Skysaber's Choice

Part Twelve

by Jared Ornstead

=====

"ARES?!" Cologne's eyebrows shot up.
"i have people who sincerely dislike me in high places," acknowledged 
Grey. "Though i don't get it. If my earlier scan of the timeline is 
correct, then Serena is a five year old girl. Giving me a mission that'll 
take this many years to accomplish just doesn't sound like Ares' sort of 
trick."
"Maybe he wants you out of the way for that time." Shampoo said, wishing 
she could do something like that to Mousse.
Grey nodded. "That's probably it. Serena, you see, is the reincarnated 
Princess Serenity. When she comes into her own, she will become first 
Sailor Moon and then eventually Princess Serenity again. Some time after, 
she'll become Queen Serenity if i remember things right."
"Shampoo's analysis seems correct," agreed Cologne. "Well, getting this 
Serenity to make up with this Phoenix Mage sounds fairly easy. Just offer 
her candy or something."
"Well, there's..." Grey started rooting around in the sack. "Oh no. She 
got *that* bow."
"Problem?"
"i had *two* bows in here. One could fire off Love Arrows, it was 
something i got for two weeks from now when i'm to substitute for Cupid. 
i just hope i can get it back from Mars before she goes and does 
something she'll regret."
~A magic bow whose arrows cause one to fall in love?~ Cologne's thoughts 
almost exactly mirrored Shampoo's on this. ~Where was it again?~

"Aw, c'mon, mom?" Jared was trying to coax Nodoka out of wearing the 
robes of a Shinto nun. "If you take those vows about forsaking family 
you'll lose your kids too."
Nodoka looked up from her constant sobbing.
Jared crossed his arms and leaned against a wall, cocking his head at 
her. "AND your grandkids someday." He tempted.
Instantly, Nodoka stood up, robes flying away to reveal her again in a 
kimono. "Ahem, yes. Mr Keihatsu-san, I want you to find my eldest son, 
retrieve him if you can. Jared-kun, could you please excuse us for a 
moment?"
The younger redhead nodded. The girls had all retired in mass for their 
slumber party, if mom wanted to wallow in the gritty details with their 
detective for awhile that left him with some early-evening free time.
Time he could use productively.
"Sure mom."
Nodoka watched as her redhaired source of joy, and increasing source of 
pride, went out of the back door and leapt out over their privacy wall. 
She'd never felt so glad to have her son before and wondered what had 
possessed her to leave him with her sister for so long. He deserved a 
home with his mother, and she more time with him. Without waste or delay 
she turned back to the man before her.
"Now, Mr Keihatsu, I no longer enjoy the slightest faith that my husband 
will do the honorable thing. How does one go about putting a contract on 
a man's life?"
The detective spat out his tea.
Her stare remained steady as she poured him another cup.
Wiping his mouth, Keihatsu admitted. "Well, I *do* know someone whom you 
could contact."

"Hey, this *is* fun!" Mina enthused as she slammed buttons and worked 
video game controls. "MUCH easier than the real thing!"
On the screen, Sailor V blasted another monster into oblivion.
Behind her, Amy shrugged, staring at the ceiling. "Says you. I'm out of 
tokens already."
Rae came up and plunked down two full buckets of video game tokens. 
"Alright everybody! Help yourselves!"
"Wow! I didn't know being a shrine priestess *paid* so much!" Lita 
offered up as she took a fistful of tokens, turning in her seat to play 
the game whose seat she'd been warming: Fantasy Knight Lavender Warrior.
"It doesn't." Rae shook out her hair delightfully. "Jay-chan gave me 
this as part of a living allowance, because the shrine's been dead ever 
since I got back."
"He gave you all this money?" Amy asked, taking a few herself. There was 
the older Sailor V game no one was playing. "Why are you spending it on 
game tokens, then?"
"Girls' gotta have *some* fun, y'know?" Rae slid into the seat of a 
Mecha Jockey game and was blown away in under five seconds.
"WEEHEEEEEEEE!!!!!" Mina celebrated in her seat of the *new* Sailor V 
game, then pointed to the screen. "Guys! You *gotta* come see this!" All 
the rest crowded around to see the level-ending sequence have Sailor V 
glomp onto a cheesy graphic of the Pheonix Mage, then give his butt a 
quick tweak.
Mina was *GLOWING*, she clapped her hands together and said in dreamy 
glee. "I hear once you clear the twelfth level she gets him to take his 
*shirt off!*"
All the others burned with momentary jealousy, except for the 
unflappable Susan.
Michelle asked. "Susan, I hear what you said to Jay-chan's mother. You 
want him as badly as the rest of us. Why don't you get jealous too?"
The green haired young lady acquired a bright grin battlefield artillery 
couldn't touch. She closed her eyes in dreamy thought. "Because when 
Jared first met me I was already pregnant with his child."
All the others facefaulted, falling out of their seats to do so.
Susan calmly picked up a token in the midst of all of their sputtering.
"WHAT?!! HOW?!???" Came the eventual consensus of the group. Many of 
them thought very guiltily about how they might try and duplicate that.
The green-haired civilian-guised Sailor slid into the cockpit seat of a 
Robotech Flight Simulator game, inserting her token. Calmly, she replied. 
"I'm the Scout whose realm is Time. Normally this is very dull, but I 
have occasion to intercede with my past self from time to time. When 
Jay-chan first entered my realm I'd just had a visit from myself in the 
future, asking if *she* couldn't meet him and deal with the intrusion. 
How could I say otherwise? So I let her, thinking there might be a trick 
he was going to pull that she was better prepared to deal with, at that 
time thinking only that he was intruding into the realm I had given 
centuries of my life to protect."
Susan swerved her mecha controls to evade a missile and spoke to her 
rapt audience without glancing away from her screen. "Instead she 
willingly gave him all that he wanted, travel in time, even though it is 
one of our most restricted privileges. Then, before she went her way, 
revealed to me that he was the father of the child she was carrying."
"Wow." The chorus had an odd tinge of envy amid the awe.
Little whispers started and by pairs they began to drift back to their 
games. Rae found a Star Blazers - The Next Generation game to play.
The Crown Video Game Arcade was dead that night, with parents 
increasingly poor fewer kids seemed to be visiting it every day. Andrew 
had run the gate down and gone off to his second job down at the docks 
loading ships for departure, letting them play for as long as they wanted 
then leave through the employee door.
So they were surprised when the gate started opening a crack and a white 
cat bounded through.
"Artemis, what are *you* doing here?"
The cat came to a halt... "Huh? What!? Mina! What are you... err."
Mina noted her cat looking curiously guilty.
Susan chuckled at the controls of her game. It caused her to miss a 
dodge and lose her token as the veritech she played crashed. Suddenly she 
bent down over her game controls and started howling with laughter.
"Sailor.... nah. That *can't* be Sailor Pluto." Artemis commented.
Michelle picked the cat up by the scruff of his furry neck. "You know, 
Artemis. I've remembered something about that illusion Jay-chan cast. In 
it we were all armed with an assortment of tools."
"Well," the cat protested. "Naturally, when you're ready for..."
"Oh?" An assortment of voices chorused.
"What are these tools?" Amy asked.
"What kinda things are there?" Lita pressed.
"Yah! What kinda help could we *not* need right now?" Rae accused.
Susan howled as the little cat backed up to realize the gate had closed 
behind him. She was pounding her controls in laughter as he got encircled 
in curious girls. Once you've given yourself over to the realization that 
the timeline led only to disaster, any change from that leads to enormous 
relief.
Artemis was captured while Susan continued to laugh as her horrible 
burden of fear transformed into relief.

Jared appeared with a swirl of cape and a dramatic flourish on the 
surface of the moon. He dropped to the ashy ground and stood for awhile, 
considering. A Create Atmosphere spell seemed to be overdoing it for his 
temporary needs, though that was what they'd probably used to make the 
place livable to start with. The magic holding those spells up had 
obviously collapsed during the fire (and his own ability to create air 
was nothing approaching planet-scale).
But that's what he was here to fix, wasn't it?
Casting the spell and giving himself twenty-two cubic miles of fresh, 
breathable, self renewing air to work in, Jared removed the helmet of the 
RDF flightsuit he'd been wearing under his robe and cloak. ~Cosplay 
indeed, how many of those costumes actually work?~ And pulled out a 
rainbow swirled lollipop.
Checking in all directions, he again cast that concealing spell that 
blanked out all forms of scrying, from magic to telescopes and all those 
things he *wasn't* immune to by native ability.
Satisfied in his protections, the mage gave his lollipop a lick, checked 
all of the defenses again, and then transformed it back into the sculpted 
silver mirror he'd been seen occasionally to carry.
Smiling, he lay aside an identical, nonmagical copy of that same mirror 
that he used to act carelessly with and thus divert suspicion away, 
hiding the second so that even if his defenses were breached no one would 
see him with two.
The mage held his magic mirror in the air, released it to float 
unsuspended, and reached into his bag, removing scrolls and an 
uncompleted draft spellbook he'd been working on, recording all those 
corrupted copies of his spells. As he held each one up into the ray of 
light now escaping from the surface of his mirror, they burst into fire 
and were consumed.
Excellent.
Having loaded all that information into floating mirror, he straightened 
and took it again, smiling into its surface. With a flourish he twirled 
it and was again holding a lollipop, this time with different colors and 
a starburst pattern.
He took a lick, then chuckled. "Who would have guessed? The Spellbook of 
Moonlight and Silver Dreams, and I lick it all of the time." He twirled 
it about again and it became a sherbet stick, out of which he took a 
bite, then again and it was a perfectly intact paddle board with ball for 
batting, then a skillet, then a lollipop again.
Jared leaned back, sucking on it. ~So long as I hold contact with it I 
can read it via a Tactile Telepathy spell worked into it during its 
creation, but my reading rate gets doubled because of *another* unique 
spell once I put it in my mouth.~ He changed the active flavor from 
cherry to lime. ~Glad I thought to include flavors, though.~ 
He smirked wryly at the unique spells that had been required to make 
this thing. Why, in its popsicle form it was even nutritious! And gnawing 
on it as a chicken leg wouldn't hurt the spellbook at all. What better 
disguise could there be for something *that* valuable than something you 
ate? So long as there was a permanent part, like a popsicle stick or a 
bone, he could turn it into just about anything of remotely the same 
shape and chew away. Or cook his food using it as a frying pan, or look 
at himself for hours, or scrub his back with it as the brush, or....
Who in their right minds would ever suspect a mage of *licking* his 
spellbook to read it?
Actually, he was rather fond of the mint. His lollipop changed color 
again as he reviewed the magic he'd need for this. Coming across the 
right spell, he began to put it up in his active memory. Since he'd lost 
several of his various sword spells he had the empty slot handy.
The way they'd worked magic in their games used both memorization of 
specific spells of limited number and a kind of mana system whereby they 
powered them. In the first it had been they could merely memorize what 
the rule charts said they could, and had enough power to cast all them 
once. There'd been some adjustments after playtests and finding that 
mages were still carrying only combat spells, so the slots had been 
doubled without increasing the energy. Ashida had been created when it'd 
been expanded again to memorizing three times the spell slots the rules 
gave you, but only the original energy, or the ability to cast a third of 
them once.
There was an intelligence bonus to spell points. And since, during the 
course of their adventuring, one of the MANY things they'd encountered 
was nests of magic eggs that increased your intelligence (if you could 
survive the poison of the eggs, but he'd been immune to poison and 
scarfed down whole nests of them) he had ALOT of bonus spell points.
But the rate of spell point recovery was constant for everybody. Having 
a deeper well only meant he could dig himself in deeper than a less 
powerful mage. Of course, it ALSO meant that he had greater short term 
endurance and during an emergency that warranted it he could stay 
flinging spells much longer than an ordinary mage.
Lately, he'd found a few causes to do so.
But that also led him back to why he was up here. It was time, he'd 
loaded the Unburn spell into an active slot, and could use it. He located 
the ruins of the palace and made sure of his exits. Mostly he didn't fear 
fire in any form or intensity, but the Unburn spell was different. VERY 
different.
It consumed ash and reverted it back to whatever it had once been before 
it had burned, producing chilling cold and a light-absorbing fire as it 
did so. So long as all of the pieces were there time didn't matter. Only, 
on a living world, the environment blew wind about and scattered things 
and all the action of a functioning environment placed real limits on 
what could be restored by the Unburn spell.
Here, that was not going to be any problem.
He'd have to reseed the gardens. The spell couldn't restore life to 
things once burned. But once Serenity stabilized the spells and 
enchantments up here she'd have the seat of her Moon Kingdom restored...
He'd make sure to tell her about it once he'd raided the palace library. 
While he thought about it, he touched a control on one of his Robotech 
devices and sent a signal to certain robots he'd deactivated almost a 
millennium ago. Behind him, a Robotech battle cruiser stirred to life as 
its antigravity engines lifted it out of the concealing hill of ash that 
had covered it. Jared touched another button and the cruiser relayed 
another signal which would reach Mars in a few minutes.
Then he cast Unburn.

³Ranma! Stop being such a pathetic weakling! All of the *great* martial 
artists have had to train against knife fighters!²
Ranma sweated and cringed as Genma pulled the ripcords. ³Err, yah, but 
pops. How come you¹re using chainsaws?²
Genma hefted the two roaring engines and gunned the blades. ³Stupid boy! 
I¹m just doing this to accelerate your training! You¹ll thank me for this 
when it is over!² He lunged forward, thrusting with a chainsaw while he 
swung the other about for a slash. Ranma did the best he could to dodge 
with his feet lodged in the cement block Genma had poured around them the 
night before.
That was when the arc of silver wire passed over Genma¹s head and went 
taut around his neck.
Genma was many things; fat, slovenly, greedy, shortsighted, a glutton, 
cruel, and lacking in any degree of common sense, but he was also a 
coward... opps, sorry, a martial artist, and though he nearly decapitated 
his son flinging away his chainsaws, he *did* manage to get ahold of the 
inexpertly employed garrote and prevent the lowly street urchin now 
clinging to his back from stranging him.
A coward Genma may be, but he was a formidable coward.
After pounding the pathetic street creature into submission, he went 
through the creature¹s belongings and found a single sheet of paper, on 
which the amateur had written down all of the details as he¹d known them.
Genma turned white, reading there was a contract out on him. Actually, 
he was worth more dead than the resources he could claim now alive. Hmm, 
time to relocate...

Amy returned to her mother¹s highrise penthouse, closing the door behind 
her and kicking off her shoes without taking her arms from the packages 
she bore. "Hi mom! I'm home!" She caroled, wandering toward the back of 
the home and her room.
Her mom appeared within the door from the kitchen. "Hi dear. It's 
unusual for *you* to get home later than I do. What are those, Amy-chan? 
Have you been out shopping?" A slight frown indicated how tight money 
was, the hospital had skipped payments again. Too many patients who 
couldn't pay consuming resources, time and money. And most of them on 
valid medical plans before insurance companies had started going. Picking 
out whose coverage was still good while the patients lay in need of 
immediate care was not something the hospital had the help or the time 
for.
Amy retreated shyly a bit under her mother's gaze. "Well, not exactly. 
These are, well I guess you could call them presents."
Amy found herself seated at the dining room table sitting across from 
her mom, the packages neatly piled to her right while her mother played 
with the ladle she'd been stirring their soup with. "Oh? Tell me, 
Amy-chan. Are you seeing some boy?"
Amy blushed, ducking her head. "Well, I...." She grew crimson.
Mother waved the ladle playfully. "As your doctor I prescribe honesty. 
Now, are you seeing someone? What's his name?"
Amy mustered some small amount of boldness. "Well, I guess I *am* sort 
of seeing a boy." Her ears tinged pink and she looked guilty, a bit. Then 
she forged on. "His name is Jared Saotome."
"The Devil Hunter??!" Motherly eyes sparked with eager interest. There'd 
been a lot fewer bodies showing up drained since the afternoon battle 
when he'd joined the Pheonix Mage and that unexplained jet fighter that 
looked like it came out of a cartoon she'd watched in High School. An 
actual Veritech? Her mother doubted it. It seemed too improbable. Next 
they'd have a Macross Cannon showing up.
"Mm Hmm," Amy nodded. "He does do that."
"So why all the presents, dear?" The mother pressed, now even more 
interest vested in this subject.
"You can have a look if you want." Amy offered. Suddenly her hair blew 
in the breeze and all of the things Artemis had given her to do her job 
right as Sailor Mercury were out on the table being looked at.
Her mother examined them with consummate skill and an appraising eye. 
She lifted the electric diary aside and examined the tiara, taking out a 
jeweler's eyepiece. "Hmm, Amy-darling, I can't recognize the stone. It 
looks valuable, but I can't say what type or I'd be able to give you a 
dollar value."
Amy sweated.
"And he didn't give you any lingerie, dear. Only this *is* an impressive 
amount of jewelry! Are you thinking of going serious with him? We 
couldn't afford to abandon my work or leave Japan, but I suppose the 
government wouldn't let him go anyway."
Amy began to reconsider the value of having put off the slumber party a 
night.
³Oh, and could you tell me when you chose to grow your hair out? It was 
still short this last weekend.²
The blue haired girl closed her eyes and sweatdropped nervously.

Mina wandered into her home, a pet carrier under an arm as she balanced 
packages with both her hands.
"Mina-dear! You're home!"
"Are these packages that Skysaber-san has given you?"
Mina took an involuntary step back when stagelights lit up around her 
living room, focused on her. A studio camera had replaced their table.
"There's a reporter from my newspaper that wants to talk with you, 
Mina-chan."

Michelle arrived home, slamming the door absently behind her. Not that 
she would do that typically, but Pluto had been rather generous in 
opening the Outer Scout extra dimensional warehouse up to her, and her 
bags were full.
Pluto had advised them all not to put any of this stuff in their 
personal storage space until they had a good familiarity with it, as 
unless they could call it out by specific mental image they couldn't 
easily retrieve it. So it was important for them to find some time to 
memorize as much as they could their gear's forms and functions before 
putting it away.
Her mind was so busy she missed hearing violin music cutting off as she 
entered.

Rae smiled from the table as Lita stirred something in the skillet.
"I'm so glad at least we two are together! This whole Scout thing has 
got me wanting to talk."
"I know what you mean." Lita answered her, serving up two portions of a 
meal of plain fried rice and bringing them over to where Rae had set out 
places. She set them down and took out her own, new electric diary 
looking thing. It had teal green leaves in a wandering pattern around the 
borders of the cover. "Still, even without the others, with the Jupiter 
Computer we ought to be able to look up alot of the details!"
"Yah!" Rae opened her own diary, decorated with fire patterns. She 
touched her earring and a clear pink visor spread across her face. 
"Already I don't know what I'd *do* without the Mars Computer!"
A knock came at the outside door of the shrine's kitchen and dining 
area. Susan poked her face in, bearing takeout boxes. "Pardon me, do you 
mind if I drop in on you two this evening?"
"Sure! Go ahead. The more the merrier, right?" Rae agreed pertly.
"Yah. It's really good to have you here." Lita added.
Susan nodded and came in, opening her bags to reveal spices that Lita 
had not seen in a great while, and a small takeout meal for herself, with 
side dishes and sushi for her two companions. "Good. I was hoping I could 
help you two out in your studies."

Jared stirred in bed. Ah! Such a glorious feeling!
The bed was sized for him, the sheets felt of newness and were just so 
clean and smooth! He was glad he'd elected to stay at Nodoka's house that 
night. He sat up and took a fresh whiff of morning air. Ah! Delicious!
And his walls: Kei, Yuri, Belldandy, the Knight Sabers... the gang's all 
here. He wondered by what means his mom had actually decorated this room 
so he'd like it as much as he did.
He leaped upwards out of bed and made it in the air beneath him, so he 
landed at the same time as his now pristine covers.
Yes, he'd not been bad before. Taking on hell spawn hand to hand on 
their own planes wasn't something to sneer at. But there was something so 
*flashy* about the martial arts he'd inherited along with his veritech 
piloting skills! He liked it. It made him feel like he belonged in an 
anime in truth.
Which was good, because that's where he was.
Chi senses caught his mom down in the kitchen, so he changed into a gi 
and turned, twisting out of his window to begin his daily martial arts 
practice.
Flash bulbs went off.
A reporter was speaking into his microphone for the benefit of one of 
the many cameras. "Yes, here today we begin at the Saotome household 
where the Devil Hunter has just made his appearance!"
Jared used the Art of Vanishing and slunk back to his bedroom, and 
thence to the bath. ~Okay, no appearing in public without my morning 
ritual anymore. Sigh. I suppose this means I'll be all sweaty after 
practice today. But there's *no way* I'm going out there with my hair all 
pillow-mashed again.~

Jared was just pulling a shirt over his head, noting with casual 
amusement that it was a white and green with Nuku Nuku's happy, smiling 
face splashed on the front, when he heard the doorbell and his mother 
going to get it.
~The news guys are going to follow me *inside* now???~
He jumped up and flipped, landing in house shoes. As the last part of 
his getting dressed for the day wrapped the amazon fighting sash of 
shimmering red around his waist, then he trotted off down the stairs in 
time to see Nodoka ushering a rather determined group of reporters out of 
her house on the end of a pointed sword.
She closed the door and sheathed her blade. "Oh, hello Jared. I was just 
showing your admirers out the door. It seems they have an odd concept of 
politeness that does not consist of listening to those they are visiting, 
or any stretch of courtesy. Now would you like some breakfast?"
French Toast. He was in heaven.
She served up two portions yet seemed content to just watch him eat. 
Jared didn't entirely know how to deal with that and so he just hurried.
"Are you doing anything today, son?"
He scarfed a delicious chunk, awash in both honey butter and jelly. 
Finishing politely, he wiped his mouth and replied. "I was going to go to 
the studio to check out some things there, then spend the day with my 
friends."
Nodoka poured him some hot cocoa. Ahh! He was in bliss!
"Yes, I heard about that. It was in the paper, how you are using your 
Devil Hunting skills to earn some money. Tell me, my son, are you being 
paid yet?"
He took out a wad of cash and gave it to her, careful to not make it too 
ridiculously extreme. "I hope that will help out with some bills."
Nodoka was regarding the cash in her hands with moist eyes, certain now 
that she'd *not* have to release some of her family's artifacts. Her son 
would support them just fine in spite of so much of her line's wealth and 
investments being lost.
Jared was feeling joyful and sang a song about how much he loved his 
mother.
Suddenly she had cause to wonder how she had ever gotten by without him.
She got up from the table and kissed him on his forehead. "I am very 
proud of you, my son. How would you feel about spending some time here, 
away from your cousins?"
He looked up in awe. ~Could this day get any better?~ "Sure!"
Nodoka gave a glad nod. "Good, and we can practice on your sword 
technique, which obviously needs some work. Then there are those 
engagements to consider. Tell me, have you slept with any..."
"I'm late for the Studio, mom!" He shouted as he vanished in a breeze 
past her head and out the door.
As he'd left, Nodoka smiled, then went over to the phone and dialed a 
number. It rang, and then. "Hello?"
Nodoka smiled. "Hello, younger sister. Are you well?"
"Yes. Did Jared stay with you last night?"
"Yes, he did. I was going to ask if you'd mind if I kept him on a more 
permanent basis from now on."
A sigh. "Nodoka, we love him. But as much as we do it's so much better 
to have a little space for once. Serenity's already moved into Jared's 
old room and thrown out all his things. I don't know how we managed 
before."
Nodoka blinked. "Well, I have room. Do you think I ought to take one of 
the girls as well?"
There was considering on the other line. "Would you mind taking Serena? 
That would leave us with a room for each child, and I don't think I could 
split up little Rini and Serenity. They're inseparable."
Nodoka shook her head knowingly. "How could you ever have named that 
girl Serenity, sister? She takes more after a volcano!" She said 
lovingly. "Well, if that's the case that she's already throwing out his 
things perhaps it *is* best that I just take him from now on."
There came a sad sigh. "You'll have to buy him some new clothes. I don't 
know *what* she did to his old ones but they're not in the garbage or 
anywhere. Somehow I wonder if she traded them in for her new furnishings. 
Some of those rock and roll t-shirts were quite valuable."
"Collectables and ancient heirlooms just aren't as valuable right now, 
Ikuko." Nodoka said, airing some of her own woes. She could've gotten a 
loan on them if they were, and that would've done for the present time.
The cash Jared had given her crinkled reassuringly in her hand.
"Well Serenity didn't pull that bedroom set out of thin air! And Kenji 
certainly couldn't have paid for it. He's still employed, thank 
kami-sama, but we're not rich."
"Be grateful for your husband, Ikuko." Nodoka said in empty, hollow 
tones.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" her sister apologized, recalling the decade Nodoka 
spent searching for hers, and then to find the news of what he'd DONE!!! 
"Tell you what, you come over for lunch and we'll send Serena over with 
you this afternoon!"
Nodoka smiled. "Done, sis."
"Hey Doki!" Her younger sister teased with her pet name. "Don't let it 
get you down. Nothing Genma can do could take *this* son away from you! 
Red-kun dislikes his father even more than he hates traditional American 
food! If that deadbeat tries he'll be skewered by that Devil Hunter 
sword!"
Ikuko's cheer was contagious. Nodoka's voice held some real gladness in 
it, even though she disagreed with her sister about her son's tastes in 
food. "Well, then. I'd best be teaching my son our sword techniques, 
shan't I?"
"Only if you don't want to get to your husband first. Too bad the 
deadbeat's bald, or you could scalp him! In fact if you were to trim the 
family tree a little with our parents' sword I'm sure they'd even forgive 
you for marrying him!"
Nodoka's smile grew. She was grateful ever more for her understanding 
sister. "I'll be by at ten."
"Make it a little earlier and Kenji can photograph you for the Devil 
Hunter story the magazines are doing. That helps *you* out by getting 
photographers out of your hair, and Kenji gets an exclusive!"
Nodoka had to laugh. Her sister, while humorous, was also quite 
practical. "Ok, sis. See you soon."
As she was about to hang up the phone she heard her sister shriek and go 
off running to... save Serena from being flushed down the toilet by Rini, 
it sounded like.
She sighed happily. Real family was always family, after all.

Two construction workers sat out on a steel beam, eating their morning 
repast while waiting for the supervisors to show up.
"Nice work." munch, munch.
munch. "Sure is. Hard to find."
munch munch. "Weird design though." munch.
"I'm not complaining." munch.
"Hey look," munch, "ain't that Tokyo Tower?"
munch, munch. "Sure looks like it. Right back where it belongs, too."
"I thought it'd got destroyed day err so ago." munch.
"Yeah," munch, "it did. Was stepping on the city."
"Least it ain't moving around this time." munch.
munch. "Yeah, only I ain't never recollect it being made out a black 
obsidian any time before." munch.
munch. "Shore keeps the rust off."
"Shore does." munch.

Kasumi and her fraternal twin, Nabiki, got off of the early morning bus 
and took a step together to look up at the lightly forested hill.
"This is the place, alright." Kasumi looked up from her neatly clipped 
newspaper ad. She made sure of her hair and clothing, to make a good 
impression.
Nabiki was straightening her dress. "Do I look alright, Kasumi?"
"I was about to ask you the same question, Nabiki."
"You look fine." They chorused, then giggled together. That seemed to 
relieve the tension they were feeling somewhat.
Nabiki fussed with her hair again. "First job advertised in the paper in 
two weeks and it's for two shrine maidens who aren't afraid of 'dragons, 
demons, oni or mythical creatures like elves'."
"Well we aren't." Kasumi gave her input. "At least not as much as that 
scheme of father's to get out of Japan if the stock prices drop again. At 
least that Saotome thing's distracting him, whatever it is." She looked 
at her sister in concern. ³Do you think that daddy knows them and is 
going to try to freeload off the Devil Hunter¹s family?²
Nabiki met her sister's concern with a grin. "Sometimes I wonder about 
what our life would be like if our dad actually made a living."
Kasumi fussed with her hair... again. "I can't imagine it, Nabiki. It 
sounds boring."
The two twins stood and faced each other, breathing out heavy sighs. 
Nabiki smirked. "Aw, c'mon sis. If It *wasn't* cursed ground, a known 
youma location, and had such a spooky advertisement then we'd never even 
*see* this place from our spot in line. It's a job!"
Kasumi nodded. "And father will check on us later to make sure we've not 
been kidnapped."
They both shrugged. "We've done all we can." They chorused, then started 
up to the Cherry Hill Shrine, both wearing dresses they'd sewn themselves 
and swishing with identical swaying walks.
The ad had said to ask for Susan.

A mechanical whine, a startled yelp, and something hitting the roof of 
the shrine announced to Rae that the finally scheduled clean up party 
might have to wait *again.* Then came a loud crash as *something* half 
buried itself face deep in the dirt nearby. The metallic armored legs 
announced the identity quite adequately.
"Robot not kidding when he say he not know how to land," came a girl's 
voice from the roof.
"Robot?" Nabiki munched on a cracker and looked up from where she was 
manning the little display of charms and wards for sale.
Kasumi watched as the armored figure slowly dug himself out and 
considered offering to sell him a good scrub and polish.
"If there were any doubt in my mind," came a gravelly female voice also 
from the roof, "that this was a human and not a robot that performance 
adequately dispelled it. Land's sake, I've seen Chinese tour buses that 
were more maneuverable."
The cyborg made a hacking noise, sending bits of rock and soil tumbling 
down. "I warned you. Hey, this is just a temporary body while something 
else is being worked out."
"Grey," Lita began, "nice to see you again. Uhm, I don't suppose you saw 
Jay-chan on your way? He's been gone all morning."
"No, but I brought him some likely allies." Grey looked up and froze. 
"Ka-ka-Kasumi?!"
Kasumi, still new to her shrine dress, turned to her sister. "Am I a 
celebrity?"
Nabiki smirked. "First the Devil Hunter, now the Tin Woodsman. Kasumi, I 
never realized you got around so much!"
Kasumi's face formed a quick pout and she waved a finger. "Remember I've 
still got those negatives!" Nabiki paled and shut up.
Susan smiled from her place in the shade. Perfect.
The cyborg slowly got up, now towering over both Tendos. "My goodness. 
Lita looks taller on television, and you look... underage."
Shampoo, still holding the cyborg's sack, surreptiously took a moment to 
rummage through it and then hide something without looking at it in any 
great detail. Inspection would come later.
"Uhm, thank you, I think," said Kasumi as she tried to puzzle out the 
metal man's comments. Actually it sounded kind of hentai, like something 
her sister...
"Hey, Kasumi, Nabiki, you two ought to... YIKES!"
"AAAAAAAA!"
Everyone blinked as the cyborg leapt straight up, came down in a 
defensive position, and extruded a short rod from a housing on his right 
forearm. Said rod obviously came with a targeting laser that was centered 
on Akane's chest.
Eyes went back and forth, and the common consensus was that Akane was 
startled by the unexpected appearance of an armored giant. Grey, on the 
other hand, was acting as if he was more afraid of the blackhaired girl 
facing him than youma or tanks.
"Akane Tendo?! You STAY BACK! i mean it!"
"Huh?!" Akane was losing her fear and getting annoyed as this monster 
was acting rather more afraid of her than an IRS agenda exploiter.
"Ack! Where's my rail gun when i need it? All i've got is a wimpy laser 
rod."
Lita couldn't help it. Hit the guy with a minivan until it was just a 
crumpled heap of metal and he wouldn't bat an eye. But one girl with her 
sisters' lunches...
She fell down, unable to stop laughing.
Akane peered at the cyborg curiously. "Are you a guy in there? It's hard 
to tell, your chi is so off."
"Chi?" Grey was stunned. Since when could Akane recognize chi? He didn't 
even have enough to qualify as human, how could she even sense it?
Akane stalked forward, ignoring the laser rod. Grey, true to his word, 
fired. But Akane just leaned casually out of the way of it without paying 
any particular heed to it. A treetop was blasted away in the distance.
Akane stalked forward, seeming to step aside from the laser blasts just 
as the they would've hit, but doing so almost as if she was hardly aware 
of them. Finally she poked the cyborg's chest, almost considering. "Well, 
you've got a guy's chi alright, but the whole feel of it's off." She 
sighed. "Oh well, I guess it would've been fun to try and take the jockey 
shorts off of someone in armor. What do a knight's briefs look like 
anyway?"
Grey realized she was ignoring him, talking to herself. Which was a bit 
of a blow to the ego since he'd been firing at her all this time.

Jared started up the path. ~Ah, nothing like a peaceful shrine to...~ 
His thoughts broke off like a glass rod hitting concrete. He sensed.... 
It wasn't evil exactly, but in that vein certainly.
Finally he had it. It was dark chi. LOTS of dark chi energy. Enough to 
dwarf the normal human amount of positive and even the majority of 
masters. He couldn't place it exactly, but it merited looking into 
certainly.
He activated his cloak and arts of stealth and started up the stairs.

The Tendo twins looked up to see their sister aglow. They recognized the 
look in Akane's eyes and immediately dove for cover. Susan disappeared 
again. Seeing this, the Scouts became curious, and found the look on 
Akane's face to be slightly scary as well.
She was drooling.
"There's a guy nearby." Akane spoke softly. "A guy with really powerful 
chi, and I've *got* to have his underwear for my collection."
Her sisters huddled in terror. Would it be the dreaded Pervert Fist? Or 
the ever-so-dastardly Panty Snatch Revised? Or would she just strip the 
poor soul naked for all to see?
The other girls crowded closer, and if they had any opinions they'd have 
hoped it was the latter. But they didn't know, so they couldn't guess.
Suddenly Akane turned, as if sensing something. "Aha!!" She hurled a 
small bomb shaped like a round, paper firecracker.
Jared leaped backwards out of the explosion, turning a flip midair and 
coming down in a defensive stance on a tree limb. "Well, Akane Tendo. Of 
all the people I *didn't* want to meet here."
Akane shimmered with crocodile tears. "You... well," sniff, "I guess I'm 
not all that popular, am I? Still, you can't refuse a girl a quickie can 
you?"
The redhead's face went slack. "Huh?"
In his moment of astonishment she'd whipped past him and was bounding 
across the temple yard, holding something made of white cloth aloft in 
her hand. "Hee Hee! I got it! I got it!"
Jared's face remained slack as he just went over what happened. Was it a 
few degrees cooler now? Yes, it was. Did his clothes feel just a bit more 
rough? Indeed, they did. In fact, there was this feeling of looseness, as 
if unsecured...
His face went purple.
Akane was sitting on the roof of the temple, rubbing his underwear 
against her face. "Oooh, yes. This is living. What a treasure. Do you 
think you could wear some silk boxers next time?"
His hands started twitching.
Seeing this, Cologne and her granddaughter leapt from the roof and took 
shelter with the puzzled girls on the ground, standing around the huddled 
Nabiki and Kasumi.
Akane sniffed the pair of drawers. "Ah! Good hygiene! And, boy-o, been 
having impure thoughts lately, have we?"
Jared lost it.
"Akane Tendo... DIE!!" He leapt at her, but she evaded him. Sizing her 
up more warily, he resettled his stance and came at her a different way. 
This time Akane found herself hard put to dodge.
The crowd of girls closed up and Grey took a few steps in that direction 
himself, figuring that he could block a stray thing or two with his metal 
body if it came down to it.
Jared went all out against the girl, churning up dirt, blowing apart 
rocks and demolishing walls. After a few moments of this, the shrine yard 
looked like a newly plowed field and it was missing several outbuildings.
They came to a stop and Akane twirled the underwear lightly around her 
finger. "Hey, isn't that different? Here a guy is chasing *me* around!"
He smirked and made a gesture with his fingers. The garment disappeared 
from  Akane's grasp. She stared at her empty hand in shock. Jared 
regarded her with a bit more seriousness. "Well, you are..."
He cut off when she whipped past him and he was missing his underdrawers 
again. He pivoted and pointed at her, where she was sitting, cuddling her 
treasure. She felt a tinge of warning, though looking up revealed he 
hadn't moved...
*BOOM!!*
Akane's head snapped back right before the report from the pistol in 
Jared's hand, sending her glasses flying. He then proceeded to fire into 
her chest and belly, moving her with the impacts. In this way he emptied 
the entire clip into her, not missing a shot. But in spite of how deftly 
he reloaded she¹d rolled away in that split second of time and came up 
rubbing a welt on her forehead where a gaping hole should be.
"Ow!" She dodged his next shot. "That *hurt's* you know!" She said, 
sweeping up her glasses again through a roll and dodging out of the way 
of his other attempts to shoot her. Jared emptied his second clip at her 
without landing a hit. Akane pulled her blouse open to check herself for 
wounds, revealing small, circular bruises where the bullets had struck 
her.
As she rubbed them she asked him. "What is that thing, anyway?"
Jared reloaded again, then held up the pistol for her to see. "The 
Marsec Nine, standard sidearm of the Mars Security Organization. And it 
punches through armor thick as boilerplate rather easily."
"Mars Security?" Rae asked from her huddle. Firearms were not something 
the girls, Sailors or not, had much experience with. And it had cowed 
them, somewhat more than even the martial arts battle previous to this.
Jared happily met her eye and shrugged good-naturedly. "I *liked* Mars. 
I want to show you around there sometime, you'll like it too. There 
aren't even any aliens there in this timeline. Of course, killing aliens 
was one of my favorite things to do there, but still. I'll think of 
something."
He shot again and caught Akane when she wasn't looking, hitting her 
square between the breasts on bare tissue, above the bra. She went 
rolling and disappeared among the trees. "And *you* Miss Tendo, have got 
to be the most powerful pervert I've ever seen. You're spending chi like 
it was water!"
Akane reappeared, buttoning her blouse shut, a bit miffed at the 
injuries, her face darkened. "YOU! How *dare* you hurt an innocent girl 
like that!??" Apparently her flesh was about as resilient to bullets as 
her forehead. That had been a silver bullet, too.
Nabiki and Kasumi heard the threat and covered their eyes and ears, 
refusing to look. 
"Innocent," Grey said with disbelief. "Anyone believe that?"
"Nope." "Uh uh." "The way she grabbed his shorts? Puh-leeze!" "Oh my." 
"Bets?"
Jared stuffed the pistol back into stuffspace and tapped into his own 
chi. Noting with some amusement that it had been Nabiki to say OOh my¹ 
and Kasumi who¹d asked for bets. But Akane¹s speech had sounded like one 
of Happosai's rants right before the old pervert did something terrible, 
ugly, and frequently short-sighted and self-destructive.
Her chi reserve didn't read as that huge, but she was spending 
practically *all* of it and it didn't seem to be reducing at all...
Happosai.
Jared waved a hand and the pair of underwear evaporated from Akane's 
grip. She stared at her empty hand again with that same expression of 
shocked loss. Also, her chi usage dropped immediately. Jared's eyes 
widened. She really WAS using Happosai's old tricks!
During his moment of surprise she leapt over and stole a kiss, rubbing 
her face against his and squeezing his cheeks. His audience watched as 
Jared froze in shock and Akane yanked open the waistline of his pants...
She flexed her fingers. "My, what have we here...." and began to reach 
in.
"DIE!!!!"
This came from not Jared's throat, who was too stunned to react (the 
fuse was still burning till when he'd explode into violent acts), but 
from the maidens now burning with engaged battle auras on the shrine 
porch.
Rae stood up and had nocked and loaded an arrow in a single motion, 
firing at the female hentai. "Pervert!"
Perhaps unfortunately, the arrow flew wide.