passes...'

Snake quickly gave up trying to get a bead on the second target, and spent a moment admiring the teenage girl's tactical sense in utilizing civilian shields.
Ignoring the outraged shouts of the bystanders around him, Snake casually jogged up the trail of blood his victim had left behind, holding his rifle comfortably at an angle as he approached.
"You there! What's going on?" A police officer yelled. While the man had been ready to stop and interrogate the two youths who were plowing through pedestrian and vehicular traffic, seeing one of those youths shot in the back was quite enough to distract him from jaywalking and battery.
Seeing the police officer slow down upon approaching (Snake was armed, after all, and the cop was not), Snake just smirked. "Don't worry about it. I'm DAPC."
While the officer had guessed that the American was another protector of the peace, learning the name of his department did nothing to keep him from worrying. "What the hell is this about? Why on Earth did you shoot this boy?"
The American passed by the other officer and stopped about two meters from the prone, blood-stained body, ignoring the man behind him. "Yo. Wakey wakey, kiddo."
"What's wrong with you?!" The police officer shouted, furious. "You just blasted that child's chest out! He's not waking up, ever!"
Snake raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Oh. Good point. Well then, I guess I'll just turn around and carelessly leave my vulnerable, unprotected back to my enemy's corpse..."
The officer and the surrounding bystanders that had stayed to watch stood flabbergasted, wondering why the man would elicit such a statement. Especially when they could clearly see he wasn't turning around at all.
It was a vantage point that the redheaded youth would have enjoyed greatly, as he didn't realize that Snake was lying until after he had twisted around to his feet and lunged for his pursuer, mouth wide open and pointed, dagger-like teeth elongated for a single killing bite.
"Hmph. Kids these days. They'll fall for anything," Snake mumbled as he smashed the butt of his rifle into the wounded vampire's open mouth, sending the undead youth sprawling back onto the concrete.
Ignoring the disbelieving gasps of the surrounding crowd, Snake slipped his rifle under his right arm and drew his sidearm with his left. "Honestly. Just tell 'em you're open, and they'll attack. Hell, some kids are so stupid that they'll even fall for stuff like 'eternal life' and 'immortality'. Ha!"
The severely wounded youth choked, spitting out thick wads of blood and bits of his own pointed teeth. "P-Please! Don't Hack! kill me! M-M-Mercy! Cough!" The redhead tried to crawl away, and squeaked in pain as Snake stepped on his ankle, stopping him from making even negligible progress.
"Mercy? Huh." Snake raised an eyebrow as he pointed his pistol at the boy's head. "Tell me something, bloodsucker: do your victims ever beg for mercy before you eat them? Probably, huh? You ever grant it? I mean, what if it's a woman? Or just a kid? A little kid younger'n you, who's never done anything to anybody? You ever spare a life?"
Cough! Cough! "I... but I... p-please..."
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

Atop one of the nearby office buildings, Ranma glanced back at the street scene just as Snake finished off his target.
"Hmph. Let him suffer, I see. Typical." While the pigtailed cop didn't really approve of Snake's morbid love for violence (very few people did), he had to admit that in the case of hunting the dead, cruelty was probably something of a gray area in the field of ethics.
"The chick's not making much progress. Still, it's enough to keep Snake off her tail for a bit." Ranma wasn't very well versed in fighting vampires yet, but he knew that the daylight weakened them severely, and that few vampires would fight while the sun was still up. The dim light of dusk was less of a problem, as evidenced by the girl's slowly increasing speed, but she would only make a stand once night had fallen.
Shaking his head, Ranma reached down to his calf and withdrew the wakazashi strapped to his shin. "Fine. We'll play that game." After confirming the brunette's trajectory, Ranma jumped down to the nearest fire escape.
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Ami sighed deeply, and popped open her second can of beer in eight minutes.
"Uhm... Ami-chan," Makoto began hesitantly.
"Shut up," Ami said, lacking such hesitation. Then she took a long sip of her beverage, relishing in the bitter taste that promised to drown her senses in a pleasant fog of chemical inebriation.
The dorm room was solemn at the moment, nobody having really recovered enough nerve to restart the discussion after seeing Usagi's stomach open up like that. Minako was mumbling to herself as she laid back on her bed, Rei was pacing the length of the room, Luna was staring at the pictures on the Mercury computer in disbelief, and Usagi herself was curled up in the fetal position on the floor, taking deep, wheezing breaths as she kept her arms wrapped tight around her abdomen. The others had actually been afraid at first that she was going to hyperventilate, but then Ami reassured them that Usagi's new respiratory systems would easily compensate. Which was good to know, but brought back the uncomfortable reality of the immediate situation.
Makoto turned away from Ami, and noted that the others really weren't coping any better than the genius Senshi, though their methods were at least healthier.
"Guys? What are we going to do about this? I mean..." Makoto pursed her lips as she noticed that Rei was the only one giving her any attention. "We can't just do nothing, right? We have to take action..."
"Sure we can do nothing," Ami murmured between gulps. "Usagi-chan's faster, stronger, and more resilient than ever, and whether or not she gets used to the side-effects, there's absolutely nothing we can do to about them."
Rei frowned and stopped her pacing. It wasn't like Ami to be so cynical. Then again, it wasn't like Ami to be chugging alcohol either, and besides Usagi, the situation HAD placed most of the stress squarely upon the genius Senshi. "But Ami-chan, can't you-"
"No," Ami said firmly. "I can't. I'm not a scientist. Or an engineer. Or a doctor. Yet, anyway." She slammed back the rest of the beer and flung the can into the garbage bin next to her feet. "You haven't been studying these scans for as long as I have, so please take it from me that the extent to which Usagi has been altered is far, far, FAR beyond any kind of reversal. And I'm saying that nobody on this green Earth can do it, with all the money and equipment and specialists you could dream of. No way am I going to attempt anything like that by myself with the Mercury computer and a scalpel in the school infirmary."
Rei wasn't about to give up, however. "Wait, you also said that what's been done to her should have been impossible in the first place."
Ami blinked, not expecting a reasoned rebuttal. "Well... yeah. I mean, this level of cybernetic conversion wouldn't even work on normal humans because it damages the body so extensively. The only reason Usagi survived is our Senshi healing powers; as long as a few key organs remain intact, we can survive nearly any level of trauma."
This got Luna's attention. "So whoever did this to her needed a Senshi to experiment on?"
"You're sort of losing perspective here," Ami mumbled, "a project of this magnitude would probably take dozens of people, months of planning and design work, and an expansive research program. They didn't just need a Senshi to complete this project; they had to have based this project around the conversion of a Senshi to begin with." The bluette massaged her head. "And then to utilize this much foreign technology, integrate it with standard Earth tech, and all in a day... I'm telling you, it IS impossible!"
"Not impossible enough, since it happened," Rei said decisively. "And if that's the case, maybe the same people that did this to her can undo it."
Suddenly, a soft, hopeful voice emerged from the corner of the room. "So... you think... if we can find that little guy..." Usagi slowly pushed herself up so that she was sitting on her legs, no longer clutching her stomach.
Rei smiled softly. "Hey, maybe not, but it's worth a shot, right?" Then her soft smile vanished and she smacked a fist into her hand menacingly. "Besides, we need to get the bastard back for doing this to you in the first place anyway. One way or another, he's going to pay for this."
Usagi sniffled as she stared up at her raven-haired friend adoringly.
Then, with a stray thought, she brought up Rei's scan information into her field of vision, erased any trace of the word "bitch", and added "the bestest friend ever!"
"Well, it would help if we had any clue who was behind this in the first place," Minako mumbled, finally coming out of her own stupor.
Ami rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Okay, here are the facts. This enemy obviously knows at least Sailor Moon's secret identity. Their forces show no aptitude for any kind of magical power, but command advanced technology instead. They're obviously willing to use force without provocation to achieve their ends. Also, and this is most puzzling, after going through all that trouble to kidnap and convert Usagi, they just left her alone in their lab with a formidable but entirely defeatable compliment of guards."
"I can't think of any enemies or military forces at all from the Silver Millennium who didn't use SOME magical energy to assist their forces," Luna said, "most common technologies had a basis in mana. Hyperdrives, energy shields, even most power generators."
"Is it possible we're not facing an enemy of the Silver Millennium at all?" Makoto ventured. "I mean, Rei said that the robots we fought in the junk yard were the kind that terrorists use, right?"
"Mundane terrorists?" Ami said, snorting. "Mako-chan, our best doctors all over the world are years away from coming up with a cybernetic replacement for the most common organs that need replacing. And you expect me to believe that terrorists somehow managed to reconstruct an entire human respiratory and circulatory replacement system?" Ami shook her head. "Let me make something clear: Outside of my video games and our princess, those kinds of cyborgs just don't exist."
Rei walked over to the nightstand that held her purse, withdrew a folded sheet of paper, and then brought it over to Ami's desk.
Slam! Slapping it flat on the plastic surface, Rei raised her hand to reveal an image of a Russian man in a trench coat with one eye covered by an optic peripheral, and one arm replaced with a Gatling gun that was caught in the act of blazing away at a police barricade.
"Igov Yutchzky. Russian fugitive General. Also, some people might call him a cyborg," Rei said smugly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You know, with the eye and the gun arm and all."
Ami frowned. "This doesn't prove anything. They have better screenshots in EGM."
"This isn't a screenshot! This is a news article!" Rei shouted.
"Oh, so what? Having a gun grafted onto your arm doesn't make you bloody Robocop. This doesn't mean anything."
A vein popped up on Rei's head. "Well, do you have any better leads?"
"And you want to start hunting down terrorists on a 'lead'?" Ami asked skeptically. "We're the Sailor Senshi, not the marines. How do you expect to take monster-hunting skills to fighting ordinary men with guns?" She rubbed her side tenderly, remembering the feeling of hot bullets riveting her flesh. "It's not going to be pretty. For either side."
"We have to try, don't we?" Makoto asked, balling her hands into fists.
"I'm not saying we give up, but think this through, already!" Ami said harshly. "If you chase down a man with pistol into an alleyway and he turns, what are you going to do? Obliterate him with your lightning powers?"
Makoto blinked. "Uh... well... I guess, if-"
"You can't 'I guess' this issue," Ami retorted, wagging a finger at her. "Hesitation means lead in your gut. Until now, we've been dealing on a strictly 'save humans, destroy monsters' basis. That's not going to be an option here. If we take this path, the best we can hope for is that all the people we kill will deserve it. But we WILL have to kill people."
The others fell silent, none of them able to respond to that. Mentally, each of the Senshi reflected upon the dramatic change in the normally meek girl's attitude, and each one contemplated purging the dorm fridge of alcoholic beverages over the weekend.
The bluette sighed. "It's been a hard day. Why don't we sleep on it for now? We'll be better prepared to deal with it tomorrow."
The others nodded, except for Usagi, who grimaced. "Sleep? Do I even sleep anymore? Or do you just plug me into the wa-" She stopped talking as the now-familiar green text returned to her scope of vision. [Sleep mode engaged. Good night.] "Sleep mode? What do you-"
Thud! Usagi fell forward onto the carpet, breathing softly as her eyes closed tight.
The others stared.

"Wow. She really hasn't changed at all on the outside, has she?" Minako asked.
"No. And that worries me." Ami said, massaging her head. "Anybody who would kidnap her out of the blue and perform such an extensive operation on her has to have malevolent intent. WHY would they do all this to her without installing any means to control her? I've analyzed the readouts; Usagi's packed to the gills with all sorts of dangerous weapons. If she was to return to us, the most obvious turn of events would be her fighting against the people that changed her in the first place. Even if we hadn't secured her, without any means of controlling her actions, she would have eventually turned against her creators, assuming that they weren't just going to keep her contained indefinitely after going through all the work of converting her."
Minako gulped. "Are... are you sure she's not being controlled? I mean, maybe she's just acting like herself to catch us off-guard."
"Fact: anyone with the resources to capture Usagi in the first place probably has the resources to find out our identities, if they don't already know. Once they were to find out, we only stay alive so long as we're willing to abandon our lives as we know it to hide somewhere in our Senshi forms." Ami shook her head. "We're not soldiers, and this is no fortress. It would be very easy to plant a bomb in a dorm room, or even hire a hitman to enter the school and shoot us all before we have a chance to transform."
"Thanks for the comforting thoughts," Rei said irritably, shuddering.
"Anyway, enemy control was one of the first things I checked for. I can assure you that Usagi's brain is functioning the same as it ever has."
"Which is to say, not very well," Luna said tiredly. Rei glared at the moon cat for stealing her line.
"Sure. As I was saying, while there is a large computerized peripheral around the top of her brain, lining the skull, it doesn't seem to be transmitting any data into the neural cortex. Rather, it's mostly receiving data from her brain and sending data to other parts of the body. It was this piece that took Usagi's verbal requests and activated other parts of the body, such as her remote transmitter and her stomach hatch."
"So... she has to call out what kind of device she wants to use in order to use it?" Minako asked. Her mind conjured an image of Usagi in her Senshi uniform, shouting "Go, go, rabbit legs!" and jumping hundreds of feet into the air.
"I seriously doubt that," Ami deadpanned. "Until recently, Usagi didn't even know that these devices were inside of her. I'm sure that with some time she'll learn to use them via mental command, just like her normal limbs. I've checked the programming in the computer network extensively, and I can't find any signs of any pre-programmed behavioral scripts or command directives. From what I can see, the computer can neither take over Usagi's brain, nor would it know what to do with her brain if it did gain control. It exists entirely to store hard data and programs for the more advanced devices that Usagi wouldn't be able to use by herself, like her scanners."
"I see. Sort of," Makoto said, scratching her head. It seemed clear that this was Ami's territory, and even the resident genius seemed totally defeated by the situation. "Well, I'm going to go to bed. I guess we can pick up on this tomorrow."
"Yeah, me too," Rei mumbled, being the only other person who didn't live in their immediate surroundings. "Though I don't know if I'll get much sleep. It's stuff like this that tends to keep you awake at night, y'know?"
Makoto nodded glumly as she followed Rei to the door. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I wonder if there's anyone out there with a worse job than us."
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Ranma wiped some of the blood and pus off of his arm as he cleanly decapitated the last ghoul in front of him, not bothering to watch the headless corpse slump to the ground below.
"Yech. I hate this part," Ranma mumbled under his breath, shaking his hand. The ghouls had obviously been freshly turned, recent victims, which displeased Ranma greatly. Not only could these people have been saved with a day's more notice, but the liquids in their bodies hadn't had much time to congeal yet, and were still well-preserved inside the body, which meant a lot of bloodspray as he tore through their vital organs.
'The targets will be expecting any intruder to either shoot the guards, or die fighting them by hand. Idiots.'
Jumping up onto the side of the adjacent building, Ranma grabbed hold of a window sill, preparing to scale the wall to gain a better vantage point on his enemy.

Bwack! The teenage brunette fell backward at the force of the backhand, and held her hands in front of her protectively as the two larger men approached menacingly.
"Idiot! What the hell is wrong with you?" The first one asked, a man with a bleached crew cut and several flaming skull tattoos all over his arms.
The second man, who had his green hair in a long ponytail, shook his head. "Fighting in the daylight... even in an alley, just before dusk... it was foolish."
"Hell, screw 'foolish'!" The first man said, revealing huge, dagger-like canines as he growled at the teenage girl. "It was stupid! But stupid as it was, what's wrong with you losers? You're telling me that you couldn't take two cops down in an enclosed space when there were three of you? Even if it wasn't night, as long as you were out of the sun you should've thrashed them!"
"Y-You don't understand!" The brunette begged. "We tried! But they were too fast, and, and, they shot Yusuke!" She shuddered as tears started to leak from her eyes. "It was unbelievable! One shot, in mid-lunge, and his head was just... just... gone! No way can we survive that! And then they got Kisuke!"
"Shut up!" Thwack! The girl went flying again as the tattooed vampire smacked her across the face. "It's your own damn fault! You think you're invincible just 'cause you got fangs? If you miserable brats keep causing trouble and stirring up the locals, people are gonna catch on, and then WE'RE the ones being hunted! We never shoulda turned you!"
"N-No! Please! I'm sorry!" The brunette said, tears streaming down her face.
"You DO wish to be a vampire, do you not?" The second man said, his face cold. "Personally, I believe that you may represent too great a risk to leave undead. If you cannot avoid attention, and cannot fight off local authorities, then you are truly useless to us."
"Yes! Yes, I do want to be a vampire! Please!" The girl begged. "I can't go back to the way I was! I hate being human! I can be useful! I'll do anything!"
"Of course you will," the first vampire said, grinning as he took her by the arm. "And you'll be doing anything all day tomorrow with me." He licked his lips, his long, thick tongue sliding over dagger-tipped teeth. "You're lucky. If it had been either of those pricks to survive, we'd just kill 'em. But since you're a girl, there's one way you can always be 'useful' to us."
The girl's eyes widened as realization dawned on her, but she did not reject the proposition, or offer any resistance. After all, for one such as her, who had already sacrificed her humanity and her living breath, being violated sexually in exchange for continued life was trivial; there was even the chance that she would enjoy the encounter, and she embraced it greedily as relief washed over her at being spared.

"Hey, Garo! Get those lunkheads in the back over here! We're goin' back to the club!" The tattooed vampire shouted to his companion.
The ponytailed man nodded, then frowned. "This is... alarming. I think they've been dispatched."
The larger vampire stopped dead. "What? Whaddya mean?"
"I can no longer sense my link to them at all. They've been destroyed."
The tattooed man turned back to the horrified teenager, his eyes glowing a bright, bloody red. "You idiot! Did you lead them back to us?!"
"No! No, I swear I lost them!" the girl insisted. "There's no way! Nobody can track a vampire through the dark! Nobody!"
"I can." Shnk!
The ponytailed man's eyes bugged out as a short sword burst from his neck, accompanied by a short spray of blood and his gargled scream.
The other two vampires whirled around, and their red eyes widened as they saw a pigtailed man standing calmly behind their green-haired companion, holding the wakazashi that had pierced his throat.
"Seriously, you guys are always all 'nobody can do this to a vampire! Nobody can do that to a vampire! Vampires are better at everything!' It gets a little sad after a while, y'know?" Ranma shook his head. "You're no survivalist, lady. A boy scout could've followed you here. Just because you're dead doesn't mean people can't pick up on clues like parked cars with dents on top, knocked-over garbage cans, and a whole line of eyewitnesses. Moron."
The girl paled, and the tattooed man began to grind his unnaturally sharp teeth.
"Okay, fine. You found us. You're also all alone, meatbag," the larger vampire said, stepping forward and balling his hands into fists. "Oh, and you can't kill Garo like that. Don't you know anything about vampires?"
Ranma shrugged. "Well, I don't know much. Fighting vampires is new to me," he admitted, "but I'm learning, bit by bit. For example..."
The pigtailed cop finally pulled his short sword out of the vampire's neck, and then nodded as the ponytailed man tumbled onto the ground helplessly.
"Gk! Ca... Can't... I can't move..."
Ranma nodded again. "Just as I thought. Vampire's bodies still work a lot like human ones; nerves activate muscles, and muscles move limbs. Sever the spine and you guys can't move your bodies."
Wwwsh! Ranma ducked as the tattooed vampire clawed at his head, and then landed an open-palm strike to his chest, knocking him away. "Of course, for a vampire that's still not much damage to heal, meaning I'll have to finish your friend off soon."
"The only one dyin' here is YOU!" The leader of the group snarled, leaping forward again to try and tackle the nimble police officer.
Ranma met the tackle head-on, and then twisted his body around as his assailant tried to get any kind of grip, using the undead man's own momentum to throw him into the adjacent wall.
Crack! Concrete shattered around the vampire's body as he met the alley wall face-first, but even this amount of force barely stunned the man, and he pushed off the wall immediately to rejoin the fight.
Ranma blocked a desperate slash from the brunette behind him as he waited for the leader to return, and then swept her feet out from under her at a speed the younger vampire simply couldn't match. "I swear. Vampires, cyborgs, mutants, super-humans, you guys are all the same." He dodged backward as a lightning-fast punch whizzed by his head, and then backflipped away to gain some distance. "Just because you're tougher and stronger than a human, you assume that's the only advantage you'll need to measure up in a fight. There's more to it than that, dimwit."
The pigtailed man dodged two more furious slashes from the tattooed leader, and then used the girl as a springboard as she dove at him, jaw snapping for anything she could sink her teeth into.
Once he landed he ducked another punch from the leader, and then quickly drew his combat knife and stabbed it upwards into the underside of the man's jaw.
As the walking corpse staggered and writhed from the pain of the blow, Ranma drew his pistol just as quickly as he had his blades, pressing it firmly against the vampire's temple.
Blam! Blam! Blam!

The teenage brunette trembled in horror and disbelief as her "caretaker" slowly fell to the ground, his mostly headless body crumbling to dust. The process of a vampire's destruction took only a few seconds, and when it was over even the dust had vanished, leaving only the vampire's blood: thick, dark rivulets of red that splattered on the abused concrete below.
Before the girl could gather her wits well enough to make a decision to fight or flee, she was pulled into a run from behind, and suddenly found herself sprinting at her full-blown vampiric speed down the alleyway.
"Don't look back. We have to concentrate on running," Garo's voice reached her ear at the same time she recognized the lithe figure tugging her along by the arm, and relief washed away the dread that had built up in her stomach. "Something's very wrong here; there's no way a single DAPC officer should be able to kill a vampire one-on-one in close combat. Those blades weren't even silver." The ponytailed man frowned deeply. While the list of midian weaknesses included mostly common commodities that one usually wouldn't use as a weapon such as silver and garlic, for weaker vampires like themselves even a mundane weapon could finish them off provided it did enough damage to completely destroy their heart or brain. The trick, of course, was in doing that much damage, given that vampires were faster, stronger, tougher, and had better senses than the humans hunting them.
'Or at least, that's what I was led to believe,' Garo thought bitterly. He had been able to heal the cut from Ranma's blade in a little under a minute, but that was an almost negligible amount of damage, even as debilitating as it had been.
"We have to regroup elsewhere and set up an ambush," the brunette suggested. "If we can find some others-"
"Then we risk leading the DAPC right to them," the ponytailed nosferatu interrupted. "That was only one man; we have no way of knowing the strength of the rest of their officers."
The teenager scowled deeply as she followed her last surviving companion. The idea of running from humans disgusted her; it reminded her too much of her old life, and the reason she had given it up for an eternity of living damnation. At the same time though, it was an activity she was getting quite used to.
"Hold it!" Garo put on the brakes as he turned the corner, and bits of broken concrete flew from the heels of his shoes as he skidded to a stop, halting the girl's momentum as well.
"What? What's wrong?" She asked, quickly scanning the surroundings for the pigtailed officer as she extended her senses.
The green-haired man twitched, and she immediately heard what he had sensed before her.
Snap! Crunch! Shlk! Chomp!
"My ghouls..." Garo said, twitching as he rounded the corner.
The teenager twitched irritably as well, but for a different reason. 'Damn it all! This isn't the time for Garo to be worrying about his zombies! Why the hell does he care about those ugly freaks, anyway?' For most vampires, ghouls were simply hideous, noisy slaves that could be created more easily than they could be destroyed, but Garo was one of the odd ones that seemed to value them as more than an annoying and occasionally useful side-effect of his feeding. She had even heard that he named and clothed the less disfigured ones and kept them as servants. She found it disgusting, and far less reasonable than the tendency of a few vampires to discriminate in their selection of victims, seeking only adult men or criminals or such people while refusing to harm children or women. Utter nonsense.

The irony of the sight that greeted the two midians when they turned the corner was not lost on either of them.
Blood stained the walls and ground of the dumpster area, the partially dry light spray caused by Ranma's passage contrasted by the messy splotches of brighter crimson that appeared as the dead undead were torn apart and eaten.
Yet again, the vampire girl felt terror overwhelm the arrogance instilled in her since becoming a vampire. Chomping on the reanimated and reterminated flesh was a clawed, armored beast that resembled some sort of evil, demonic velociraptor with an extra pair of claws mounted on its back.
To make the scene even more unreal, a blue-haired woman wearing the same uniformed body-armor as the pigtailed cop was leaning casually against the wall of the alley next to a dumpster, cleaning the barrel of a combat shotgun.
"You know, you could learn a thing or two from the alien, there." She gestured to the zergling, which tore off a ghoul's arm and swiftly gulped it down. "A good predator eats all, or at least most, of what it kills. Just drinking the blood? Very wasteful. Hardly worth giving up a human life." Asuka finished cleaning the gun and proceeded to load it, looking entirely unconcerned with the two undead at the other end of the area.
'I don't know what's worse: that these people have been picking us off, or that they keep lecturing us as they do it,' the brunette groused. "What the hell is that thing?"
"Oh, don't look so freaked out, you abomination," Asuka said irritably, cocking her shotgun. "At least Hunter's alive. And his victims don't get back up. Ever."
The green-haired vampire stepped forward, showing about as much fear for the shotgun as Asuka was showing for him. "Move aside now, human. Don't attempt to stop us, and we won't make any attempt on your life. Tonight we retreat." Hunter rose up from his meal and growled dangerously at the two midians, picking up on the increasing tension.
"Not happening, bloodsucker," the captain said firmly, finally aiming the shotgun. "You're under arrest. We've decided that it would be nice to have a vampire as a prisoner, so instead of getting wiped out, you're going to surrender and come with us."
The ponytailed vampire snorted. "Lambs do not give orders to wolves."
Asuka snorted back. "Naw. THOSE poor saps were lambs," she said, gesturing to Hunter's most recent meal. "I like to think of myself as more of a shepherd, really."
"I tire of banter. DIE!!"

The nosferatu darted forward, his teeth elongating reflexively as he prepared to end the conflict with a single, flesh-rending bite.
In response, Hunter jerked to the side and attempted to intercept, snarling and slashing with his spine-mounted claws as he moved between his master and his enemy. The alien's speed surprised Garo, but it was not nearly enough to stop him, and he easily leapt over the beast, merely getting raked a bit along his calf in mid-jump.
Blood spouted from the deep gash on his leg as he landed, but he ignored the wound easily, the cut not deep enough to completely sever the muscle, and the pain kept at bay by undeath.
BLAM!! Asuka's shotgun blast was a slightly different story, and the vampire muttered a quick curse as he dodged as best he could, his arm disintegrating into a spray of flesh and blood.
'Using the monster to slow me down and corral me into her line of fire... smart,' the midian admitted grudgingly, sprinting forward again. 'But she won't get off another shot!'
Grabbing Asuka's shoulder and slamming back into the dumpster, Garo opened his mouth wide, his jaw stretching beyond its human limitations and revealing needle-like teeth as he lunged for the officer's neck.
Crunch! He winced as he ended up biting deeply into the shotgun instead. Apparently the woman had spent her split-second of respite preparing to fend him off rather than lining up for another shot or firing blindly, and had shoved her weapon into his jaw the moment he opened it.

The young brunetted growled as she saw the alien beast turn toward Garo, and dashed forward to jump on top of it, hoping she could find a soft point in the creature's armor to cut or bite it.
"Careful now, or you'll lose a limb," a voice said suddenly, and the girl ducked desperately as a silver arc flashed above her, marking the path of Ranma's slash.
She struck back with as powerful a kick she could manage in her position in such a short frame of opportunity, and then she nearly lost her balance as her foe hopped over the clumsy attack.
"Got some fight still in ya, eh?" Ranma flipped the mono-molecular edged wakazashi around in his hand and beckoned the vampire girl forward. "Better to fight me than Hunter. It's never fun facing off against something that's going to eat you when it wins."
"And what do you think I'm going to do to you?" The brunette snarled, rising to her feet.
Ranma blinked. "Well... bleed on my shoes, mostly. Which really sucks. These things are brand new, you know."
"GRRAAAUGH!!" Roaring savagely, the girl attacked.
Shng! Slak!

Asuka grit her teeth as her opponent increased the pressure on her arm, his fingers digging into the layer of ceramic polymer that shielded the Kevlar fibers below.
Letting go of the Pancor Jackhammer (the vampire had bitten quite deeply into it, so it would be some time before it could be extracted), she reached down to her belt, grabbing and drawing the combat knife at her hip with a speed that spoke of much practice, followed by much more experience.
Gash! The vampire twitched as she impaled his wrist with the blade and then twisted, forcing him to loosen his grip before he could manage to crush her shoulder in his hand.
Throwing himself back, the ponytailed midian reared a foot back, preparing to smash the foolish woman before she could come up with any more tricks.
Crunch! His eyes widened as he felt a startling pain in his kicking leg, followed by the limb's helpless refusal to move forward where the rest of his body wanted to go. He looked behind him to confirm the hold up, afraid that he already knew what was wrong.
Snap! Hunter chewed straight through the skin and bone of the vampire's knee, and then pinned the helpless man down with his front legs once he fell.
Asuka smiled, despite the disturbing scene of Hunter keeping the vampire from escaping as he feasted on dismembered limbs. "Good boy, Hunter. Good boy."

Turning away from the disabled vampire, Asuka quickly found the other vampire, who was slightly less disabled, but no more of a threat.
"Well, I was wrong. My shoes are still clean," Ranma said happily as the brunette twitched on the ground, her lower torso effectively neutralized by the wakazashi stuck into the small of her back and impeding the function of her spinal chord.
"Wh-Who are you p-people?" The girl asked, horrified.
"We're the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment," Asuka said smugly, massaging her badly bruised arm. "Consider yourself contained, vampire."
Hack! Pthoo! Garo coughed as he managed to spit out the gun that had been impaled on his teeth. "Cough! Cough! There was... Cough! talk of s-surrender, I believe? Cough!"
"If I recall, you waived the 'surrender' option," Asuka deadpanned. "We're way past that. Now we're at 'capture', which is far more unpleasant." As if to underline her point, Hunter swallowed the ponytailed man's right leg, and then sank his beak into the left, still keeping the vampire firmly pinned.
"You're monsters!" The teenager cried, clenching her pointed teeth.
Ranma and Asuka looked at the girl, surprised by the outburst.
Then they busted out laughing.
"Bwa ha ha ha ha! Oh, that's rich!" The police captain said, slapping her knee.
"Heh heh heh! Called a monster by a vampire? Kind of a compliment, don'cha think?" Ranma chuckled and shook his head.
"It's true! Even we've never made a victim suffer like this!" The brunette shouted, tears emerging from her eyes as she stared hatefully at the two humans.
Asuka's laughing softened to chuckles. "That's the difference, freak. You kill victims. We punish monsters. And coincidentally, torture and slow, painful deaths are both perfectly acceptable methods of punishment for inhuman abominations like yourselves."
"She's right," Ranma said, nodding. "It's in our charter and everything."
"You won't get away with this!" The girl seethed. "There are more of us! More powerful ones! We'll kill you! All of you!"
"Yeah, okay, fine. Anyway, we have to speed this along. It's late and my shoulder hurts like hell." Immediately the paralyzed teenager began shouting profanities at her, and then Asuka raised an eyebrow as she thought of something. "You know, I just remembered; we only need one prisoner."
The brunette fell silent.
Asuka nodded at the unspoken question. Then she snapped her fingers. "Hunter. Kill her."
"Shraaugh!" the zergling pulled itself away from where he had been gnawing on Garo's remaining arm, and then dashed toward the younger midian, his beak snapping fiercely.
"N-No! NO!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
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Ranma yawned as he stripped off his shirt, glancing at it briefly to check for bloodstains.
Satisfied that his jacket and body armor had absorbed the most of the gore from the night's encounter, he tossed the garment into the large pile he kept in the corner of his room until laundry day (which arrived whenever the pile grew big enough to overflow into the closet).
On the opposite side of Ranma's bedroom, Hunter slowly lumbered into his favorite sleeping spot, feeling drowsy. The zergling had been assigned to remove, meaning devour, the dozen ghouls in the apartment where the DAPC had initially found the teenage vampires, as well as the other ghouls from later that night, and a vampire and a half. And even though the girl had turned mostly to dust in his stomach once she had finally expired, the killer alien was still pleasantly full for once.
"G'night Hunter. Good work tonight," the pigtailed cop mumbled, climbing into bed.
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"Ranma Saotome."
The pigtailed man blinked in surprise and whirled around, dropping into a defensive stance. "Huh? What the-? How'd you sneak up on me?"
The tall blonde woman with wings shook her head as Ranma started to look around at his surroundings. "I didn't sneak up on you. You just got here."
"Oh. That explains it," Ranma mumbled, wondering why the hall he was standing in was made of crystal. "I guess. Where is here, again?"
Serenity smirked slightly. "This is a dream world, Saotome-san. A mere fabrication of thought meant to distract your subconscious as you rest. It is here that I can speak to you openly."
Ranma frowned at the woman, rubbing his chin. "Hey, you look kinda familiar."
The smile became strained. "Yes. My name is Queen Serenity. The last time we met, you swatted me and dropped me off a cliff."
"Ah ha! That's right!" Ranma nodded happily, then took a moment to look her up and down. "Wow. You've really put on the pounds since then."
A vein popped up on the winged woman's head. "Can we be serious for a moment here?"
"And why should I?" The pigtailed man said irritably, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've been fighting evil dead people all evening. I'm sick of serious. I want to team up the Konoha village Ninja and have wacky adventures rife with crazy Ninja tricks and underage innuendo!"
The ancient monarch sweatdropped. "Well, too bad. I have a very important mission for you."
"I don't take missions from fairy people botherin' me at home," Ranma said firmly, turning his head away pointedly. "If you wanna give me an assignment, submit a case to Captain Takami, and I'll take care of it at work."
"No, that's not what I mean," Serenity tried to explain.
"Nope! Missions go through Asuka! That's the rule!" Ranma said, turning away with his arms still crossed.
The blonde woman shook her head, flinging her long ponytails around wildly. "No, you don't understand! I can't 'submit' anything to anybody!"
"Well, why not?" Ranma said skeptically, turning his head back toward her. "It's a good enough system for everyone else."
"I'm not actually alive. That makes it rather difficult to speak to people as you would," the woman deadpanned, her expression grave.
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Not alive. Meaning you're dead?"
Serenity nodded. "Dead for millennia and not getting any better, either. Now can we focus on the mission?"
When she looked back up at the pigtailed man, her face darkened. Ranma was holding a gigantic fly swatter above his head, ready to bring it down upon the apparition before him.
"I don't do missions for dead people. I do missions destroying them." Then he brought down his weapon.
Serenity flinched, preparing to take the hit in stride.
It wasn't until it was far too late that she realized that the weapon Ranma was wielding was not a giant plastic fly swatter, but in fact a giant steel baker's peel.
Her last thought before her dream body was obliterated was to wonder where on Earth the martial artist would ever get the idea for such a bizarre, and in this case, ironic weapon.
CRUNCH!
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Yamiko stumbled drowsily through the halls of Wraith's secondary labs, massaging her head.
"Damn it... bastards kept me up so late..." the snow-haired scientist had been interrogated long into the night, and had gotten a mere four hours of sleep before she was due back in the lab for her new assignment. This, added to the previous night of sleepless labor, had left the evil doctor in very poor mental and physical shape as she felt the full weight of her fatigue.
"Worse' of 'em is Konta. Damn ashhole," she mumbled sleepily, her eyelids drooping. "Swear, when I get my han's on 'im, I'm gonna-"
"Going to what?" Yoshi asked, coming up behind the taller woman with a coffee cup in hand.
"GWAUGH!!" Yamiko jumped forward and stumbled, falling flat on her face. Thud!
Yoshi blinked. "Good morning, Dr. Nova. Looking a bit tired, aren't you? Coffee?"
"Wh-Where..." she looked up at the little man, and then a vein popped on her head as adrenaline washed away some of her fatigue. "Of course I'm tired, you moron! And it's all your fault!"
"Irrational finger-pointing does not become you, Doctor," Yoshi said seriously.
"'Irrational'? You ducked out and left me to take the heat from the generals! You used me to save your own skin!" Yamiko accused, standing back up and balling her hands into fists.
Yoshi simply nodded. "And you would've done the exact same thing in my position."
"........." Yamiko's mouth remained open in mid-rant, but nothing came out. "... Wait, hold on..." she murmured. She KNEW there was something wrong with that logic, but with so little sleep, it escaped her mind's grasp.
"No time for that now. Come on, follow me. We have some follow-up work to do on our little blonde borg." Yoshi beckoned toward the taller woman as he turned away down an alternate hall.
"I can't help you with that, Professor," Yamiko said irritably, fighting a yawn. "I've been assigned to deal with an alternate genetic strain that contaminated some samples in Project Mobius."
"You're not going to be doing that," Yoshi said simply, pushing through a set of double-doors.
Yamiko frowned. "Do you have the authority to override General Tokima's orders?"
"That's irrelevant, because her orders no longer apply," Yoshi explained as he walked up to a device on the wall and began pushing buttons and turning dials. "I was here early and I got bored, so I disposed of the contamination before my shift started. You're welcome."
The white-haired woman flinched badly as her inner emotions began an all-out war trying to decide what she thought of that. "So, wait, what did you want me to do?"
"Come here Yamiko. See this?" Yoshi activated a digital screen, which showed an outline of a female figure with long ponytails. "This scanner detects the quantum vectors being activated through the hammerspace capacitor as well as the precise unit module being used. With this and the visual uplinks, we'll be able to study the subject thoroughly without wasting time and resources installing third-party surveillance."
"Wait..." Yamiko scrubbed her hair with her hand, frowning. "If you know where she is... then why don't we go get her?"
"Oh, yes, that's a grand idea," Yoshi deadpanned. "You can take point, and I'll cover you. And what'll we be using for weapons? Scientists don't have easy access to the armory, you know. Afraid we'll decide to destroy our horrific research in a melodramatic act of suicidal redemption."
"Don't we have an army or something for these types of things?" The woman scientist said groggily, still feeling her fatigue eating away at her cognitive facilities.
"Yes. An army that can't learn too much about our cybernetic blonde, or they'll kill us both for letting her get away. So it's observation for now." Yoshi smirked, and Yamiko nodded even though she was obviously irritated.
The white-haired woman watched the screen for several moments, and then her eyes narrowed. "Strange... something seems to be wrong. Is she malfunctioning?"
"No, she's working perfectly," Yoshi assured her, adjusting some meters off in a corner.
"Well, then something must be wrong with the scanner," Yamiko asserted.
"I assure you, the equipment is fine. There's no malfunctions anywhere."
Yamiko frowned and scratched her head. "But... according to this, she just keeps activating the same device, over and over, and has been for the last... twenty minutes!"
Yoshi nodded. "Yes. That was when she found the Pez dispenser."
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Click! Crunch!
Click! Crunch!
Click! Snap! Crunch!
Click! Crunch!
Rei's eyebrow twitched irritably as she tried her best to participate in the Senshi meeting, and organize the joint effort to come up with a solution to investigating Usagi's kidnappers.
The meeting was rather off-track, however, because said girl was completely engrossed in eating tiny hard candies that she could dispense from her wrist. And Rei was certain that she wasn't the only one disturbed by the sight of their princess sitting in the corner, forearm over her head, while flicking her wrist Spider-Man-style and devouring the tiny sugar tablets that had come out of her in the first place.
Click! Crunch!
Click! Crunch!
"So... uh... terrorists..." Minako said, clearly not focused on the matter at hand. "What was it we decided on about that?"
"NOTHING," Rei snapped. "That's what we're here to do. This is a brainstorming session."
Click! Crunch!
Click! Crunch!
Click! Gulp! Kack! Cough!
Usagi coughed twice more, and then blinked rapidly as her throat cleared. "Whoa... I missed that one."
"I'd guessed," Rei deadpanned, fighting the urge to restrict her princess' breathing more permanently. "Can we get back to the issue at hand?"
"That depends. Am I out of Pez?" Usagi asked rhetorically.
[No.] Came the text response in blocky green lettering.
"Sweet!" Usagi raised her arm again, only to have it yanked back down by the temperamental fire Senshi.
"That's enough! We need to concentrate here!" Rei growled.
"You're just jealous because candy doesn't come out of your arm!" The blonde girl accused, causing the remaining three Senshi and two moon cats still seated to fall over into a heap.
Rei gaped, quite unsure how to respond to that. "Can you just focus? This is serious business, here!"
"YOU take care of the serious business!" Usagi said vehemently, snatching her arm away. "I'm the one who has to get used to being half robot!"
"Eighty percent robot," Ami corrected. The others ignored her.
"If we can fix you, then you won't HAVE to get used to it!" the fire Senshi shouted back.
Usagi frowned, apparently considering this. "Oh. Okay. But if we get that far, do you think they'd be able to leave the Pez thing in?"
"No," Rei said immediately, not knowing or caring if that was actually possible.
"This is all so unbelievable," Artemis murmured, having been brought up to speed just that morning. "Do any of the others know?"
"No. Mamoru and the outer Senshi don't know about this. And frankly, I think we should contact them as soon as possible," Ami said.
Usagi froze, and tears started to well up in the corners of her eyes. "Mamo-chan... Sniff! What's HE going to think when he finds out... finds out I'm... Sniffle!"
"Oh, get over it!" Rei growled. "What did I tell you? We might be able to fix it!"
"Even if it is possible to find those responsible immediately, we should still contact the others," Ami insisted. "Mamoru's... less direct and less lethal style of combat could be quite effective if we end up fighting a gun battle, and the Outer Senshi... uh..." she shrugged. "Well, the Outer Senshi would be effective in that they would probably tear into any opponents there without any of the hesitation we're worried about."
"Have we figured out any way to find those responsible?" Luna asked.
"I still think we should start with the Freedom's Angels," Rei said firmly. "No matter how unlikely that a mundane terrorist organization is behind this, they're the only ones that manufacture those battle robots we found guarding Usagi. We might be able to find out where they sold their weapons, and track them that way."
Ami nodded. "That's a good idea... but there's the still the problem of going about that. Even with the help of Mamoru and the Outers, I don't feel comfortable barging into the first stronghold we find trying to capture information."
Usagi raised her hand, momentarily forgetting about the awkward news to give her boyfriend. "Ooh! I know! I know! We can use the Luna Disguise Pen!"
"Get real, meatball head," Rei snapped, "we're not trying to 'blend in' at some exclusive social event. We're trying to infiltrate a paramilitary base! It's going to take more than a disguise."
Ami looked up at the others pensively, seeing that once again, her friends were waiting for tactical brilliance to come from her, as usual. "Uhm... well... I DO have an idea... but you're not gonna like it."
"As long as it doesn't involve joining the terrorists first," Minako said sourly.
Ami reasoned that this new idea WAS slightly more repulsive than her own, and took it as a green light to speak her mind. "The DAPC has extensive experience in-"
"NO!!" Minako, Makoto, and Rei all shouted, startling both moon cats.
"Oh, come on!" Ami protested. "They saved our butts last time!"
"And then they burnt our butts blowing up the facility!" Makoto pointed out. "Plus, that explosion could have killed Usagi-chan!"
"And it WOULD have," Ami pointed out, "had not one of their officers carried her out on his back. So... you know, I think those two events cancel each other out. Almost."
"They're really not THAT bad," Usagi said in defense of Ami's plan, "and since Ami-chan's cousin is Captain, it's like having an inside guy right at the top!"

Artemis turned toward his black, feline equivalent as the Senshi began to argue heatedly. "So, what is all this about a... DPC?"
"DAPC. Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment," Luna explained, having been given a full run-down of the arrest and proceeding events already. "And for what it is... it's a long story, is what it is. The short of it is that they're demon-hunting cops who don't get along so well with other demon-hunting groups that aren't government-sponsored."
"Demon-hunting cops?" the white cat said skeptically. "That's stupid."
"That's what I thought at first, too. But they have a tank."
"Ooh... I see." Artemis raised an eyebrow as he thought about that.

"No! Anybody who'd put us in cuffs for blasting a youma and then keep us in those dingy little animal cells is no friend of mine!" Rei said bitterly. "No way, no how! I am NOT going to them for help!"
"You know, those were the GOOD cells," Ami rationalized, hands on her hips. "The DAPC generally doesn't keep human prisoners. All they have is the light containment lab, and the heavy containment facilities underground. We're lucky we got into the lab."
"'Lucky'? THEY'RE lucky we didn't get pissed off and blast our way outta there!"
"Are you serious? They're police officers!"
"They're violent, corrupt maniacs who wear a badge! Pluto BRIBED them to get us out of there, remember?"
"Everybody, PLEASE!" Usagi shouted suddenly, causing the other Senshi to stop arguing with Ami in their surprise. "We're not getting anywhere like this! Please, stop fighting!" A tear slowly formed at the corner of her eye, causing all those assembled to wince deeply. "I know you guys are still mad about what they did to us, but they're still the good guys, and one of them is Ami's relative!"
Ami nodded quickly. "Whatever you can say about the arrest, they were just doing their jobs. We enjoy autonomy in everything we do; they can't discriminate between 'enemy' and 'friendly' magic-users so easily."
Rei began to grind her teeth, being far too stubborn to abandon her position, but finding that same position crumbling under Ami's logic. "There HAS to be another way."
"Well, do you have any better ideas?" Usagi asked, planting her fists on her hips. "I mean, if the disguise pen won't do it, what do we have left? Ninja skills? Phantom powers? Cloaking devices?"
Pshoooooo...
Everyone in the room blinked as glowing, green crystal faces surfaced on Usagi's arms, face, and legs, each one framed in a thin metal outlet that was bonded with her skin.
Bwom Usagi vanished in a wave of ambient light just as she started to panic, and the other Senshi and moon cats watched in silence as a cry of surprise came from the empty spot above the indentation in the carpet that marked where Usagi was sitting.
"Gah! N-No way! I'm disappearing! Somebody help! What's happening?" The blonde cyborg looked around her, expecting her friends and advisors to be panicking and looking for her.
Instead, the moon cats seemed to be entirely engrossed in a discussion about giant robots, and for some reason Rei, Makoto, and Minako were all staring at her, despite her being invisible, with unsettling smiles on their faces.
Rei took all this in far more calmly than their princess, and slowly nodded her head as she steepled her fingers in front of her. "Ladies, felines... I believe we've found our alternative solution."
Usagi was about to ask what Rei was referring to, when her brain finally caught up with her panic centers and informed them of the obvious. Comprehension was just a step behind. "Oh, !$&# me..."
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The very next day saw Usagi pacing the room tensely, mumbling to herself worriedly.
The reason for this was not, as one might expect, the upcoming mission that Rei and Ami were planning that would have her pitting her questionable courage, wit, and skill with her new body against an organized, hostile paramilitary force. No, for Usagi such serious and dreadful matters were easily forgotten and put aside to worry about later.
What had her in such a fit was that Ami had called Mamoru and left a message that briefly explained what had happened to Usagi, and that they needed to call in Tuxedo Kamen to help deal with the situation. They had received no call back, so they had no idea what had happened once he had heard the news, or even if he had heard the news at all. To Usagi, this meant that Mamoru could burst through the door at any moment to pass judgment upon her, and frankly, it was driving Ami insane.
"Ami-chan, I don't think you should have worded the message like that," Usagi said finally, turning toward the blue haired girl who had been doing her best to ignore her.
"Uh huh," Ami responded, concentrating on the TV screen as she navigated a dark tunnel via the Gamecube controller in her hand.
"No, I'm serious!" Usagi said irritably. "I mean, don't you think it's kind of weird to drop 'Usagi's been turned into a cyborg' on him all at once like that?"
"Uh huh," Ami responded, lightly tapping the control stick as she snuck up behind a guard.
"AMI!! You're not even listening!" Usagi shouted, causing her brilliant young friend to jump slightly. That same action was mirrored by her character a moment later as she pushed the wrong button, and Ami clenched her teeth as the guard turned around and blasted her with an automatic rifle.
Hitting the button to restart the level, Ami glared at Usagi. "Look, we've already been through this; the message will do the job. It will let him know what to expect, and it will get him down here to help. What more do you want? It's not like you were willing to call him yourself!"
Frowning, the blonde crossed her arms over her chest. "I just think that you could have phrased it better. Maybe... you know, softened the blow. Like, you could have said, 'Usagi has changed a bit,' or 'something's different about Usagi.'"
"Uh huh, right. And then he comes down here expecting to see that you bought new shoes or finally changed your hairstyle, and instead he learns that you make Star Trek's Borg look like primitive vikings. That's not the way to break this to him," Ami asserted, loading her saved game. "At worst, he'll hope this is a joke or a mistake. Otherwise, we can expect that he'll be hoping it's something small and relatively insignificant, like a robot eye or a hand or something. Though that wouldn't make sense, given our Senshi healing powers. The point is, he probably won't get hit with anything he wasn't prepared for."
Usagi kept frowning. "Okay, fine... but... aren't you supposed to be working on that plan or something?"
Ami nodded. "I am."
"... No, you're playing Gamecube," the blonde deadpanned.
"I'm playing Splinter Cell," Ami corrected. "It's a spy game. Infiltration and stealth and stuff. Very useful in researching spying techniques."
"You're just making up excuses to play games!" Usagi accused.
"Hey, who's the genius here?" Ami asked, not taking much attention away as she navigated the same corridor again. "We just have different ways of preparing for a complicated, dangerous task. I do research by playing games, and you find some petty private concern to distract you so that you can ignore the problem."
The ponytailed girl stared at her shorter friend for a long time before she spoke again. "You know, you've been having a real attitude problem recently."
Ami blinked, though she didn't take attention away from the screen. "You think so? ... Yeah... maybe you're right. Could you grab me a beer? I think that would help."
"It's not even noon yet!" Usagi protested.
"That's okay; I'll drink slowly."
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Elsewhere, at DAPC headquarters, a very different conversation was taking place between two of the esteemed (and infamous) members of that department...

"Aren't you supposed to be on patrol or something?" Junko asked as she leaned over Snake's shoulder.
The weapons expert, predictably, didn't dare take attention away from his current round of Super Smash Brothers Melee in order to sneak a glance at Junko's brazenly displayed cleavage. "Yeah, probably. Can you get me a beer?"

For one thing, Snake was playing an entirely different game.

Junko frowned. "It's not even noon yet."
Snake considered this as he launched Kirby toward the nearest bob-omb, managing to pick it up before the devastating explosive started moving on its own. "Okay, you're right. Let me rephrase that. Chikiko, go get me a beer."
The redhead rolled her eyes and stood back up. "Yes Lieutenant," she mumbled sarcastically, leaving the room to go to the fridge.
"Huh. What's her problem?" Snake asked, noting that the normally jubilant department bicycle seemed somewhat bitter.
Kyle shrugged as he maneuvered Ness to avoid Kirby's bomb. "I think it's been a whole week since she's gotten any. That's sort of a bad streak for her."
"Really? What's the problem?" Snake asked, not really interested in Junko's sexual affairs but hoping to distract Kyle long enough to earn some precious points.
"It's the nighttime patrols Captain keeps putting us on. It seems to really be screwing up her clubbing schedule, and she was probably hoping you'd give her some attention."
"Feh," Snake scoffed, using the control pad to make Kirby dash away toward a beam saber. "Why doesn't she bug you?"
"Well... I've already slept with her," Kyle admitted somewhat bashfully, "and she's usually not interested in guys she's already been with."
"If she's desperate, she shouldn't be so picky," Kirby attacked viciously with the beam saber, but suffered a direct hit from a well-timed fire bolt. "Or at least she should go bug Ranma instead of me. Or what about that Rayden guy?"
"I think he got away," Kyle said as Ness advanced methodically, deflecting Kirby's every attempted assault.
"That's a shame. He might've kept her off our backs for a little while longer. Oh, hey Chikiko," Snake said casually as the aforementioned woman stood behind the couch they were loafing on, trembling slightly as she held a can of Coors in her left hand. Kyle gulped.
"Is it hard work hurting people as badly as you do, or does it come naturally to you?" Junko asked seriously, her face darkening.
"It's pretty much my life. It's what I was taught while I was growing up, and it's what I do for a living. To be honest, hurting people is just who I am." Once again, Snake took no attention away from the screen. "So can I have my beer now? I think your glowing red aura thingy is warming it up. I don't like warm beer."
Whock! The DA's weapon expert winced as his subordinate slammed the can right on top of his head, and then he winced again as he lost the last precious bits of concentration it took to keep up with his opponent.
"PK thunder!" Ness shouted, his lightning bolt arcing around to touch him in the back instead of seeking out his opponent.
Bwoom! Snake grit his teeth as Kirby went sailing off the screen, marking the end of that game and the ninth such loss since that morning.

"Woohoo! I won again!" Kyle cheered as Junko stomped out of the room. "New game?"
Snake dropped the controller with a disgusted grunt. "No thanks. Don't we have any jobs that involve blowing people up for real? I'm better at that."
"Not really, no," Kyle scratched his head. "We've really been concentrating on the whole vampire deal. The captain, Seras, and the new guy have been down in the heavy containment center all day interrogating that one that Hunter caught."
"New guy?"
"Some skinny dark-skinned dude. I think his name was Yamama or something."
"Oh," Snake frowned deeply, wishing he could have followed Ranma on the hunt rather than finishing off the ghouls in the vampires' apartments. While destroying zombies was always fun and worthwhile, it had the same satisfaction as swatting flies; one feels good doing it, but once it's finished one can't help looking at the mess and wondering where all the time went.
Getting up from the couch, Snake turned away as he finally removed the beer can from his head.
And then he froze as he noticed Asuka standing behind his seat, arms crossed over her chest.
"This is rarely a good sign," Snake mumbled, looking down at his superior.
"Indeed," the police captain said blithely, snatching away the slightly damaged beverage before Snake could open it. "I just got a fairly petty assignment. I was about to contact Saotome and give it to him, but since you've decided to skip your patrol, you have plenty of time to do it yourself."
Snake frowned at the loss of his beer, but shrugged it off. "Okay. Doesn't sound too bad."
"It's unlikely you'll have to shoot anyone during this assignment," Asuka said up-front.
"Awwww... can't you give it to Kyle?" The weapons expert pleaded.
"No. Now shut up." The blue-haired woman handed him a sheet of paper. "A couple days ago a surgeon was contacted and paid to do some extraction work on small objects lodged in a man's legs. The objects were bullets, and the man, one Mamoru Chiba, refused to say how or when he was shot. No police report was filed in regards to this incident until now, but the surgeon was very concerned. Not only did he have a bullet in each leg, but the wound had completely healed over the projectile without even a scar. Without some sort of accelerated regenerative ability, these wounds would have taken months to heal so completely, which is a time frame that should have been impossible with the bullets still in his legs."
Snake nodded. "So you want me to find Chiba and execute him with extreme prejudice, right?"
Asuka narrowed her eyes at him, unamused.
"Please?"
"You're to track down Chiba and interrogate him," Asuka said firmly. "WITHOUT anybody getting shot, if at all possible. I've already run the background check, and this guy's pretty clean. Well, except for being suspected of statutory rape. A lot. No arrests were made, though." She shrugged. "His address is on there. Come back immediately with any information you find out."
Snake nodded, despite being ultimately dissatisfied with the job. Pocketing the notes, he wordlessly jogged out the door into the parking lot.

Asuka turned to Kyle after Snake left, and shook her head tiredly. "Hey, do you know what's wrong with Chikiko? She's seems really down," she asked Kyle as the blonde man started the one-player mode.
"It's a long story," Kyle answered. "Well... okay, actually it's not, but I really don't think you'd be able to appreciate what's wrong."
"Hmph. Fine." The bluette frowned. "Hey, don't YOU have a job to do too?"
"No. Junko's supposed to be a secondary monitor for the vampire, Tiro snuck out already, and you said I'm not allowed to go out without supervision," Kyle said seriously, mowing down a line of goombas.
Asuka sweatdropped. "Oh. Right." She had said that mostly just to mock him, but upon reflection, it was probably a smart policy.
"Hey Captain," Kyle said, pausing his game and finally turning toward the woman. "I just had a thought."
"What a momentous occasion," Asuka deadpanned. "By all means, allow me to share this rare and exciting nugget of wisdom you're going to insist on telling me anyway."
Completely missing the sarcasm in her voice, Kyle nodded happily. "It's just that, when you gave Snake his mission... I know you don't like to restrict our actions too much since we need to keep our options open as much as possible, but... you probably shouldn't have said 'if at all possible' after you told him not to shoot anybody."
Asuka's expression became unreadable as she digested this commentary. "Dear God, you're right," she said, hanging her head as she massaged her temple.
"Oh! Hey! I just had another thought!"
The police captain winced. "Two in an hour? You're going to hurt yourself."
"I was just thinking," Kyle mumbled, leaning back in the couch and crossing his arms over his chest. "It's been more pleasant around here than usual. And safer too. In the parking lot and local streets, that is."
"As amazing as it is, again you're right. Suddenly I feel like buying a lottery ticket isn't such a long-shot," Asuka said, rubbing her chin. "What is it, though? It's not like we suddenly have something that we were missing. More like something that was dragging us down is gone."
"Yeah..." Kyle mumbled. "I was thinking about that for a while. I thought I had figured it out, but then I started thinking about marshmallows instead." He turned back toward Asuka. "Why is it that when you roast a marshmallow, the outside turns crispy but the inside turns gooey?"
"Shut up and play your game," Asuka said, turning away toward her office. 'Moron. His other point was spot on, though. It has been nicer around here recently. I wonder what it is that's different?'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yeah, I think I can forget about the flight entirely," Sakura said, sighing.
Tycho twitched as he looked out across the vast sand dunes of the Sahara desert, and let his head slump forward and hit the wheel. "What. The. Hell. We didn't even cross a body of water. We didn't fly anywhere. There are no deserts this large in Japan. HOW?"
Ryoga shook his head as he scanned the map, an embarrassed flush on his face. "I really don't know where we went wrong... but I think we're here, in Antarctica."
Sakura sweatdropped. "Uhm... you have the map upside down, see? North should be pointing upward."
"Confusing north and south doesn't even begin to describe the scope of what's wrong with that miserable attempt at navigation," Tycho seethed.
"You're not helping the situation," Sakura chided, not in the best of moods herself after spending multiple days driving without access to a shower or proper sleeping arrangements.
"The situation can't be helped!" The driver shouted. "We've somehow lost ourselves in a desert, we're completely out of gas, we only have as much food and water as THIS idiot," he pointed to Ryoga, who sweatdropped, "brought with him before he directed us into the middle of nowhere, you're trying to find our location and directions out of here on a world atlas for some reason, and to top it all off, I'm totally late for work!" He pounded the steering wheel in aggravation. "What am I gonna do? How is everybody holding up without me there? Are they okay? Hell, if they're even still alive, they're probably too worried to work!"
Sakura frowned. "... Somehow, I have a feeling they're doing all right."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hi guys! I'm back!" Minako said as she entered her dorm room, only to be greeted with absolute silence.
A cursory glance around the room explained why. Ami was still playing Gamecube, and from the way she tottered from side to side slightly, the half-dozen empty cans left on the coffee table belonged to her. Usagi was in no better shape, her state of emotional distress having evolved from the pacing stage to the "hugging your knees on the floor while mumbling to yourself" stage.
"Good God, look at you two," Luna said, trotting in under Minako's legs. "I haven't seen anything this ugly since the last time the world almost ended."
Usagi twitched. "I wonder if I have a taser option installed..." she said aloud, her eyes narrowing.
Chnk! Her wrist bent forward, and twin metal rods extended from the blonde girl's arm. Luna immediately dashed behind Minako's legs.
"Please, don't start," the other blonde mumbled, walking into the room and sitting down on her bed (Luna followed her movements carefully to stay behind her the whole time). "Have we made any progress at all?"
"I called Mamoru a couple o' hours ago," Ami said off-handedly, still paying shaky attention to her video game. "Gave him the basics. Haven't heard back from 'im. The outers still don't know."
Minako frowned. "Really? Not even Setsuna?"
Ami snorted. "Who knows? It'd be nice for her to show up about now, though. You know, just to figure out if this was a bit of a detour as far as destiny is concerned, or if Neo Queen Serenity was supposed to have bio-plasmic breast implants."
Minako expected some sort of return commentary from Usagi, but when she turned back toward her princess, the ponytailed blonde was still staring at the taser on her wrist.
"Wow... I wonder what other kind of stuff I have?" Usagi said aloud to herself. "Candy, cloaking devices, remote controls, shockers..."
"Flamethrowers, laser emitters, USB ports, rocket boosters," Ami rattled off as she continued playing. "And that's just the stuff I could actual identify. Whatever you think of being a cyborg, Usagi-chan, whoever did this to you put some serious effort into making you the best cyborg you could be. We're talking the full package, here."
Usagi thought about that for a moment, then flushed slightly as her expression turned serious. "Hey... Ami-chan?"
"Eh?" The somewhat sloshed gamer paused the Gamecube and focused her attention on Usagi, recognizing that this might be important. Luna and Minako also remained quiet and paid careful attention, curious as to what was wrong.
"So... I know I feel the same and have my sense of touch and everything... but, uh... can I..." her flush darkened, and she gulped. "Can I still... you know... do 'it'?"
Ami remained clueless. "Do 'it'? Do what? What's 'it'?"
"You know what I'm talking about!" Usagi accused. Despite Minako and Makoto's sexual promiscuity, she was still a virgin, and still felt embarrassed to talk about it openly, especially when she knew it really shouldn't have been her biggest concern at the time.
"No, I don't know," Ami said, annoyed. "What are you talking about?"
"The horizontal tango?" Minako guessed, causing both of the other girls to look at her in the surprise. "That's it, right? You're talking about doing the deed. Bumping uglies. Swapping tartar sauce. Threading the-"
"THANK YOU, Mina-chan, I've got it now," Ami interrupted.
"Of course. THOSE expressions you know by heart," Luna muttered to the Senshi of love, shaking her head.
"Anyway, it's a perfectly valid concern; you shouldn't be embarrassed," Ami explained gently to the cybernetic blonde. "Although the skin is no longer natural, the form remains the same, as well as the nerve structure."
"Huh?" Said the blondes in tandem.
Ami sighed. "You still have a vagina, Usagi-chan." The blondes nodded, and Usagi looked relieved.
'Guess I'd better be straightforward about this,' Ami thought, though she was a little embarrassed to speak frankly of such things herself. In the realm of serious intimacy, she was less experienced than Usagi, in that she had never had a serious long-term relationship.
"Like I mentioned before, your reproductive system has been largely untouched and properly insulated from your more dangerous equipment, so you can still get pregnant and give birth, and everything works the same... well, except your breasts."
"Huh? What's wrong with my breasts?" Usagi asked, reaching up and squeezing her chest experimentally.
"Well, Makoto mentioned they were bigger. They're bigger because they replaced the mammary glands with soft-cell plasma reactors. Oh, which reminds me; you still need to eat to power your body." When she stopped talking, Ami realized that everyone else in the room was staring at her wide-eyed. "But maybe you'd like to put aside the topic of food for now."
"P-Plasma? Reactors?" Usagi stared down her cleavage in horror. "Are they safe?"
"What?" Ami asked, confused. "Why wouldn't they be?"
"You said plasma! You know, like 'plasma' plasma!" Usagi said, waving her arms frantically as she stared at Ami. "And in a reactor!"
Ami stared back, totally unable to comprehend the problem. "Yeeeeeah... and?"
"Well it... hell, I don't know what plasma is, but aren't you always using it to kill people in those shooter games you always play? And in a reactor!"
"What she's trying to ask is," Minako explained, herself edging away from the other blonde, "are her boobs gonna explode?"
A huge sweatdrop rolled down the back of Ami's head. "Oh-kaaaay... first of all, plasma is..." she was already half-way done composing her lecture on experimental energy states in her head when she remembered who her audience was. "You know what? Let's forget about what plasma is and move on to the second of all: Only unstable reactors carry the risk of an explosion if damaged, and even then, the safeguards to prevent anything of the sort are extensive. Your generators are very stable, and if I may say so, would look very nice in that two-piece you wanted to get last week." She smirked as Usagi sighed in relief. "Your breasts are in no danger. Though obviously, you're going to be giving Chibi-Usa formula in the future."
"That's a relief. I guess this whole 'cyborg' thing isn't all that bad," Usagi mused. "I mean... I can get used to it, at least."
"I'm sure you will," Ami said, smiling. "Oh! When you do have intercourse though, make sure your partner is on top."
Usagi blinked, and Minako shook her head.
"Aw, that's no fun!" Minako interjected. "Why does she have to do that?"
"Because she's put on about a hundred and fifty kilograms. She could crush Mamoru like a bug." Ami frowned immediately. "Okay... there's definitely a more sensitive way I could have put that."
Alas, it was far too late. The floodgates opened, and the unstoppable torrent poured forth.
"WAAAAAAAH!! I knew it was all too good to be true! THEY MADE ME FAT!! WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Usagi bawled, twin arcs of water shooting from her eyes in opposite directions.

"I guess it was too much to ask that they take out the tear ducts," Luna muttered, a vein popping up on her head.
Minako nodded somewhat numbly. "Yeah... though the water pressure seems to be about the same."
"Usagi-chan! Calm down!" Ami shouted in a panic. "You're not fat! Just, please, stop!"
Sniffle! "B-But you just... you j-just said that I weighed a hundred-fifty kilograms!" Sniff! The blonde princess said, the flood slowing to a mere double waterfall pouring down Usagi's cheeks.
"Actually, she said you put ON about a hundred-fifty kg," Luna pointed out. "Meaning you actually weigh more than that."
Luna's thoughtful and flawlessly accurate correction was welcomed with a swift kick from Minako that sent the aggravating feline rolling under Minako's bed.
"What Luna meant to say," Minako growled, pulling the covers on her bed down to trap Luna underneath, "is that Ami-chan can explain why you weigh more than before even though you're not fat at all and look great!"
"Urm... uh, right!" Ami sweatdropped. "I mean, it's not very complicated; you have a lot of gear packed away in you, and the capacitor that allows different devices to fit in the same space only nullifies certain physical laws related to volume. Your mass is entirely at the mercy of gravity."
Usagi didn't really understand that explanation, but found Ami's long-winded support more comforting than Minako's nervous reassurance. "So... maybe I should start working out?" She asked timidly, still sniffling slightly.
Another sweatdrop rolled down Ami's head. "Uh... no. You don't have muscle to build, or fat to lose anymore. Exercise can only consume energy, in your case."
"THEN THERE'S NO HOPE!!" The ponytailed blonde sobbed, returning to her previous state of uninhibited bawling.
Ami shook her head as she turned back to her game. "I tried. You SAW me. I give up."
Minako just sighed and finally let Luna out from under her bed. "I guess she really hasn't changed, huh?"
"Is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?" Luna asked irritably.

A moment later, Minako, Luna and Usagi all turned toward the door as it suddenly burst open.
Slam! "You guys! Mamoru's here! He's-" Makoto started to dash forward, but stopped and spun around as Rei's shouting came from the further down the dorm hall.
"Hey! Wait a minute! You can't just barge in there like this! Slow down!"
Even Ami paused her game to turn around this time, and Usagi froze like a deer in the headlights as her tears slowed to nothing. "Wha... bu... I... I'm n-not ready!" She said, horrified.
"Hey! Don't ignore me!" Came Rei's voice, much closer this time. "Come back here!"
The ponytailed cyborg's breathing increased substantially, and it seemed to Minako that she was trying to hyperventilate again. "What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to do?"
"Just calm down!" Makoto said desperately. "Do that 'speak from the heart' thing!"
"She doesn't actually have a heart anymore," Ami commented in a statement she would later blame on the alcohol, "it's actually an entire oxygen-"
"Your technical expertise is SO unappreciated right now!" Makoto snapped, leaning down and taking Usagi's hand for comfort.
Slam!

Everybody looked pensively at Mamoru, who stood in the doorway breathing heavily.
"Oh... uh... Mamoru! Hi! We've sorta been expecting you!" Minako said immediately, trying to buy Usagi some time to compose herself. "So! How's work been?"
He ignored her, which was the very least of what everybody expected him to do.
"Usagi..." He mumbled, looking her over carefully. Everyone in the room winced as they noticed that he hadn't used his pet name for her or any affectionate suffix.
Usagi just gulped, unable to bring herself to speak.
Mamoru finished looking Usagi over, then looked around at everyone else. "I was going to guess that this was some sort of sick joke, but you're all way too tense for that."
At that point Rei finally got up to Usagi's boyfriend, and angrily shoved him inside before she slammed the door shut. "Idiot! What did I tell you? Now you've just made things worse!" Rei accused.
Mamoru continued ignoring her even as he regained his footing. "So... what happened?" He asked finally, his eyes locked on Usagi's.
"Usagi was kidnapped a few days ago," Makoto began. "When we figured out she'd been taken, we immediately left to rescue her, and when we found her... she was like this."
Mamoru frowned. "I see. And what's 'this' like?"
"I-I'm not very d-different," Usagi mumbled finally, looking down at the floor as she tried to get her emotions under control. "Well... on the outside. I feel the same and look the same, but..."
Usagi trailed off weakly, and Rei sighed. "You'd have to ask Ami for the specs, and she looks a little sloshed right now, but Usagi's supposedly more machine than not. The gadgets and little hatches and things pretty much just appear when she wants them to." She nodded toward the cybernetic blonde. "Go ahead. Show him the hole in your stomach or something."
"I... I can't really... um..." Usagi's face turned red as she tried to think of something to do, but everytime she arrived at a solution, she found herself too afraid to do it.
"She's blushing," Mamoru noted, not to make fun of her, but to again cast into doubt the idea that she was part robot.
Ami nodded. "Her skin is a polymer that's been threaded with nerves and energy circuits. It's responsive to heat, and changes color based on nerve signals that would normally adjust blood flow. Her body works just like before, in pretty much every way."
Usagi gulped, and was going to try again to speak her mind, when text appeared in her plane of vision, this time in an uncomfortably bright red color.
[Warning: Emotional instability has resulted in proximity overheat in facial area. Forced cooling flush activated.]
"Huh? Whazzat mean?" She mumbled, taken off-guard.
Chnk! Small slits opened on Usagi's arms, legs, and neck, causing everyone in the room to flinch backward in surprise.
PSHOOOOOoooooooo... Hot gases blasted from the vents, and Makoto, who was the closest, caught one of the jets right in her face, causing her to fall over backwards and start coughing.
"......." Ami stared at the scene blankly, watching Makoto shake her head dizzily while trying to clear her lungs. "Okay, yeah. Then there's that." The others turned to look at her. "What? I said 'pretty much' every way! Don't get on MY case!"
"This is... this is unbelievable..." Mamoru shook his head. "Who did this? Why would anybody do this?"
"We're working on that," Rei said immediately. "And we have some leads. It's even possible to reverse the process... maybe."
"We need your help for that!" Minako said, wanting to throw in her own thoughts to make sure he knew Usagi had all her friends behind her.
Makoto coughed into her fist a few more times, and then settled right back down next to Usagi. "Even if it can't be reversed, we have to get these jerks back for what they did! Nobody screws around with our princess!"
Mamoru stared at Usagi, who kept looking down at the carpet, obviously awaiting judgment. "But... this shouldn't have happened..."
Minako frowned, not expecting such a comment. "Well, that's kind of besides the point, isn't it? It DID happen."
"No! This can't be!" Mamoru said vehemently. "This isn't in our future! This is all wrong!"
Seeing the confused looks on the others' faces, Mamoru shook his head. "Our future together, our destiny! This isn't it! How is this going to affect all that? What about Chibi-Usa?"
"Well... uh... that's really more of a... long-term concern," Minako explained, scratching the back of her head. "We were kind of focusing on how this will all work out in, like, the next week or so."
"Of course that's what you'd worry about," Mamoru allowed, "but I have more to think about than that! What's going to happen to Crystal Tokyo? How can we-"
"We can still have sex!" Usagi suddenly blurted, causing everyone in the room to jump back in surprise, blushing.
The ponytailed cyborg took a moment to digest what she had just said, and very quickly the warnings from before returned as her face heated up again.
"You think THAT'S what I'm worried about?" Mamoru asked irritably. 'Huh. I was wondering about that. But even so...'
"Well, it's a relevant concern, sure," Makoto reasoned, though it was obvious she too had been caught flat-footed. "But can we get back to the main issue? You know, hunting down those responsible and giving them quick, explosive deaths?"
"Well, I'll do what I can to help, sure," the part-time masked hero said, staring uncertainly at his girlfriend. "But..."
"But what?" Usagi asked timidly. "What about... about us?"
Mamoru's expression hardened. "We can talk about 'us' when we get you back to normal."
Usagi looked slightly hopeful. "And... what if I can't get back to normal, though?"
"Hell Usagi, I don't know!" The dark-haired man suddenly snapped, causing her to flinch back. "What do you want me to say? 'Don't worry about being a machine, I don't mind'? Well, I do mind! I can't be with you like this! You're not even human!"
Tears started to leak from Usagi's eyes once more. But rather than the raging torrent that resulted from her tantrums, these were slow, heavy tears that stained her cheeks as they ran down to her neck. "But I... I'm still the same person on the inside..."
"No, no you're not," Mamoru said snidely. "You're the same person on the outside. Inside, you're a Terminator or something; you're not the same person at all!"
"Mamo-chan!" Usagi-cried, leaning forward suddenly and reaching out to him, only to see him flinch and back up. "M-M-Mamo... ch-ch..."
Finally, the pressure became too much for the cybernetic blonde to stand, and she suddenly got up and bolted straight out the front door, nearly plowing Mamoru over as heavy tears rained on the carpet.
Shove! "Hey! Watch where you're going!"
Ignoring the unfamiliar man she had knocked into the wall, Usagi dashed down the hall and toward the stairs, unmindful that she was accelerating past the sprinting speed that was generally regarded as the human maximum.

Back in the dorm room, the tension reached its peak as Mamoru regained his footing, shaking his head.
Rei grit her teeth, and her whole body trembled as she stalked up to the dark-haired man.
"Go ahead and slap me if you want," Mamoru said suddenly, freezing Rei in her tracks, "but I stand by what I said. That... person," he said the word hesitantly, as if he was about to say something else but thought better of it, "was not Usagi. She wasn't the woman I love, and she certainly isn't the woman I'm going to marry." He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared defiantly at the raven haired girl.
Said raven-haired girl, who had her right hand held flat in order to give the predicted slap, balled it into a fist instead, preparing to exact a less dramatic but far more painful method of feminine fury.
The impending violence, however, was interrupted when a man poked his head in the doorway and knocked on the open door to get the inhabitants' attention.
"Hey. Sorry to interrupt. Sounds like something pretty heavy's going down in here," Snake said, noticing that there were four girls in the room to the one man, and that all four had been glaring at him before the intrusion. 'Ugh. College romance. It's either short and empty, or painfully melodramatic.'
Ami, Makoto, and Rei gaped, their eyes going wide as they recognized the figure leaning through the doorway. Minako gasped and blushed deeply.
"Can I help you?" Mamoru asked, not having ever actually met Snake before, and thus not recognizing the terrible danger he was in simply by being within the Texan's line of sight. While Mamoru had dealt with police officers quite often in the past, it had been several years since he had last evaded or spoken with one; most of the Senshi activity that required his presence had ceased, meaning that he would no longer have to flee from officers wondering why there was a masked man bounding across rooftops, and Usagi had turned sixteen nearly four years ago, which was the legal age of consent in Japan.
"Chiba Mamoru?" Snake asked, pointing to the only male in the room. The part-time hero nodded, a guarded expression etched on his face. "I'm Lieutenant Snake of the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment. I have some questions to ask you."

Rei gulped as she backed up and sat down next to Makoto, hoping to separate herself from the conflict that seemed to be unfolding before her. "It's him! It's that crazy guy with the beer and the bombs!" She hissed through her teeth.
"Always an unhealthy combination," Luna murmured, making sure she was quiet enough that their guest couldn't pick up on her speech.
"Mina-chan, why do you think-" Makoto stopped as she turned to the remaining blonde, finding that she was no longer present. "Huh? Where'd she go?"
Ami jabbed a thumb behind her. "She ran to the bathroom."

"I have a report here that says you got a few bullets taken outta you recently, Chiba," Snake said, taking out a piece of paper from his pocket and perusing it casually. "Anything you want to tell me about that?"
Mamoru frowned at the lack of a respectful suffix attached to his name. 'Hmph. Americans.' "No, I really don't. It's of no concern to the police."
"It's of no concern to the police that an apparently upstanding citizen got nailed in each leg?" Snake asked, raising an eyebrow. "I have the X-rays here in the file. No WAY these got in you by accident. Nice caliber too. Looks like a sniper round. That isn't equipment you can pick up at the local black markets. I wanna know what, who, when, where, and how."
"I have nothing to say to you," Mamoru said evenly, not noticing as the three girls behind him shook their heads and gave furious "don't do it!" gestures by waving their arms appropriately.
Snake shrugged. "All right. In that case, would you care to explain how the entry wounds from these projectiles disappeared before you got to a surgeon?" The police officer asked, tucking the folder under his arm and cocking his head to one side. "It's not really, ya know... feasible that a bullet wound that severe could have healed so completely before the bullet itself was removed. Some would think that unnatural forces were at work... and, well, obviously that's where I come in," he explained, smiling pleasantly.
The Senshi and Luna held their breaths as the tension reached its peak.
"I don't have to explain anything," Mamoru said defiantly. "If you don't have a warrant to arrest me, then you may leave, Snake-san."
Snake sighed regrettably. "I see. That's unfortunate." Blam!
The others in the room stared slack-jawed as Snake ripped his sidearm from its holster and blasted Mamoru in his left thigh, sending the younger man down onto the ground screaming.
"GWWWAAAAUGH!! MY LEG!! YOU SHOT ME IN THE LEG!!"
"Yes. Yes, I did," Snake said, quite satisfied with the turn of events. "Oh, if anybody asks, this was an unavoidable outcome, all right?"
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" Mamoru yelled, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes as blood flowed onto the carpet.
"I'm a victim of circumstance," Snake said, shrugging. "I've been instructed to extract information from a subject who won't cooperate peacefully. If Chikiko were here instead of me she could probably charm the facts out of you, but I'm a man, so violence is my first and only alternative." Planting his fists on his hips (one of them still gripping the Desert Eagle pistol), Snake tried again. "So, what can you tell me about who shot you? And what about that superhuman healing thing?"
"GO TO HELL!!" Mamoru screamed, clutching his leg in agony.
"Please, after you," Snake countered. Blam!
A gargled cry emerged from Mamoru's lips as hot lead bored into his right thigh.
"Let's see... I think I'll go around the body twice, hitting the limbs. Then I'll start with non-vital organs in the middle torso. You only need one kidney, right?"
"You... you sadistic..." Mamoru gasped, rolling around on his back in pain.
At this point, the others in the room could no longer remain quiet. "Are you really a police officer?!" Rei yelled, standing up in Mamoru's defense. Sure, she had been ready to pound the jackass a moment before, but a bullet in each leg (again, apparently) was a bit more punishment than she felt he deserved.
"Well, I just walked into someone's room and shot a guy twice in order to get a confession," Snake reasoned, rubbing his chin. "Which means I'm either a police officer or a psychotic criminal."
"Apparently, those two occupations aren't mutually exclusive," Ami said, still buzzed enough from her earlier drinking to speak her mind when it wasn't really a good idea.
Snake chuckled. "Yeah, I get that a lot." Then he looked back down at Mamoru. "Okay. Ready to talk now?"
"I... it... I can't..."
The American frowned. "Huh? I'm having some trouble hearing you. Did you say 'Yes Officer-sama, I'll tell you everything, please don't hurt me anymore'?"
Mamoru clenched his teeth against the pain as he finally nodded.
"Good! Let's start with the healing thing. So are you a mutant or what?"
Mamoru stretched his neck to looked pleadingly at the girls, but they just shook their heads frantically and made shushing gestures.
"I..." the part-time hero squeezed his eyes shut shamefully, knowing that it would only take one more bullet to force a confession out of him. All he could do was make it out of here with both his arms working. "I'm Tuxedo Kamen... the guy who fights alongside the Sailor Senshi..."
Snake frowned. "Oh... that's lame. I was hoping you were an alien or something. Oh well." He shrugged. "And how did you get shot?"
"I was trying to help the Senshi..." Mamoru gasped out, "and was standing outside a tall building... I think it was... the headquarters of some organization... the DA-something-or-other... Suddenly someone shot me in the leg. Then, when I tried to get up, they shot my other leg. I don't know who it was or why they did it."
Snake remained silent for a long time. "Oh! Oh yeah!" Then he slapped the back of his head. "Ha! How's that for irony! I was the one who shot you in the first place!"
Crash! The Senshi and the one moon cat present met the carpet face-first. Mamoru just groaned.
"Huh! You know, I THOUGHT this whole scenario seemed strangely familiar!" Then Snake frowned again. "But still, what a boring story. You made me waste my time and ammo trying to hide THAT? I have half a mind to shoot your arms anyway!"
The Texan officer turned away in disgust. "Oh, and don't bother complaining to my superiors about this mess," he said as he started to walk out.
Through the blinding pain, against his better judgment, Mamoru yelled out. "Oh? And what's gonna stop me?"
Snake blinked and turned his head. "Why, nothing. I can't stop you." Then he changed the subject. "By the way, I tracked you here by following your car. It's pretty nice. Luxury import, right? I don't really know what kind, cars aren't really my thing." He shrugged. "It would be a real shame if ten pounds of plastic explosives suddenly blew it to a few slivers of melting steel. And it would TOTALLY suck if you happened to be in it at the time this INCREDIBELY unlikely event MYSTERIOUSLY occurred." He turned his head away. "Not that I'm threatening you or anything of that sort. Just making conversation. Toodles!" Slam!

Mamoru groaned pathetically.
"Well? Don't just stand there! Someone call for a stretcher or something!" Rei shouted, startling Ami out of her horrified trance.
"Oh! Right! Right away!" The blue-haired girl said, snatching up the phone.
"Wow... that was pretty intense," Makoto mumbled, looking at the incapacitated, bleeding man as if in a daze. "I guess you should be careful what you wish for, huh?" Rei winced; apparently the two of them had been on the same wavelength.
Luna sweatdropped. "Thank goodness Usagi left; there's no telling what she'd have done if she'd seen that."
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Rei frowned. "That was fast..." then she looked over at Ami, who shook her head, and then shrugged. "Huh... Come in!"
Bam! Snake burst back into the room, drew his pistol, and aimed it at Mamoru.
Blam! Blam!
"AAAAGHAUOW!! MY ARMS!! Sob! WHY?!?!" Mamoru cried, now bleeding significantly from all his limbs.
"Sorry about that," Snake apologized, "the half of my mind that really likes shooting things isn't easily ignored. Bye." Turning around once again, Snake walked out the door and closed it behind him.

"Okay... I'm pretty sure we're obligated to transform and take him out, now," Makoto said, frowning as the Mamoru's bloodstains started spreading faster through the carpet.
"YOU go," Rei said, shuddering. "I'm not getting anywhere near that guy. He's a complete-"
Bam!
Those that remained in the room flinched at the sound of a door being thrown open, only to realize that this time the sound had come from within the dorm.
"Hey! Where'd he go? Where's Snake?" Minako asked.
Rei was about to answer her question in an appropriately dry and sarcastic manner, but she nearly bit her tongue once she saw her friend. Minako had completely dolled herself up, with extra layers of makeup and light jewelry, such that she reminded the others distinctly of western models portrayed in popular import magazines (which happened to be very popular with Minako, coincidentally). She was wearing a denim miniskirt, and a spaghetti-strap blouse that Rei had seen often while the promiscuous young woman was out "hunting for meat".
"Wha... But... Why..." Rei started to mumble, but was cut off when Minako frowned and interrupted.
"Why'd you let him leave so quickly? Geez!" The blonde girl muttered, quickly racing to the door.
Crunch! "OW!!" Mamoru shouted, having the poor fortune to have had his hand lying uselessly in Minako's path.
"Oh, stop whining and get off the floor," Minako mumbled absently, not really paying attention to the dark-haired man or his predicament as she darted into the hallway.
Slam!

"Oh-kaaay..." Rei said, wincing as the wounded man before rocked slowly on his back, whimpering. "You know, I had the distinct impression that Mina-chan had more sense than that."
"Reality has a way of hitting you where it hurts," Makoto admitted. "Though you're right. This is bizarre, even for her."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snake whistled to himself as he walked down the hall, writing down a few notes on the printout of Mamoru's police record.
All around him, students hesitantly poked their heads out of doorways trying to figure out what had happened and where the loud noises had come from (as guns were relatively rare in Japanese society outside of games and movies, it didn't strike them as the most likely culprit). Several of them requested Snake's attention as he passed by in order to ask about the disturbance, but the American freely ignored them, keeping his head down without making eye contact.
"Hey! Snake-san! Wait!" Came a feminine voice from behind him.
Snake once again ignored the voice, though he did notice that he was being called for by name.
"Lessee... All in all, I've just gotta note his alternate identity in his file. No real need to record details about the shooting. Either shooting," Snake mumbled to himself. "Also, I should tell the surgeon that he'll probably be getting some repeat business."
Minako finally caught up to the police officer, and quickly swung around in front of him while smiling widely.
"Oh! Hi! I'm glad I caught you! I guess you didn't hear me!"
Snake stopped, not quite willing to actually walk into the girl in his effort to dissuade conversation. "Actually, I did. I was trying to ignore you. What do you want?" He asked neutrally, looking bored and entirely uninterested in Minako's enticing outfit.
Unperturbed by his attitude, Minako extended her hand in a typical western greeting. {"Hello! My name is Minako Aino! I was surprised to see you!"} She said in English, hoping to surprise him with her fluent English skills.
"Fabulous," Snake deadpanned, sticking with Japanese. "I'm not a tourist, I'm a police officer. Unless you want me to shoot something, stop bothering me."
"Ha ha! I guess you're right! Sorry about that!" Minako sweatdropped, realizing that he didn't seem to be picking up on her motives like most men did. 'Gotta flash a little more cleavage...' "Hey! Why don't you let me show you around campus, Snake-san?"
"Because I'm busy and any time spent here amongst the drunk and fornicating leaders of tomorrow is time completely wasted," Snake answered immediately. "Will you move now?"
"Don't be like that!" Minako said, taking hold of his hand and gesturing toward the exit. "Come on, there's this great steakhouse down by the quad! Let's get some lunch together!"
"I'm sure that given time, I could think of something I would enjoy less, but right now I-" Snake began.
"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" Someone suddenly shouted, and Minako and Snake were shoved apart toward opposite sides of the hall as two med students carrying a stretcher raced through the dorms, a professor jogging behind them to keep up.
Minako blinked in surprise and stared at the procession, having only seen such a thing during incidences of overdrinking and overdoses at the more unrestrained parties that she tried to stay away from. "Wow, that must be serious. There wouldn't be any parties held at this time of day, so it must be a bad accident. Or maybe even a fight! Scary!" Minako turned back toward Snake. "Hey, you're an officer; you should go-Hey! Where are you going?"
Snake continued his brisk pace toward the exits, though Minako noticed he was sweatdropping for some reason.
"Hey, wait! What's wrong? Come back!"
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Usagi was no longer aware of how long she had been crying, how far she had gone, or even her exact location.
Though it had been quite some time since she had stopped running at full speed and plowing people over, she was now wandering the streets aimlessly, her head held low as tears continued slowly dripping to the sidewalk below.
Occasionally some concerned person would try to get her attention, either out of concern for her troubles or concern for her safety, as the girl moved in a swaying, uncertain fashion, as if in a daze. And in that daze, their words didn't reach her, as a thousand thoughts, memories, and emotions flooded and collided chaotically in her head.
Anger, pain, sorrow, self-loathing, disgust, regret; they all threatened to drown her as she mentally cursed the metal framework in her fabricated body as well as its creator, over and over and over again. Her mind was her own, and her senses, for the most part, did not lie. But her body was an illusion, a mockery of humanity. She wasn't human. She was hardly a living being.
She was angry at Mamoru for rejecting her, sure. She was angrier at the culprit who had arranged her kidnapping for precipitating that rejection. She was even a little angry at her friends, as unfair as that was, for letting this happen to her and then coming to the rescue the day after, when it was already too late.
Mostly though, she was angry at herself. Angry at her weakness for losing to the redheaded woman with the robotic cat ears. Angry at her meekness for whimpering and fleeing when a few words, a loving gesture, or a display of inner strength may have changed Mamoru's mind. And angry at her cowardice for accepting Mamoru's rejection so easily, and letting herself be sent spiraling into depression by his admittedly rational reaction.
Part of her just wanted to accept his fear and uncertainty and move on; it certainly wasn't the first time he'd turned his back on her, though the reason made a lot more sense this time. Given a little while, maybe he'd give her another chance. Or maybe she'd have to find someone else. Destiny dictated that they be together, but then, destiny had conveniently forgotten to bring up that she vented exhaust when she got nervous enough, so who could say?
Another part of her, the part that tended to yield to emotion and dispense with logic, wanted out; nothing good could come of the twisted machine her body had become, and she had to make every effort to change it back, no matter what it took. Only then, when she had regained her humanity, would she regain her life, her love, her future throne, and the trust and admiration of her friends. As she was now, she was a monster, a freak of nature. The kind of thing she had fought and destroyed without a second thought.
Another part of her was really trying very hard to get her to wake up and pay attention, especially as there seemed to be a car headed right toward her that hadn't made any effort to slow down or blow its horn.
WHAM!

Ranma jerked his head away from his meal as he heard the sound of an impact across the street.
"What? What was that?" The pigtailed cop asked, his view of the accident being obscured by pedestrians and parked cars.
The owner of the ramen cart shook his head sadly, as he had a better view of the street. "Doesn't look like neither the girl nor the driver was paying attention... that car hit her straight-on."
Ranma winced and stood up, quickly scanning the street for the accident.
"Wait... she's getting up? Huh. Looks like she's okay," the vendor said, mystified.
Ranma frowned as he watched the proceedings, trying to determine if he should intervene or contact help.

"OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod," the woman driver said, nearly falling over herself in panic as she scrambled outside her car to stare at the twitching blonde girl on the street. "I'm so sorry! I-I didn't... I mean... I was on my phone, and... oh my God, please forgive me!"
The ponytailed girl below slowly started to move, placing her hands on the asphalt so that she could push herself up off the ground.
"Oh no! Please! Let me call an ambulance right away! Please don't move!" The woman said frantically, rummaging inside her car and coming out with the cellular device that had started this whole mess.
Usagi ignored her and slowly rose from the ground, her entire body aching, but completely functional. Then she slowly turned her head and stared at the car that had hit her.
Smoke was pouring from the hood of the small, green Mitsubishi, and Usagi could see that her body had left a thick dent in the middle of the bumper, and caused enough damage to rattle the engine and pop the hood.
Sniffle! "My leg isn't even that sore..." she mumbled sadly, noting that while her limbs throbbed, the pain didn't seem to increase with movement or indicate the severity of the damage.
Beep! A short, sharp noise that only she could hear heralded the damage report, presented in the same function as her profile scans.
[Trauma classification: medium-level concussive damage incurred. No serious structural damage indicated. Total systems down: 0. Kinetic dampers functioning at 91%. Total damage: negligible.]
"What are you doing?" The woman asked the younger girl, who was sniffling frequently while staring at her car. "You shouldn't be standing! I'll get the paramedics down here right-"
"IT'S NOT FAIR!!" Usagi suddenly bellowed, causing the driver to jump back in surprise.
CRUNCH! Then the ponytailed cyborg smashed a fist into the front of the car, causing the engine hood to fold up like paper.
"Wha... Bu... How..." the woman stammered.
"Why do these things happen to me?" Usagi cried.
Smash! Crunch! Wham! She started beating furiously on the offending vehicle as she sobbed, crumpling the frame like a styrofoam cup while the engine itself was smashed to bits and pieces that bounced onto the ground in loose clumps of debris.
The woman fell backward onto her rear, and then she quickly scrambled away, leaving her cell phone lying on the ground even as the emergency technicians asked for the nature of the situation. The surrounding pedestrians all followed the woman's example, turning away and running for their lives.
"All I ever wanted was a normal life!" Crash! "I just wanted to go to school, get a job, get married, and have kids!" Bash! "But NO! I'm always being turned into a superhuman or fighting evil or walking into traps or rescuing my fated lover or saving the world or being REBUILT AS A F!!!ING CYBORG!!"
Grabbing the most solid and complete chunks of the car's hood that remained with both hands, Usagi slowly hefted the vehicle into the air, until finally she was holding it straight upward, small pieces of ruined engine and shattered frame raining down around her.
Ch-Chak! Her forearms split apart into a number of parallel bars, the skin-like covering seeming to evaporate, and a pair of cylindrical cores within her arms glowed a bright yellow. Vwooooooooo...
SCREEEEE-YAAAAH!! An ear-rending screech echoed through the streets as twin lances of yellow disruptor energy blasted upward through the doomed vehicle, utterly disintegrating it in the process.

"Huh. That's a new one," Ranma murmured, scratching his head as he watched the cyborg in the middle of the street slump to her knees, crying.
The ramen vendor gulped, ducking down behind the edge of his cart. "Hey! Why don't you go do something? You're one of those crazy zombie-killing cops, 'aintcha?"
Ranma nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess I am. I really should take care of this."
Then he turned toward the vendor. "But I'll need to requisition a bowl of ramen first."
"Wh-What? Why?" The vendor asked, wondering why the pigtailed man was worrying about food at a time like this.
"Never mind why! Hurry it up!" Ranma snapped, crossing his arms over his chest as he gazed at the young woman sitting in the street.

Usagi continued sniffling for a few more minutes, keeping her head down as people fled the scene as quickly as they could.
On some level Usagi was aware of what she'd done, and was horrified; that woman, careless as she was, didn't deserve to have her car disintegrated and her wits scared out of her. She had obviously been sorry about the accident, and it wasn't as if she'd caused more damage to Usagi than Usagi had caused her car.
However, she couldn't muster the will to get up. So she simply sat there, in the street, waiting for some authority to pass judgment upon her.
She didn't have to wait nearly as long as she'd thought.
"Hey there. Usagi-san, right? Ramen?"
Blinking in surprise, Usagi looked up behind her, and then gasped.
"Hey! You're... uh... Saotome-san! Wh-What are you doing here?" The blonde asked in surprise, finally coming out of her daze at seeing the man who had rescued her before.
"Well, I sorta had to investigate when I saw the huge energy beam. That's my territory," Ranma said casually, sitting down on the curb across from her with two bowls of ramen in his hands.
Usagi winced. 'So he saw the whole thing...' "So this is it, huh? The DAPC takes me in again..."
"Nah, don't worry about it," Ranma said, holding out a ramen bowl for her to take. "Were you arrested by our department before? I don't recognize you. How long ago was it?"
Usagi winced again. She had been Sailor Moon when she had been arrested, and thus the officers wouldn't be able to connect her to her alter-ego (not that she had met Ranma then anyway). "It's... complicated." Then she frowned. "Wait... you don't seem very surprised to have seen that. Why wouldn't you arrest me?"
Ranma shrugged. "Well, I'm not very surprised. And for a cyborg, you're alright, so I don't have to take you in."
Usagi's eyes widened. "You know I'm a cyborg?"
"Well, yeah. The energy blasts kinda gave it away, though I had my suspicions back in the lab where I found you." Ranma answered, taking up some chopsticks and splitting them in his hands.
She sighed and stared down at the murky broth that soaked the noodles in her food. "Hmph. I didn't figure it out until today."
"Really?" Ranma asked, scratching his head. "Wow. I always thought that being part machine was just one of those things you really couldn't miss. Y'know, like walking on a crutch. Didn't you have to get turned into a cyborg in the first place?"
"Yeah, well, I was out at the time," Usagi said bitterly, still just staring at her food. "And it's just been so... complicated since then."
Giving a painful groan, the blonde girl began to recount her troubles. "I'm still not sure how it happened, but now that it did, my life is OVER! I mean, a cyborg can't just act like she's just another college girl! Especially if I end up flipping out again and blasting stuff in a moment of emotional hardship!"
She leaned back and stared up at the cloudy sky, propping her body up with her arms. "My boyfriend has already pretty much left me, but can I really blame him? He's right; I'm not human anymore. Even if I look the same and feel the same to the touch, how can I expect him not to care? I can't honestly say I wouldn't do the same if our positions were switched, though if I decided to dump him, I'd be a little more sensitive about it."
Then she massaged her forehead with her hand. "And what about my family? God, I haven't even thought about that! Even if robots are new to me, I'm still used to handling weird stuff. But what's Mom and Dad going to say when they find out that I'm part machine? What if they don't believe I'm really Usagi? They might think I'm some kind of robot trying to mimic her or something."
Shaking her head, Usagi sat up straight once more and turned toward Ranma. "I know I can't really ask you to understand what I'm going through, but... you can see what the problem is, right?"
Slurp! Ranma sucked up and swallowed a batch of noodles, then quickly wiped his mouth before answering. "Nope. I wasn't listening."
"Grk!" Usagi nearly facefaulted, but managed to catch herself before she spilled the ramen in her lap. "What? Why not?" The blonde complained, a vein popping up on her head (don't ask me to explain how this occurs on a cyborg). "Hey, I'm a victim trying to work through my problems, here! If you're not going to help, then at least listen to me!"
Ranma slurped up another wad of noodles, then pointed at Usagi's bowl with his chopsticks. "Try the ramen. This stuff is great."
"How is RAMEN supposed to fix my life?" Usagi said irritably, turning her head away.
"Obviously, it can't," the police officer said, "but it does taste really good. Eat."
Usagi frowned deeply, but finally took up her own chopsticks and split them in two.
Slurp! Chewing up the noodles, Usagi swallowed, and then nodded slowly. "Wow. That is good."
"Toldja," Ranma said, smirking. "This guy makes the best ramen I've had since I was in high school. Better yet, it's free for cops. I come here almost every day."
"Wow. That's nice. I wish I could-" Usagi stopped and shook her head furiously. "Wait a minute! Why are we talking about food when my life is in a shambles?"
"Well, for one thing, it's more interesting than your problems," Ranma said honestly. Upon seeing Usagi glare at him, he just shrugged. "Well, whaddya want from me? Getting dumped, fitting in, and being accepted by your family is pretty normal stuff to have to deal with. Hell, I had all those problems when I was younger, and I didn't get disruptor cannons outta the deal!"
Usagi blinked in surprise, then looked skeptical. "Really? YOU had trouble with all that?"
Ranma nodded. "Yup. Fiancee left me for another guy, pretty much everybody in school and probably the whole district hated me, and in order to make my parents happy... well, like I said, it's not nearly as interesting as talking about food."
"Hmmm..." Usagi once again stared down into her ramen. "Still, you didn't have to deal with being half robot."
"I had to deal with being half something, but that's another story," Ranma mumbled. "Besides, is being a cyborg really that bad?"
Usagi snorted. "Of course it is!" Then she took another long slurp of ramen noodles.
Gulp! "Well, actually, being a cyborg isn't that bad, but the stigma is killing me!" The blonde girl admitted, shaking her head.
"Yeah, well, the local cyborgs aren't much for public relations," Ranma said apologetically.
"Ha ha," Usagi mumbled sarcastically, unaware that he was being serious. "I just wish I could get my hands on the people who did this to me and make them change me back!"
Slurp! Gulp!
"Well, maybe I wouldn't make them change me back right away," Usagi said, looking up thoughtfully. "You know, now that I think about it, there could be a lot of positives to being a cyborg. But still, it'd be nice to know that I always have the option."
"What kind of positives?" Ranma asked.
"I can turn on televisions without a remote, dispense candy from my arm, shock people who get on my nerves, and I think Ami-chan said I even have satellite radio," Usagi paused to take in another mouthful of ramen. "When you get right down to it, besides my social problems, the cyborg thing's worked out really well for me. I feel great and get to keep all the same senses and everything. I mean, I wouldn't have thought that a cyborg would even be able to TASTE food like this! And I'm durable, too! That car barely scratched me!"
Raising the bowl to her lips, she quickly gulped down the rest of the ramen noodles, and then the broth. Then she wiped her mouth with her arm.
"But there ARE still those social problems," Usagi said, sighing as she stared into the empty bowl. "I mean, how am I supposed to get a husband as a cyborg?"
"Feh, don't worry about it," Ranma scoffed, finishing off his own ramen bowl. Gulp! "Even if you are metal on the inside, you look cute enough. There are plenty of guys out there who only care about looks, y'know?"
Usagi blinked, and blushed slightly. "You think so? You... You think I'm cute?"
"Sure you are. And besides the whole manic-depressive car smashing thing, you seem nice enough, too," Ranma said, taking Usagi's bowl with his and stacking them at his side.
Usagi remained silent for a long time, staring down at the street. "Hey, Saotome-san?" She asked, raising her head to look at the police officer.
"Call me Ranma."
The blonde nodded. "Ranma-san... when you... when you lost your fiancee, and you didn't fit in... well... what did you do about it?"
Ranma looked surprised by the question, but answered quickly. "I left in disgust and joined a bunch of lunatics parading around as police officers."
Usagi sweatdropped. "Ah. And how has that worked out?"
"Really well, actually." Ranma shrugged. "I wouldn't recommend it for everyone; it's a pretty brutal job, but I get a lot of respect for being a good fighter, and the pay is great." Then he grinned, and pointed across the street. "Plus, like I said, there's the free ramen. Want me to get us some more?"
Usagi smiled softly. "Yes, please. I'd like that."
Ranma took the bowls and got up, walking across the street toward the vendor who was still looking nervously at Usagi.
Said blonde cyborg stared at the pigtailed man's back, smiling thoughtfully.
"Hmmmm... DAPC, huh?"

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

Vampires staked (well, you know, dead. For real): 4
Vampires captured: 1
Ghouls slaughtered: 22
Supporting heroes shot (again): 1 (though he got shot a lot more this time. While untransformed, yet)
Civilian vehicles destroyed: 1

An explanation on vampires:
I feel it's necessary to explain the exact capabilities of the vampires that will be appearing in this and future chapters of Millennium. Usually I wouldn't feel it's necessary to explain the qualities of such well-known spooks, but the particulars of vampiric abilities and weaknesses vary widely, and will be used at length, and I feel that a full explanation of the "controversial" points is necessary.
The vampires I use are primarily based upon the vampires of the Hellsing manga, who exhibit certain qualities that I feel make them more human and less monster than some other versions. I will explain all those qualities I feel are relevant here.
These vampires:
1) Are not vaporized by direct sunlight of any degree. At worst they become extremely sick and pass out until nightfall. Otherwise, it simply weakens them until they're no stronger than a human. Being out in the day but not in the sun will still weaken them, but not as much.
2) Can be killed by conventional weapons. If the heart or head is completely destroyed or removed, the vampire dies. With weaker, "freshly turned" vampires this is much easier than with experienced vampires, as they don't possess short-term regeneration. Once the vampire is able to heal wounds immediately, it is much harder to completely destroy the heart or head, as it will keep regenerating until the vampire runs out of energy to heal itself. Using silver or blessed weapons, or impaling the vampire so that it can't regenerate can circumvent the regeneration, though even this might not work against the most powerful vampires.
3) Have blood in their bodies. And while their hearts don't beat, their blood DOES flow. This is evidenced by the prevalence of vampire sex. In order to have heterosexual intercourse, the male needs an erection. The erection requires the flow of blood. By extension, I deduce that vampires can also blush, so don't give me any flak about it.
4) Turn virgins of the opposite gender into vampires, and non-virgins into ghouls. This is caused by bite only, and the victim must be mortally wounded or killed, but not decapitated or have the head or heart significantly damaged. This is in contrast to the Hellsing series, in which every damn thing that gets in a vampire's way would become a goul if it got bitten. Or scratched. Or SHOT. Ghoul victims turn into ghouls in the same manner, so long as the ghoul mortally wounds the victim and doesn't damage/eat the heart or head.
5) Do not have to sleep in coffins holding the soil of their birth or any of that nonsense. That's stupid.
6) Vampires can eat whatever they want, but only human blood will give them energy and replenish their strength. Thus, they CAN drink soda or eat burgers if they like the flavor, but it's mostly a waste of time. Also, alcoholic drinks do not effect them, as alcohol is a poison and vampires are immune to all poisons.
7) Will not melt or get burned or anything of the sort from exposure to garlic. Garlic does, however, cause a severe and immediate reaction similar to allergies that weaker vampires find unbearable. A vampire suffering from close exposure to garlic will be disoriented, erratic, and probably blind, while their senses of touch, smell, taste, and their supernatural "sixth sense" are disabled due to the overpowering nature of the garlic.
8) Are not weakened by the appearance of a cross, though the weaker ones do show unusual contempt and hatred for the symbol.

End Chapter 3