[FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma][XCOM] The Road to Cydonia Chapter 5 [Archive]

Justin Wagner

30th June 2006, 10:57 AM

Previous chapters can be found on FFN here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2314624/1/ Or on my website here:
http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/
On my website, I've also set up a New UFOpedia, with all the info from
the XCOM game, plus more in-depth fluff on the universe, the weapons,
base locations, etc.

-----

The year is 2005. For six years, mankind has waged a Secret War against
an enemy from Beyond the Stars. The Nerima Wrecking Crew and their
families have been relocated to Seiran Mountain, XCOM headquarters for
the Far East. Assembled there, they have been given mentors to prepare
them for the life or death struggled ahead...

-----

The Road To Cydonia

Chapter V
Toy Soldiers

-----

Written by:
Capn Chryssalid
jbraveboy (AT) gmail (DOT) com

-----

She had been so worried when the men had come to her door and asked for
"Saotome Nodoka." With their black suits and ties they had then informed
her that they were from the Department of Justice, and her heart had
sunk. An honorable woman, she had confirmed that she was who they were
looking for, and invited the two men inside.

"If you don't mind me asking so abruptly," she had said, even before
offering tea or a place to sit. "But what has my husband done this
time?"

To her bewilderment, the men had seemed a little confused by the
question, which left her with an even more troubling conclusion: that it
was her dear son who was in trouble with the law. Genma, she knew, was
prone to doing less than ethnical things when he felt they were
necessary. She hadn't met her husband until after his apprenticeship
under Happosai, but she knew the nature of the man she had her child
with. Throughout the years, she had hoped and prayed that Ranma only
picked up his father's more positive attributes, such as his martial
arts skill and perhaps his manly sexual prowess and appetite.

A man among men was also someone respectable and someone who stood out
positively amongst his peers. A criminal record could ruin her son's
chances at running a good, honorable dojo. Japan was not a society that
was very forgiving of crime, and people had a long memory. For
government agents of the Ministry of Justice to visit her, he must have
done something truly terrible.

She wondered where her sword was.

The two men, however, had politely explained that her son and husband
were not in trouble, but that they had been put into protective custody.
This was also strange to Nodoka. Genma alone was a formidable martial
artist (and a very fast runner), and she knew her son was better still.
Why would they need protective custody? Then, she had been informed that
she, too, was to be relocated for an unspecified length of time, to live
with her husband and son.

At this, at last, she felt a tremor of happiness run through her. After
her house, small and meager as it was, had been destroyed in some sort
of fight between Ranma's suitors, she and her family had lived with the
Tendos. Eventually, their home had been rebuilt thanks to donations from
one of the wealthier girls (Kodachi Kuno was her name - a nice girl,
really), but Ranma had stayed with the Tendo family. Her son seemed very
protective of them, especially after that business in China her husband
had told her about with the strange 'Phoenix people.'

It had not taken long to get packed, and she had brought only the
essentials like her clothes, the few luxury items the family had, and
(of course) her sword. She had been a little worried at first that they
wouldn't let her take the weapon, but the two men really were very
amenable, and didn't seem to mind. She'd been driven to a helicopter,
and waited there while they loaded several cases into it. She'd had to
sit next to the pilot during the flight, and it had been quite a
breathtaking trip.

Needless to say, what came after that was quite a shock!

Nodoka hummed while she cooked, really more than happy with how things
had turned out. Her husband was finally working productively, helping
his friend Soun to set up the new dojo for the base. He seemed to be
both eager to actually have a dojo, and sadly resigned to doing actual
work, like building parts of it and then having to teach. Nodoka thought
she understood his feelings in the matter. He had trained Ranma, and
quite well actually, and now wanted to retire and relax. She was happy
and proud to see him putting effort into something again, especially if
it was also of benefit to society (for once).

After all, this UNETCO organization had been kind enough to give them a
place to stay, a steady and rather impressive salary, and effective
shelter from these creatures her son had to fight. She and Genma had
been given a room larger than normal, with a large bed in an adequately
proportioned bedroom, and a living room with an attached kitchen. There
was a good-sized bathroom as well, and it connected to the adjacent
apartment belonging to her son.

She was currently occupied in the kitchen, checking on the oden she was
preparing as the main course. It was the Japanese equivalent of chicken
soup, a melange of ingredients - in this case mostly sliced daikon and
fried tofu cakes - simmered in a broth for a few hours. That part of
the meal was just about done, but she also prepared some kinchaku,
paper-thin slivers of chicken, shreds of leek and mushroom wrapped in a
bean curd pouch, to add to the hot pot once it was served.

Her apartment (or rather, Genma and hers), connected with Ranma's both
through the shared bathroom and via a sliding metal door in the living
room area. There was also a door between them and their other neighbor,
a quiet Caucasian man named Winston who was an engineer of some sort.
Washing off her hands, Nodoka walked up to her son's door and made sure
the intercom was switched on.

"Ranma?" she asked, knowing he could hear her unless he had turned off
the speaker on his side of the door. "Ranma. Dinner is almost ready. Are
you busy?"

He didn't reply, which meant he was probably away from the door (or just
not there). Just by looking at it, and the green English words under the
intercom panel, she could tell it was unlocked. So she opened it, and
saw him at his desk in what passed for the living room in his apartment.
His living space was smaller than the one she and Genma shared, with
just a work and living room and a small bedroom. The walls were bare,
and unadorned, but at least it was neat (well, she did clean it, but she
figured Ranma wasn't too untidy as boys went).

Her son was at his desk, with earphones over his head, watching
something on his computer and occasionally writing on a pad of paper to
his right. For a second, Nodoka entertained the idea that he was
watching pornography, which would be suitably manly. It would also
explain the headphones: a courtesy so that others would not overhear the
lustful sounds of women being pleasured by strong and virile men.
Despite his several suitors, Nodoka was a little worried that her son
didn't seem to be doing much with them. A fine young man his age should
be well into the 'fooling around' stage of development...

Ranma looked behind him, just then seeing his mother's entrance into his
room. It also afforded her a look at what he was watching, and she
gasped. There was some sort of orange-faced monster, with tiny purple
eyes surrounded by red. The rest of the face was like an exaggerated and
elongated skull, drawn back in a horrific and perpetual teeth-bearing
snarl. It reached towards whatever was taking its picture, and it
started to shake, which was when Ranma quickly tapped his computer's
keyboard and paused the recording.

He turned around to interpose himself between her and the monitor while
he pulled down his headphones. "Dinner ready?"

"In just a few minutes, but you know your father..." she leaned a little
to the side to try and see the screen again. "What was that you were
watching?"

"Nothing much!" Ranma replied, blithely. "We've all got to look at a lot
of film from fights, ya know? Most of the other guys have to write up
some stuff about how this or that was done, and why, but me and Ryouga
gotta do a lot more. We gotta analyze like what went wrong, and how we'd
do stuff, and why, and it's a real pain. It'd due the day after
tomorrow, but I want to finish with my notes tonight."

"I'm almost done," he quickly added with a confident grin. "Don't worry
about it, ok?"

Nodoka wasn't worried about the assignment, though her heart jumped to
hear him taking things so seriously and responsibly. "Are those the
creatures you fought before?"

"Nah... those were called Sectoids. The ones with big eyes," Ranma
explained, though he obviously didn't want his mother getting a good
look at what was behind him. "These are a little different."

"More dangerous?" Nodoka asked, keeping her tone light and seemingly
unconcerned.

"Kinda. They don't have mind powers... Psionics. But otherwise," he
stopped himself before elaborating. "Like I said, it doesn't matter!
Don't sweat it! I'll be right in!"

Nodoka was tempted to pry a little more, but the doorbell rang back in
her apartment. She was tempted to let Genma get it, since he was just
sitting in the bedroom watching television, but she could also see that
Ranma wanted to finish his work in peace. She knew he was busy, but
there would be a chance to get more information later during dinner.
With a small smile she nodded, and headed back the way she came.

No doubt those creatures with the drawn back faces were more dangerous.
Her son was just too transparent when it came to deception! As if he
could fool his mother, even with the benefit of her not being around for
most of his life! Well, she had faith that her son could handle anything
thrown at him, even strange creatures from outer space. He had his
friends helping him, too, and all the wondrous technology she's seen
since she came to this military base.

"He'll be fine," she told herself, and then repeated it for good
measure. "He'll be fine."

They were expecting company, according to Ranma. This was only the
second meal she'd cooked since she'd moved in, and she'd have preferred
to have another with just her slightly estranged family, but her son had
insisted that she get to meet all his friends and coworkers. Opening the
door, she saw a young man like her son, but with a yellow and black
bandanna, and she quickly recognized him as her son's rival and good
friend. Ryouga was wearing the same basic uniform as Ranma, but he also
wore the olive gray tunic whereas her son preferred to go without it.

Next to the normally lost boy, a black and white dog (the fur color
divided cleanly down the middle of its body) sat patiently. Nodoka had
been told about that. Apparently this rival of her son's had trouble
getting around, and he had actually been given permission to bring his
dog onto the base. How the dog knew to get around somewhere it had never
been to before, she couldn't imagine, and she had suspected her son of
greatly exaggerating the situation. Surely no one had such a bad sense
of direction as this so called 'lost boy.' The dog he came with sniffed
the air in the direction of the kitchen, but otherwise didn't move an
inch.

"Mrs. Saotome?" The boy asked, and bowed his head. "Thank you very much
for the imposition."

"Oh, that's quite alright!" Nodoka replied, pleased with his politeness.
"You must be Ryouga Hibiki."

"Yes," he said, and placed a large hand on his dog's head between her
ears. "This is Shirokuro. Don't worry; she'll be just fine outside by
the door."

"Please come in..." Nodoka stepped aside, and Ryouga stepped inside and
took off his shoes. His dog walked around in a circle outside the door,
and then fell to the ground with a grunt before resting her head on her
paws. Nodoka watched her with an involuntary smile; she had never been
fond of cats, but she had had a dog when she was younger and she was
quite fond of them.

"What an interesting pattern she has," Nodoka observed. If not for the
fact that she was still getting dinner ready, she'd have kneeled down
and stroked the dog's soft looking coat. "What breed is she?"

"Don't really know," Ryouga admitted, sliding his shoes to a corner with
Nodoka's and Genma's. "We don't breed the family dogs, we just let them
take care of themselves. Shirokuro's father was a white German Shepard,
a police dog, but her mother was a mix."

"I thought I saw that her eyes were different colors, too...?"

Ryouga shrugged at that. "She got that from her mother. Two of her
puppies had it too. Complete heterochromia it's called, but her vision
is perfectly fine. She actually makes her own appointments with a
veterinarian, if you can believe it. May I ask: are you a dog owner,
Mrs. Saotome?"

"I used to be. My family had a Labrador when I was your age." She
motioned for Ryouga to sit at the table that had been unfolded and laid
out in the middle of the living room area. Genma walked in, wearing his
normal white gi.

"Ah, yes, Inuyasha was his name. That dog really hated me," he grumbled,
as he sat down at what passed for the head of the small table.

Nodoka replied from the kitchen, "That was because I was going to give
him some bread, and you stole it, dear. Twice."

"How can you get upset over a little bread?" Genma didn't catch Ryouga's
short-lived death-glare. By the time he turned his attention from his
wife and the soon to be served meal to the family guest, he was off on
another topic that didn't involve memories of being chased and bitten by
an angry and outraged dog.

"So, Ryouga, I hear you and my boy have been kept busy," he said in a
relaxed fashion. The lost boy had an easier time speaking with Soun than
Genma, but in either case what exchanges of words that they had were
generally about martial arts techniques or something related to that
field. This wasn't so different.

"I can't speak for Ranma, but there has been a lot to do. Both of us are
working towards getting an officer rank, so in addition to getting our
teams to think like teams and not individuals, we've had a lot of
studying as well." Ryouga paused, as Nodoka came back with three glasses
of water, handing Genma his first, and then Ryouga, and then leaving the
third for when Ranma showed up. They both thanked her, and took a drink
of the ice water.

"I saw Ranma looking over some sort of video recording," Nodoka
mentioned, steering the conversation to answer the questions her son had
danced around earlier.

"Ah, that," Ryouga said, carefully putting down his glass. "This
morning, we were all given a film to watch and analyze. Everyone's
mentor gave them some aspect of it to write about, due in two days.
Ranma and I were told to write about the methodology used during a
Terror Site, summarize what we thought went wrong, and justify our
conclusions."

"Terror Site?" Nodoka asked, slowly walking back to the kitchen section
of the living room.

Ryouga grunted; an angry gruff sound. "UNETCO gets most of its funding
from governments across the world. Sometimes, to put pressure on
governments they haven't intimidated yet, the aliens will launch terror
attacks on cities or villages to create panic and hysteria. 'Terror
Sites put civilians in danger, and limit response options,' I read. The
one you probably saw was the Ahmadabad Massacre, in India."

"Sounds serious," Genma commented, more than a little intrigued.

"The aliens don't survive very long on Earth, under normal
circumstances," Ryouga explained. "The Ahmadabad Terror Site was the
longest, and lasted for 38 hours, during which time over thirty seven
thousand people were killed. According to the report, UNETCO later
covered it up by calling it an industrial chemical spill and explosion."

"Thirty seven thousand? In a day and a half?" Genma asked, trying to
wrap his mind around the magnitude of the slain, and the fact that such
a loss of life had been covered up so effectively.

"One species of alien," Ryouga explained, understanding Genma's
amazement. "Called the Snakemen, use another species, called
Chryssalids, as terror agents. These creatures are parasitic, and
implant their eggs in human hosts along with a powerful toxin. The egg
assumes limited control of the victim, even as it devours it from the
inside. Less than an hour after the infection, a fully mature Chryssalid
erupts from the torso of the host, ready to repeat the process. In
Ahmadabad there were so many civilians that the Chryssalids that ran out
of eggs simply went from house to house, tearing people apart. By the
time..."

The door to Ranma's apartment opened, and both Nodoka and Genma nearly
jumped out of their skins. The latter of the two quickly covered it up
by laughing a little. Her back to them, no one noticed that Nodoka was a
white as a sheet. Ryouga, for his part, had never lost his neutral and
jaded expression.

"Should you really be telling them that?" Ranma asked, taking a seat at
the table.

Ryouga actually seemed to think about that. "You're right, actually.
Some of that information was 'Need to Know,' wasn't it?"

"I'd rather you don't mention those sorts of things to my mother," Ranma
then said, in English, so only Genma and Ryouga could understand him.
Nodoka had not had any Pedagogical Learning, as she wasn't directly on
the UNETCO payroll.

"Why?" Ryouga asked, more than a little defensively. "Doesn't she have a
right to know what we're fighting for?"

"Yes, but you don't have to frighten her!"

"With the truth, you mean?"

"Just don't tell her anything like that, P-chan!"

"Hey! Why don't you shut up, Ranko?" Ryouga grinned at the new
expression on Ranma's face. He never had told her about his curse.
Worse, he had blurted it out in front of the pigtailed boy's mother. The
eyes of both boys turned nervously to the kitchen.

"Yeah. Ok," Ranma admitted, calming down. "We've both got our secrets.
But she doesn't need to know about everything we're going to face out
there. I... I don't want her to worry, alright?"

Ryouga was going to try and make a retort, when he stopped himself. He
was wrong, and Ranma was right, this time. He didn't need to make Mrs.
Saotome worry, and just because he was bitter and almost eager to put
the crimes of the aliens on display, didn't mean he was always justified
in doing so. He took a deep breath and found his rocky island of inner
calm, clinging to it like a man possessed. Akari wouldn't get her
revenge if he flew off the handle and screwed things up. She wouldn't be
happy if he made innocent people worry.

"Sorry. Ranma." It was still hard saying those words, but then it was
over, and Ranma returned to his generally amicable self.

"S'alright, man. Just... let's keep the work stuff at work," he switched
out of English, and back to Japanese as Nodoka entered with the food.
"Dinner looks great, mom!"

"It does indeed..." Genma agreed with his son, already hungrily reaching
for his hashi, or chopsticks. Seeing this, Ranma also inches his hand
towards his own pair, and the two Saotome males glowered at each other
over the arriving food.

"Now, now, you two!" Nodoka managed to diffuse the potential food feud
with just a phrase, despite how little actual time she had spent
accruing enough influence to play the mother card in disputes. If
anything, a lack of experience on Ranma's part left her a little
idealized, since he had such a long-term memory for select insults and
offenses.

"We have a guest," she reminded them with a gentle tone. "So behave
yourselves."

With the food set out and everyone seated, they clapped their hands
together in thanks, and finally started on the meal. No one said much at
first, but then Genma thankfully broke the silence by mentioning that
the dojo was about half set up, and that they hoped to begin offering
classes by the beginning of next week. Nodoka fueled the conversation,
asking about this or that, and prompting him to say more. It had the
dual purpose of lightening the mood around the table, and dividing
Genma's attention so he didn't try and steal food from other people's
plates.

Ranma and Ryouga ate in silence, except for when the pigtailed boy
occasionally had a joke or remark to make about what his father was
doing. The dojo he and Soun were putting together was by necessity
larger than the old one, and incorporated some new features. Among the
most important had been requisitioning some alien alloys (or "exotic
alloys" depending on the tastes of those you ask) to line the walls.
Given that they were the same materials used in alien ships, Ranma knew
first hand there wouldn't be any holes kicked, punched, or blown out in
this new training hall, like there had in the last one.

The rest of the evening, everyone tastefully danced around really
talking about how the two young men present were advancing in their
studies, or the nature of those studies. A few discrete inquiries were
placed about the other members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, which did
lead to a surprising bit of news.

"Actually," Ranma said, feeling rather proud of himself, "I have an idea
about that. I was thinking that we could eat with the Tendos once a
week, and that we could occasionally have Shampoo or Ucchan over, too.
That way none of 'em will get jealous or nothin!"

"You should eat with your whole team or none of them," Ryouga countered,
not even speculating on how Ranma's plan could backfire. "That's what I
think."

"Ya know, that might work for guys like you and Ryu and even Mousse,"
Ranma snapped, putting down his chopsticks hard on the table. "But I
lived with Mr. Tendo for two years, man. I don't wanna lose touch with
'em. And if I have all the gang over at once, you know what'll happen!"

"And," Ranma continued, cutting the lost boy off. "If I eat with the
Tendos, but not the others, they'll think I'm playin' favorites. Which
means I gotta treat em all like that."

"That's your problem right there," Ryouga said, pointing at Ranma with
his hashi. "You don't want to play favorites, but you only actually love
Akane, not Ukyou or Shampoo. She's already your favorite."

Ryouga then added, a little dangerously, "Isn't she?"

"Look: let me handle this. I know what I'm doin!" Ranma answered while
neatly avoiding the actual question.

"Whatever," Ryouga replied, dismissively. "I don't care anymore."

The two boys lapsed into a pregnant silence, and Nodoka took the
opportunity to try and bring up a few topics she had been wondering
about. "Ryouga... I also overheard you mention Ranko before. Do you know
her?"

The lost boy quickly became rather flustered and suspiciously nervous.
"Ah, no, not really, Mrs. Saotome. I know about her, I guess, right?" He
chuckled anxiously. "Sure! Why not?"

Nodoka smiled; she could tell the poor boy was hiding something. It was
probably just a crush on the tomboyish redheaded. They would make a cute
couple, she thought. "Oh, I was just curious if you had heard where she
was, now?"

"You kiddin?" Ranma asked with a toothy grin. "This guy is the last
person to ask where anything is!"

"Hey...!" Ryouga swiped at the other boy, but he ducked back and out of
the way.

The lost boy looked angry that he'd missed, but then he smiled cruelly.
"Ranko's probably closer than you think, Mrs. Saotome. She and my little
sister are real close."

"Really?" Nodoka asked, happily. "That's so nice!"

"They're like this." Ryouga crossed his fingers, and Genma and Ranma bit
their lips.

"That would explain why Ranko comes and goes like she does," Ranma
interrupted, trying to sound blase. "Anyway, I doubt we'll see either of
them for a long time."

"Isn't. That. Right." Ranma hissed through clenched teeth. "Ryouga?"

"Something like that," the Hibiki boy answered, noncommittally.

"Oh," Nodoka said, and then pressed her other question. "That reminds
me. "Ryouga, are your parents here on the base, too, or did they
relocate? I'd very much like to meet them sometime."

"Relocate? My parents are lost, Mrs. Saotome," Ryouga replied, a little
hotly, and quickly adjusted his tone to be more calm and respectful.
"What I mean, is that I don't know where they are, and haven't seen them
in two years. They have a bad sense of direction, just like I do... but
as long as they don't stay in one place too long, they'll be safer, and
so will the people around them. That's all I mean. Its... for the best."

Nodoka winced inwardly, wishing her son had better clarified just how
bad the Hibiki family suffered from their lack of direction. She had
assumed it was a small thing, like an unusual but even endearing quirk.
But then Ranma loudly mentioned how Ryouga's hand had healed up, and if
the other boy wanted to "break in" the new dojo with a no-holds-barred
fight, and that soon led to the two taking about techniques and counter-
techniques, and she could see they were both enjoying themselves.

It was a strange sort of friendship, really, but it seemed manly enough,
so Nodoka just smiled and let them be. She would have to look more
closely into the girls chasing after her son, however. Since Ranma
didn't seem to be fooling around with them, they didn't serve much of a
purpose in confusing the boy's eventual marriage. Nodoka was naturally
leaning towards Akane for the role of daughter-in-law, but it didn't pay
to be hasty...

-----

It was morning, and Ranma had already been up for a two hours. It was
time to meet up with his team, and see to the day's activities. As the
elevator came to a stop, he took out his UNETCO ID card. Behind the
laminated plastic cover, and the picture of him, the card stored his
medical records, security clearance, and even an archive of which
sensitive areas of the base he visited and when. Swiping it as he came
to a sealed door, the portal opened, and allowed him outside.

The air here was crisp, cool, and clean - good mountain air. Like with
the El Dorado base, parts of the Seiran Mountain Complex were above
ground, though none were vital. There were a few small buildings,
comprising what was officially a 'seismic and weather observatory,' and
a few trails that wound down and into the deep parts of the forest.
Ryouga had planned take his squad outside for morning exercises, and
Ranma had decided to do the same, thinking it would be good for them all
to get together again.

It would also be a good opportunity to see how his group and the lost
boy's compared in a few other respects. Outside, he saw that Ryu,
Mousse, Ryouga and Konatsu were already present. As asked, Konatsu had
checked into the Armory before coming, and checked out a suit of
personal armor and a MSG-90 rifle. Part of the training requirements for
both squads was to develop conventional weapons proficiency, and
certification for an individual suit of personal armor (rather than one
on loan).

The other three martial artists were similarly equipped, but each also
sported an extremely large weapon strapped to their backs. From just
being in the Armory, and from the files he'd memorized, it was the
'heavy cannon' of the XCOM arsenal: the Mechem N.T.W. anti material
rifle. It was a massive weapon from South Africa, as tall as a man and
almost half as heavy. It fired 20 mm cartridges, and everyone on
Ryouga's squad seemed to have checked one out in addition to their
Heckler & Kosh MSG-90s.

"Yo, Ryouga! Mousse!" Ranma called to them, and walked over. Konatsu
quickly also headed in their direction from where he had been standing
by himself.

"Ranma," Ryouga said what usually passed for a greeting from him.

"What's with the cannons, man?" he asked, feeling a little out of the
loop. He also felt more than a little under armed in comparison. The
MSG-90 was a sniper rifle, and not a small piece of hardware, but it
looked like a peashooter in comparison to the big AMRs. A second trip to
the Psionic lab had given them a basic operational knowledge of all
common XCOM weaponry, even the plasma weapons, but his squad was still
trying to become proficient with the rifle and handgun, much less the
big guns. That meant practice.

"Its mostly for the weight," Ryouga admitted, his eyes on the
camouflaged base door, which looked like nothing more than entrance to
an aluminum shed set against a wall of rock. "When we get to the second
shooting range, we'll take a few shots and see how we do."

"Makes sense," Ranma replied, feeling a bit better to hear that Ryouga's
squad hadn't somehow mastered the rifles yet. "How're ya liking the new
clothes? Kinda snug, isn't it? What'dya think, Mousse?"

Mousse seemed a bit shocked that Ranma had asked him explicitly.

"It is a bit more tight than I'm used to," the Chinese boy answered,
blinked a few times without his glasses on. "But at least it isn't as
constricting as I'd imagined it to be."

"He's probably curious if you can still use your Hidden Weapons," Ryouga
clarified.

Mousse held up his right hand, closed it, and opened it, and a knife
flicked out from out of nowhere. A second later it was gone. Ranma
nodded in approval; he couldn't understand how Mousse managed the trick
and that was to the Chinese boy's credit. The armor they were wearing
was called the PA-3 PASGT or 'Personal Armor System for Ground Troops' -
it was jet-black, and mostly form fitting, since it was designed to be
unisex.

What must've made Hidden Weapons so hard to use was just how the armor
was put together. PASGT armor was composed of four layers: a skin-tight,
spongy sensor and environmental layer (including small coolant tubes to
regulate body temperature), another layer that consisted of a non-
permeable rubber-analogue, yet another made of fiber-mesh conductors and
coolant fluids (to protect against the heat caused by alien plasma
weaponry and XCOM incendiary weapons) and a special areogel that, when
exposed to air, flowed into the breach and hardened on contact. Above
that, finally, there was the 'hard' layer of replaceable .22-inch thick
alien alloys plates.

How and where Mousse managed to hide a knife, Ranma couldn't imagine.
Under one of the plates, maybe? He doubted even the Hidden Weapons
master could unleash a downpour of bladed chains, balls with spikes, and
swords wearing the PASGT armor instead of his robes, but it wouldn't be
safe to underestimate what he could manage with it on. The armor was
effective, too, even against simple blunt trauma, mostly because the
outer layer could prevent penetration, and the lower layers could
disperse the impact energy across the body.

Ryouga would probably put Pantyhose Taro's monster form to shame in
terms of endurance with the armor to help him. Ranma, of course, knew
all the weak spots in it where the outer layer plates weren't present,
so that was some consolation in a fight. Not that there would be one.
Probably. But it didn't hurt to be prepared. He glanced at Ryu Kumon,
and the other boy frowned. Ranma had released Ryu from having to seal
the Yamasenken (it was only fair, since he had used the Umisenken back
on the alien ship), but the bad blood of him forcing the other fighter
to give up his strongest techniques was still present between them.

"Ranma!" "Ranma-honey!"

Ukyou and Shampoo pushed past each other and ran out to join the four
males. Both were dressed and armed appropriately, but seemed to have
checked their professionalism at the door. Not for the first time, Ranma
thanked the gods that Akane wasn't around. The two girls ran towards
him, but abruptly stopped, glared at each other, and composed
themselves.

"Ranma-honey," Ukyou still used an endearment with his name, despite her
change in demeanor. "Are you sure I shouldn't go and get my spatulas?
You know I don't feel so great with this..." She held out her MSG-90.

Ranma sighed. "That's kinda the point, Ucchan..."

It was no secret that most high caliber martial artists had both
contempt and hatred for guns in general. Even someone of Ranma's skill
level, speed and durability, a gun was not to be sneezed at. The
projectiles from a handgun, much less a rifle, were both very fast and
very, very small. To really dodge a bullet was not impossible for
someone of Ranma's speed, but he needed to know it was coming and from
where. Someone with a silenced sniper rifle on a roof could kill just
about any martial artist if he was unwary, and a man with an AMR could
easily punch a hole through even Ryouga's tough hide.

"Maybe you just need to practice more, spatula girl," Shampoo, despite
speaking English better than she ever did Japanese (to the point where
she never used Japanese anymore, the only one of the group to have given
it up in personal company) still seemed to like annoying nicknames.

Ukyou bristled at the Chinese girl. "Like you're one to talk! I seem to
recall you doing worse than any of us yesterday!"

"That was with a pistol! I've never shot one of those before! But I know
how to use one of these," Shampoo said, and patted the scope on her
rifle for emphasis. "Women of the Amazon Tribe aren't out of touch with
the modern world, you know."

"No, just out of touch with reality," Ukyou shot back with a grin.

"That's it! You've mocked the Amazon Tribe for the last time, bento-for-
brains!"

"Why don't you try saying that in Japanese, hon?"

Shampoo hissed angrily at that. "How about you put your money where your
okonomiyaki-sized mouth is? If I can outshoot everyone else here, you
give up your Tuesday meal with Ranma, and he goes out with me instead!
If I can't, then I'll give up my date with him Thursday!"

"Hey, don't I have a say in this?" Ranma groaned. "And those aren't
dates! Its just a friendly dinner, damnit!"

"I doubt she'd make a boast like that without being sure she could do
it," Ryu commented quietly. Mousse just sighed. For someone who didn't
know Shampoo at all, Ryu had drawn the obvious and right conclusion.
Shampoo's father had been in the People's Liberation Army, and he had
actually taught his daughter how to shoot, since he had been both a
soldier and a martial artist.

"You're on!" Ukyou pumped her fist, too caught up to think perfectly
straight. "If I'm second to a bimbo like you in anything, I don't
deserve to go out with Ranma-honey!"

"It's not a date!" Ranma repeated. "NOT. A. DATE!!"

The door to the base opened, and Kuno walked out, completely unashamed
to be both late and last to show up. Like everyone else, he wore the
personal armor, but in addition to the rifle and the Mechem NTW, he'd
brought a sword sheathed in an ornate black lacquer scabbard.

"Tatewaki Kuno is here!" he announced, but no one seemed to pay
attention to him with Ukyou and Shampoo at each other's throats.
"Hello?"

"Good. We're leaving," Ryouga quickly announced, and put his helmet on.
It was black, like the armor, and had a deep blue visor. The faceplate
over the mouth, cheeks and jaw could be removed, but all four of the
lost boy's squad were wearing the full body armor configuration, and
that included the NBC protection of the air filtration apparatus. One
after another, they slipped it on without complaint or comment (even
Kuno!), and then flipped back the small antenna on the right side of the
helmet so it poked out the back.

"Ryu," Ryouga said, clipping the helmet into place on his armor. "Take
point. Kuno, watch our backs. Mousse, behind me."

"Taking it," Ryu replied, and started to lead them down towards a faint
path away from the handful of small aluminum buildings. Ryouga followed
directly behind, then Mousse, and finally Kuno, who seemed to be
fiddling with getting his helmet on comfortably.

"Hold, I say!" Kuno yelled, catching up to his squad. "Surely, as a
sword pierces with its point, the dangerous lead position should belong
to our strongest member, which is, of course, myself!"

"May as well make sure they don't get lost," Ranma muttered, and turned
back to his group. "Helmets on! Let's get going!"

-----

Ranma walked in the direction of Ryouga's squad while he adjusted his
helmet. It was actually an easy fit, and designed similar to the rest of
the personal armor to that the inner padded layer conformed to the user.
Once in place, he activated the electronics, and the visor in front of
his eyes lit up. The suit itself had built in sensors, in addition to
those in the combat helmet, but a lot of the information could only be
displayed when looking through the Heads Up Display, or HUD.

Ranma had worn the helmet twice before, and he had told Ukyou, Shampoo
and Konatsu to spend some time getting familiar with it as well. Among
the handiest features it had was a night vision mode, which used light
amplification (as opposed to thermal imaging or infrared), and a
proximity sensor. More esoteric sensor systems warned him if someone
pinned him with a laser, or he was being hit by radar waves, or in the
presence of different forms of radiation, or even if he was under
psionic attack.

In any fight, knowledge of the enemy and the surroundings was critical
to survival, much less victory. The School of Anything Goes Martial Arts
was built on that fact, and XCOM embraced it as well. If need be, he
could even toggle a real time feed from Ukyou's point of view, or
Shampoo's, or Konatsu's, and that same feed would also inform him of
what weapons they had and at what level of ammunition or effectiveness
(if they were smartlinked). As squad leader he could even know at a
glance if they were injured due to the sensors in their armor, and all
eight of them were linked so they knew where the others were at all
times.

Even aside from the integrated sensors and the information he had at his
fingertips, Ranma was yet again impressed by the technology of UNETCO.
The personal armor they wore was not only unrestrictive of movement, but
it felt amazingly light. Sure, it weighed much more than his normal
clothes, but the way it hugged the body, and the way it supported its
weight, it was almost like a second skin. With the insulation and
environmental features, it was even far more comfortable in bad weather
than anything he'd ever trained in.

He couldn't wait to fight in it!

The second shooting range where they were headed was a small cluster of
wooden buildings about eight miles from Seiran Mountain itself, through
thick forest and rough rocky terrain. It was designed for endurance
training: marching a significant distance and assaulting an enemy held
structure. There was also a basic shooting range there, where they could
practice at targets up to 400 meters away. While most of the Nerima
Wrecking Crew had some form of martial arts projectile or ranged attack
already, none of them had anything that could go out even 50 meters
effectively.

Ranma could see the sense in learning to use something they'd long
disregarded. Martial arts duels never really took place at extreme
ranges; you generally met and fought your opponent face to face. In a
war, this was not the case. The aliens he'd seen in films had preferred
to strike from a distance, killing with incredible accuracy and ruthless
precision. They weren't eager to get close to their targets, and they
were more than capable of filling the air with death if anyone foolishly
charged them.

To compete they also had to have the ability to fight at very long
range. Only when they had that down could they be able to reliably
advance closer to the point where their martial arts skills, and their
vast superiority in hand to hand combat, could make a difference. Ranma
knew that, when his squad was ready, they would be mostly used for the
most dangerous sorts of mission: UFO assault. They would be the ones to
fight in close quarters, but first they had to be able to get there in
the face of enemy fire.

After the first mile or so, Ranma heard an unusual sound ahead of him.
Kuno actually seemed to be humming a tune, and it occurred to the
pigtailed boy that neither he nor Ryouga had called for a silent march.
A couple seconds later, Konatsu seemed to realize that as well, as he
asked Ukyou about if it would be ok to visit her sometime. The male
kunoichi had practically been living with her before, but his new living
arrangements had him a floor below where Ukyou was staying. For her
part, the okonomiyaki chef was sympathetic to his obvious loneliness,
but loathe to make it seem like she reciprocated his feelings in the way
he wanted.

Ranma toned it out, and actually listened to Kuno, taking a minute to
distract his mind and try and figure out just what song the kendoist was
humming. It didn't sound like anything from any of the animes Ranma
knew, and it didn't sound like anything from any movie he'd seen either.
It was repetitive, and definitely some sort of marching tune. Maybe it
was something military?

"Yo, Kuno!" He called to the older boy, determined to find out.

"Saotome..." Kuno returned, in a much less friendly tone of voice,
looking quickly over his shoulder. "What is it?"

Ranma ignored Kuno's obvious displeasure. "What was that you were
humming before?"

The swordsman scoffed, as if Ranma should have known it. He faced
forward again, but at least answered the question. "The Bloodstained
Messenger. Chizome no Denrei."

"Never heard of it," Ranma replied, light heartedly. "Must be old."

"Fourteenth year of the Showa," Kuno stated, but unsure, also said, "I
think."

"You know the words for any of those old songs?"

Kuno kept walking for a few paces, before replying, "I do."

"Well?" Ranma asked, "Come on! Let's hear it!"

"You call that politely asking?" Kuno grumbled, indignantly, but having
thought of a song, ended up singing it anyway.

"Koko wa okuni no nanbyakuri," The place was hundreds of ri from our
country, "hanarete toki Manshu no," in distant Manchuria, "akai yuhi ni
terasarete," when, illuminated by the red evening sun, "tomo wa nozue no
ishi no shita," my friend, beneath the rocks in a far-off field, "aa
tatakai no saichu ni," oh, in the midst of battle, "tonari ni orishi
kono tomo no," this friend who was next to me, "niwaka ni hatato
taoreshi o." was suddenly struck down. "Ware wa omowazu kakeyorite."
Without thinking, I ran to his side. "Gunritsu kibishiki naka naredo,"
Military discipline is tough, but, "kore ga misutete okaryo ka?" how
could I just leave him lying there? "Shikkari seyo to dakiokoshi," Hang
on, buddy, I said, holding him, "kari hotai mo tama no naka..." wrapping
him in bandages, with bullets flying 'round...

"You know, some of us ARE Chinese," Mousse interrupted, speaking just
loud enough to be heard. "Show a little respect."

"That's right!" Shampoo chirped, actually agreeing with her fellow
Amazon (for once).

"It was just a..." Ranma started to say, but Ukyou was already speaking
up, louder and in opposition to her hated rival.

"Why don't you get off your high horse? The Chinese killed more of their
own people than Japan ever did!"

"You think that's an excuse!?" Shampoo actually turned around and broke
formation. "China won't ever forget...!"

"Ok, you two..." Ranma tried to calm them down.

Kuno coughed. "You know, Sen'yu ("My Comrade") was about the war with
Russia."

"It was?" came from Mousse. "Still. It sounded like..."

"What it was about doesn't matter!" Shampoo all but yelled.

"You think China wouldn't do the same things to us that we did to them?
You think China can be proud of itself and Japan can't?"

"Ranma," Ryouga was, for once, keeping his voice low key. "Reign them
in. All this is being recorded, you know."

"Look, look!" Ranma spun around and stepped between Shampoo and Ukyou.
"You two don't have to see eye to eye, but do you really have to tear
into each other over this? I think a fight's a fight, and once its over;
you don't have to go back to being enemies; sometimes a fight can make
two people the best of friends. Hell, the Chinese Amazons try and marry
the people who beat them in a fight, right? And Ukyou, do you really
think because someone may hurt you if the situation was reversed that
you're justified in hurting them?"

Both girls just stared at him for a few seconds, fishing out the
contradictions in what Ranma had just said. Still, neither one was about
to argue with him in front of the other, and his points did have some
merit. After a few seconds, Ranma slowly returned to his point position
for his squad.

"I..." Ukyou offered, first. "I didn't mean that what happened in the
past wasn't, you know, pretty terrible. People killing people..."

"Shampoo have..." Shampoo quickly went back to English, silently cursing
her brief return to flawed Japanese. "I've got plenty of reasons to not
like you, but this shouldn't be one of them. None of us had anything to
do with it."

"Good." "Good." They said, at the exact same time. "Fine!" "Fine!"

"About time," came Ryouga's voice from near the front of the line
formation.

"They made up faster than you and I usually do, lost boy," Ranma
replied, grinning behind his helmet's faceplate.

"It's amazing you guys haven't killed each other already..." Ryu made
his single contribution to the conversation, and then they were off
again. The hardest part of the march was ahead of them, but everyone in
their group handled it without complaint. Even Kuno, who Ranma had
pinned as the weakest of the group cross country, due to his relatively
static kendo style, kept up when Ryouga got it in his head to have them
do double time. And that was with the Kuno heir hauling a massive sixty-
pound weapon on his back, plus its ammunition.

Ryu, unlike Ryouga, had no problems following directions, and they
reached the second shooting range around noon. In the next hour of
practice, Shampoo proved her boast had not been unwarranted. Unlike when
they had practiced with handguns at the firing range in the base itself,
here Shampoo quickly got the hang of her rifle, and used it to ever
improving effect against targets downrange.

Ranma's ability with the MSG-90 wasn't bad, but he had a lot of room for
improvement. Luckily, he had a knack for weapons in general, and
combined with the psionically implanted information from before, he was
improving more rapidly than he'd ever imagined. At a hundred yards, he
was already hitting the target more often than not from a standing
position, thanks to the 10x scope.

Then Ryouga's squad unpacked their anti-material rifles, and started
taking their first experimental shots from a prone position. The 20mm
rounds fired by the NTW came in high explosive, fragmentation or
incendiary versions, and were twice as fast as the speed of sound. At
the extreme end of the range, the shots that connected totally
annihilated their reinforced steel targets, and one that missed punched
off the upper part of a tree.

Ranma and his group gathered around to watch the spectacle, and after a
few practice shots, Ryouga and his squad let the other four martial
artists take a crack at the cannons. Then, as the sun arched past its
zenith in the clear and cloudless sky, the group settled in for lunch...
and the standard spectacle of both Shampoo and Ukyou trying to get Ranma
to eat food they had brought for him, while fighting off the other. For
most of the Nerima crowd, it was little more than background noise.

Out of all of them, only Ryu seemed really put off by it. "I can't
believe how they fawn over him..."

Ryouga's squad ate by themselves, but still close enough to see and
overhear what the other group was doing. All four had simply brought
packaged food from the base commissary; it was designed to heat up right
before opening, using a chemical reaction, in much the same way Ukyou
and Shampoo had rapidly reheated the food they'd made for the trip.

"You'll learn to zone it out... eventually." Mousse took a bite out of a
small sausage from his pre-packaged meal. It helped that he had his
vision-correcting helmet off, and his thick glasses pocketed. Shampoo's
tenaciousness was, he had always thought, one of her most endearing
features. It was just so galling, even now, to watch her direct that
attention to Ranma. Mousse felt like jumping in and trying to pummel the
pigtailed boy, but he knew there was no point anymore, and it would only
provoke Shampoo besides.

"I just wish he'd marry Akane and get it over with," the Chinese boy
added, more than a little angrily.

Ryu seemed a bit thrown by that. "Wait, you mean he's still engaged to
Akane?"

"Of course he is," Ryouga answered, taking a drink from his canteen.

"So why are those two after him if he's engaged?"

Mousse actually laughed at Ryu's question; as if it was the most naive
and silly thing he'd heard in days. Kuno just glowered at the lost boy.
"The engagement was forced on her! It is not legitimate!"

"Kuno," Ryouga said with a sigh. "You're only confusing things..."

Mousse finished his food, and faced Ryu (or who he thought was him).
"Ok, let me explain. Ranma over there is engaged to Akane, because of
their parents. A couple months ago, Akane was almost killed in China,
and Ranma admitted he loved her. There was a wedding, but those two over
there crashed it."

"We all kind of ruined it," Ryouga admitted, and then he gestured
towards Kuno. "Some more than others."

"The foul knave was going to marry Akane!" Kuno argued, in his own way.
"I can't imagine why you were just standing there and watching it
happen!"

"Because they want to get married, that's why!" The lost boy shook his
head. "I don't like it, not really, but..."

"Anyway," Mousse interrupted, "You know about Akane and Ranma, but he's
also gotten engaged to Ukyou and Shampoo over there. For some reason,
they all think he's god's gift to women or something."

"I do believe you're forgetting someone..." Kuno added, sagely. "My dear
sister is also engaged to the vile womanizer."

"You mean she's obsessed with him," Mousse replied. "Not engaged."

Kuno wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Degrees of difference."

"So Ranma is... being pursued by three or four women?" Ryu asked, with a
disgusted (or jealous) look.

"Those are the regulars. Aside from them, there's been a couple other
men and women, right?" Mousse asked Ryouga, as he scratched his chin.
"Nabiki kept a running tally. She'd know."

"I think it was four men and five other women, but they came and went,"
Ryouga said, nodding his head in introspection. "But that may or may not
count Kuno."

"What are you fools talking about?" Kuno yelled, grabbing them both by
the fronts of their personal armor. "How dare you say I chase after
Ranma?! I won't allow it!"

"You know about the Jyusenkyou curse, right?" Ryouga asked Ryu, and the
boy with the white bandanna nodded.

"The girl curse," he then said. "Yeah. You mean...?"

"Kuno here is in love with the pigtailed girl," Mousse confirmed, and
Kuno's face lit up with joy.

"What about the pigtailed girl?" the Kuno heir asked, "Have you seen
her?"

"So Ranma is the pigtailed girl?" Ryu even said it a second time, right
in front of Kuno. "Right? Ranma is the pigtailed girl."

"Yep," Mousse replied.

"What are you talking about?" Kuno released Ryouga and Mousse, and went
back to sitting where he had been before.

"It's impossible," Ryouga said, after Ryu started to look at Kuno like
he had brain damage. "Some kind of mental block or something."

"Ranma Saotome, over there." Ryu pointed at Ranma, who was currently
eating okonomiyaki and ramen at the same time, being unable to decide
which one to taste first. "Turns into the 'pigtailed girl' because of
his Jyusenkyou curse. And Kuno is in love with him. Or her. Is that
right?"

"We love each other," Kuno corrected, and the three other martial
artists hung their heads in defeat.

"It won't matter in a few days anyway," Mousse then said, a little
ominously.

Ryouga chuckled at the in-joke. "That's right! Soon we'll be free!"

"Free?" Ryu asked, still lost in all the weird Nerima-stuff.

"Free of the duck!" Mousse started laughing manically.

Ryouga joined him in the mad laughter. "And free of the pig!"

"What the hell are you two talking about? Is everyone here insane except
me and the transvestite?" Ryu looked over to where Konatsu was hanging
out behind Ukyou eating sadly by himself. "At least he isn't engaged to
Ranma or afraid of farm animals."

"I don't know what they're talking about either," Kuno replied, shaking
his head. As if Kuno not getting something would make Ryu feel better.

After Ranma finished eating Ukyou and Shampoo's food, the girls ate
quickly, and the two groups resumed their practice. Another part of the
shooting range had a number of wooden enclosures, arranged to mimic the
layout of a smaller single-level UFO. Here, the two squads took turns
being defenders and assaulters. Their MSG-90s had the ammunition
removed, and the barrel round emptied, before the laser sight was turned
on. Pulling the trigger with the laser sighting on a friendly would
count as a kill.

Each team took two turns on both offense and defense, guarding the
command room and entrance of the UFO and assaulting those places, before
they expanded the field of practice. The assaulting team would start at
the edge of the woods, and have to advance over an open field while the
UFO defenders fired on them. The 'aliens' would then fall back into the
ship when their attackers got too close.

The first few rounds were a real turkey shoot. Everyone had poor
accuracy, really, but even Ukyou and Kuno were fast enough to at least
come close to putting a bead on Ranma, Ryouga, Konatsu or Ryu, and by
firing on semiautomatic, tag them. Then, the teams started getting
creative, as certain parties began eagerly and boastfully keeping track
of who'd they'd shot, and how often.

As the competition heated up, they started applying their martial arts
techniques. The UFO defenders were often in basically static positions,
the ones that gave them the most benefit of cover and field of fire, and
this was both a strength and a vulnerability. Ranma used his speed once,
and the Umisenken another time, to get into a flanking position without
being seen, or to snipe from a superior position. Ryouga created a smoke
screen using the Bakusai Tenketsu, and another time used the same
technique to mask their movement and create a deception by making it
look like they were going in one direction instead of the other.

Ukyou, despite not having her gear, proved especially adept at being
able to use her rifle as a close quarters weapon. Konatsu, after some
initial difficulty, managed to adapt his multiple body technique to his
heavier personal armor. The two teams went back and forth, setting up
traps and feints, merging their martial arts with their new weapons and
objectives, their sense of camaraderie and teamwork enhanced more under
the pressure of a fight than it ever could be under normal
circumstances.

So it went, for hours, and when they finally took a break from the team
on team competition, Ranma and Ryouga brought them together to discuss
what had worked and what hadn't. It was afternoon, and before heading
back, they all took the time to practice their techniques, and enjoy a
few one on one duels, though a few were more intense and serious minded
than others. Ryouga fought Konatsu for the first time, Ryu sparred with
Shampoo, and Mousse practiced with Ukyou.

By the time they got around to marching back to base, their spirits were
high, and even the two girls seemed to be talking animatedly with each
other about how much one was going to improve over the other. Even when
Shampoo remarked how Ukyou had lost her date ("It is not a date!" Ranma
yelled again) the other girl had just taken it as motivation to do
better next time.

When they got back to the base, and split up to do individual work, it
was almost as if they were all friends and comrades. Only Ryouga hung
back outside the Armory, where they had all gone to return their gear
and change into their clothes, for his guide dog to show up. Ranma
decided to wait as well, and keep his 'best friend' company.

"Don't say anything," Ryouga warned, just as Ranma started to open his
mouth.

"What could you mean?" The pigtailed boy asked innocently.

"You were going to crack a joke at my expense," the lost boy said with a
frown. "I'm just saying: don't."

"Geez!" Ranma sighed and lowered his head. "You're no fun. No one's
around to hear it, so why not?"

"Just..." Ryouga growled. "Just because."

As if on cue, Shirokuro rounded a corner, saw her master, and trotted
over. Ranma bent down, and scratched the dog behind her left ear,
causing her to tilt her head and sigh happily. Despite her master's
gruffness, Shirokuro was a very friendly dog, and Ranma even (vaguely)
remembered when she was little, back when he and Ryouga had gone to the
same Junior High school.

"What ever happened to those puppies from before?" Ranma asked, just now
remembering what had prompted the 'Yoiko Hibiki fiasco.'

Ryouga reached down to scratch Shirokuro's chin. "Two are grown up and
fully trained, and I left them to watch over the house. One ran away,
but Dad told me Hibiki dog's do that, and not to worry. I didn't know
what to do with the others, since they were really too old to put up for
adoption as puppies, so I volunteered them for K9 duty here at the
base."

"You did?" Ranma stood up, still looking down at Shirokuro. "Well, I'll
say this about your dogs: they're smart."

Ryouga smiled a little. "They are."

"Hey," Ranma said, but he leaned down to address the black and white
dog. "Don't let your master get lost for a few more days. Not if he
wants a taste of that drowned man water."

"No way I'll miss out on a cure after the last time!" Ryouga's voice was
happy, and he even seemed to ignore the knock against his terrible sense
of direction. "No Happosai around to drink it, and enough for all of us!
You'll have to excuse me if I don't take the cure when you, Mousse,
Shampoo, and your old man do. I'll have to show up a little... late."

"Joking about your own bad direction, lost boy?" Ranma slapped his
friend on the back. "Don't worry. We'll forgive you. If everything goes
as planned, we'll get cured and break in the new dojo on the same day!"

The fanged martial artist grinned at the prospects. "Should be fun."

"Well, your guide dog is here, so I'm off to finish that report," Ranma
said, and started to walk away, but he paused to ask a quick question.
"You get it done, yet?"

"Not yet." Ryouga didn't seem too worried about the assignment, however.
"I'll see ya tomorrow, Ranma."

"I'll see ya tomorrow, Ryouga." Ranma headed down the hall, and despite
the work ahead of him, he was happy. So far, being at the base had been
like college, but better than he'd dared to imagine. He didn't have to
worry about the more annoying classes like calculus or any of the
sciences, and the stuff he did have to learn was made almost
ridiculously easy. Better still, he was with people he considered his
friends and peers, his family was together, he was just a few days from
curing his hated Jyusenkyou curse, and he was being paid a salary to
improve his martial arts!

He almost didn't notice the siren that cut off his internal revelry.

"Hostile Incursion detected in local airspace! Hostile Incursion
detected in local airspace!" A female voice blared over the base
communications grid. "All combat teams assemble and report to duty
stations! Repeat: All combat teams assemble and report to duty stations!
Code Three is in Effect!"

-----

Ranma had to watch, and wait.

He didn't have the rank or authorization to enter the Command Center
when Code Three - UFO Interception and Transmission Decoding - was in
effect. Instead, he'd headed back down to the Armory he'd just left, and
together with Ryouga (who had gotten the same idea), they'd watched as
four squads suited up. These were the sixteen men and women under the
direct command of Captain Ben-Solomon, and despite being debriefed about
the fight ahead, they strictly kept that information to themselves.

The Captain, Lieutenants Tsuchihashi and Lofquist, and Sergeants Hanley,
Karpov, Feretti and Kinoshita, all emerged wearing regulation Power
Armor. In the case of the Sergeants (except Karpov), this was the MA-3B
ARES (Armored Response Environmental Suit), and for the other four
officers it was the MA-3C MARS (Mobile Armored Response Suit). Both
types of Powered Armor stood just over eight feet tall, three and a half
feet wide at the shoulder, and weighed in at over 340 pounds, minus the
pilot. Yet, they were fully articulated, could support a running speed
of 20 mph, and offered anti-gravity assisted leaps (or in the case of
the MARS, actual anti-gravity flight).

Most of the "squaddies" that the officers led (an amorphous rank above
private, which didn't exist in XCOM, but below sergeant) wore personal
armor, except for the two in Second Squad. Second Squad and Sixth Squads
were the two designated "Lightning Teams" of the base, and all the
members wore MARS suits. This gave the entire fire team total
battlefield mobility and allowed them to be used for rapid response and
"firefighting."

Like most XCOM equipment, the powered armors continued the black colors
and motif, with some unpolished gray patterning. The powered armors
could also be called 'hard-suits,' since the outermost layer was
composed of rigid and solid sheets of alien alloys. These hugged and
mimicked the human form, though the forearm sections were more bulbous
in proportion to a normal human arm, and likewise for the lower half of
the legs and feet. The faces of the soldiers couldn't be seen past their
tinted faceplates, but for quick, unaided, visual identification each
suit had a number imprinted on the left leg, in white. Most also had
some sort of obvious personalization, like a stylized skull, or a heart,
or a star, somewhere on it.

They strapped on their weapons and armor, and Ranma could do nothing but
watch as they went to fight. The base had already scrambled
interceptors, including one of the base Firestorms - the man-made saucer
type craft he'd seen when he'd first arrived - to down the alien ships,
which meant that the deciphered alien mission profile was probably
something they couldn't risk a clean landing with. Was it a Terror Ship,
or worse: a Battleship heading towards a sleeping city somewhere? He
didn't know; wouldn't know until it was over, and an official report was
circulated.

So he waited with Ryouga, and felt helpless and in the dark. Eventually,
the lost boy had left, and Ranma had returned to his room to wait for
news. At some point, the base downgraded the alert to Code Two, which
meant that the skies were clear, and it remained in that state for most
of the night. Like Ryouga had the night before, Shampoo came over and
brought food for the Saotome family in addition to that Nodoka had
cooked.

They had eaten in comfortable silence, and Shampoo had been almost
exceptionally well behaved - probably in an attempt to impress Ranma's
mother. After the meal, the Amazon had stayed behind to help with the
dishes, and Ranma had taken the opportunity to get back to his work. He
reviewed parts of the Ahmadabad Massacre that he'd earmarked from
before, and tried to start on the written paper, but his mind kept
drifting towards what was going on outside.

All his life, he'd either run from danger, or confronted it. Much worse
than either, was to have someone else fighting for you, risking their
life for yours, and not knowing if they were succeeding or failing. It
was frightening to have your life in the hands or others. He watched his
the mailbox icon on his computer, waiting, wondering. Then, just as he
had finished the second page of his report, hours after starting it, he
saw a flashing mail icon indicating the reception of report possessing
the 'high priority' tag.

Without hesitating, he clicked it and activated his mail client.

It took a few seconds to verify his identity, and then opened.

AUTHORIZATION GRANTED - DECODING

NOTICE: This data bundle and any attached materials that are not
otherwise marked are classified as Angel/0A. If you are not Angel/0A
clearance or above, report immediately to your supervisor or face
disciplinary action.

-----Original Message-----

From: Lt. Cmdr. Yasuda [mailto: nyasuda (AT) unetco (DOT) org] Sent: Thursday,
October 26, 2006, 22:39 To: seiranmilpop0A (AT) lists (DOT) unetco.org Subject: -
REPORT - 10/26/06 Interception/Interdiction Debriefing

Relevant Personnel,

Between 18:15 and 18:20 local time, three unidentified flying objects
violated Earth airspace under the jurisdiction of UNETCO East Asian
Regional Command. Hyperwave decoding was complete by 18:26.
Interceptions were conducted by three craft from Seiran Mountain, and
one from Irkutsk. Three interdictions were then performed, recovering a
Medium Scout, Large Scout, and Supply Ship. Squads one through four are
to be commended for their work on the two downed scout ships. There were
no reported fatalities. Attached is a more detailed report on the
night's activities.

At 23:00 hours I will downgrade our alert status to Code One.

- Lt. Cmdr. Yasuda "Nihil aliud scit necessitas quam vincere." Syrus

--

Noriko Yasuda Lieutenant Commander Far East Asia Branch United Nations
Extraterrestrial Combat Organization Ext. 1716 - phone Ext. 7948 - fax

Ranma read the message over and over, amazed by how short and... mundane
it was. There was a file attached, a document with information on the
types of aliens encountered, the specific times and places the alien
ships were engaged, the ordinance that was expended, and other dry
accounting information. There were other parts, too, which were blacked
out and censored, relating to conversations recorded during the event.
Ranma knew the names of the two levels of clearance above his own:
Archangel/1B and Malakim/2C. No doubt, the emails sent to them were
totally uncensored.

Leaning back in his chair, Ranma tangled his fingers in his hair, and
felt himself relax. No one had died; no one was in danger. Everyone had
done their jobs: the people watching the radars across Asia, the people
who intercepted and translated the alien transmissions, the engineers
who got the interceptors ready, the pilots who flew the sorties, and the
soldiers who assaulted the crashed flying saucers. Even, he supposed,
the Information Control specialists who kept the rest of the world from
knowing the truth about Earth's secret war.

That was what he was a part of now. It wasn't just about being the best
martial artist he could be, it wasn't even about inheriting the dojo and
the Anything Goes School. For who knew how long, he would be a part of
those future reports; a member of the tiny unknown few who pushed back
the darkness that encircled the world. It was the fight, the challenge,
of a lifetime, and he went back to his report, invigorated at the
thought.

-----

So the days went by.

There were more films, and more reports due, examining aspects of squad
level tactics and different approaches to combat against different
aliens. There was more time spent down at the practice range indoors and
outdoors, sometimes by himself, but most of the time with Ukyou, Shampoo
and Konatsu. He studied, he practiced, he worked, and in his free time,
he sparred with his father or trained his martial arts skills by
himself.

It was a busy sort of life, packed with things to do and
responsibilities he normally would have chafed at, but Ranma found it
more fulfilling and potentially rewarding than anything he'd ever done
before. Once a day, he submitted his notes on the day's activities and
observations to his mentor, and the burly American officer read it over
before discussing what he thought Ranma should focus on next.

Captain Banks was an easy going man, much like Ranma himself, and while
he certainly didn't hesitate to ask the younger man to add more and more
to his workload, he wasn't like some of the teachers back at Furinkan -
always grading him, deducing points, and insisting on work for its own
sake. If anything the work Ranma did was curt and utilitarian, a
fraction of what he had expected.

Every other day, for several hours, they attended lectures by officers,
or sometimes base technicians and scientists, on alien biology and
physiology, or the proper maintenance of equipment in the field.
Combined with the 'Reading Rainbow' psionic programming, it was more a
review and refresher than a real class. In only a few days, he had met
other personnel in the base, and even learned more about his mentor's
personal life (married, wife and daughter in North Carolina), which
hadn't been put in the dossier he'd first gotten.

He'd also caught up with the three Tendo girls, and even checked in on
them during the day. Kasumi had been given the chance to work in the
Base Medical Facility as a nurse-in-training, drawing on and building
upon what she had begun to study at home and from Dr. Tofu's books.
Nabiki, by her own design, had been set up as an intern for the Budget
and Finances Division. Why she had wanted to become a paper pusher, he
couldn't fathom, but she seemed happy to be an accountant-in-training
and to finally have enough disposable income to not have to constantly
swindle people (not that she would stop swindling people, only that she
wouldn't have to).

Nabiki had even had the gall to ask him to let her take a few "farewell
pictures" of the pigtailed girl, for "posterity." He shook his head at
that, appalled by the suggestion at first, but at the same time in such
high spirits (the Jyusenkyou cures were in storage, and ready to be
shipped to the base with the next flight), that he actually agreed,
after a little prodding. No doubt Akane would've been disgusted, but he
couldn't help but think he would... in a way... miss his girl curse.

Of course, actually transforming and walking around the base would raise
too many questions, but a quick splash in his room, or Nabiki's, with
the doors locked would be fine (Nodoka finding "Ranko" in either room
would not be a good thing). He'd had some actually rather fond memories
of being in his girl form, most of them revolving around using her looks
to get free food. Soon, all that would be over. He wouldn't have to
worry about Kuno glomping onto him and asking him out on a date, or boys
leering at him, or Happosai trying to get him to wear girly underwear,
or random guys trying to propose, or Pantyhose Taro calling him Femboy,
or his mother finding out about his curse and making him commit ritual
suicide...

That last one was one of his bigger and more recent gripes about his
curse. He also wouldn't get weaker when splashed with cold water, or
constantly have to look for hot water, or even be drawn into otherwise
avoidable fights because of his female gender. On the other hand... he'd
had a lot of fun in those fights he'd only been able to have because he
was a girl. They'd made him a better, more versatile martial artist!
Reflecting back on it, he'd actually spent an inordinate amount of time
fighting as a girl over the years.

"How much weaker would I be today, if not for this curse?" He had
wondered, while Nabiki took the last pictures of the mysterious
pigtailed girl... ever. Ever! At the same time, he wondered about Ryouga
and Mousse's cursed forms. Their cursed bodies really did make them
almost worthless in a fight, if they got splashed, but had it made them
stronger at the same time? P-chan could certainly take a lot more abuse
than any other pig Ranma could imagine, even one of those big wild boars
from the Mountains, and hauling heavy loads around as a piglet couldn't
have hurt the lost boy's endurance or strength training. Then there was
Mousse. Had being forced to adapt his Hidden Weapons style to his cursed
form improved his skill in the Art?

Had the curses, the damned curses, actually made them better martial
artists?

No, it couldn't be! Ranma thought of his lazy father, and how he fought
so often in his panda form, and so well! He thought about Pantyhose
Taro, who definitely became stronger because of his weird minotaur-like
cursed form. The one outstanding exception, besides Herb (who Ranma
really didn't know well enough to compare), was Shampoo. For her,
turning into a cat was nothing but a disadvantage. It was weak, and he
hated cats and feared her cursed form. No, he ultimately decided, the
curses of Jyusenkyou could make you stronger, but only in the same way
you could blind yourself to improve your hearing.

It was time for them to open their eyes.

"Something wrong, Ranma?" Nabiki asked, peeking out from behind her
digital camera. "You're not smiling."

"Just... thinking..." Ranma-chan forced a smile on her face, and arched
her back on Nabiki's bed. The mercenary Tendo girl had wanted
borderline-hentai pictures to sell at a premium, but Ranma had only
agreed to do something tasteful. He intended to keep one or two of the
pictures for himself, after all, as a memento. So pants and a buttoned
shirt, left just open enough to be sexy, or one of Nabiki's tube tops,
were the order of the day.

"Tame!" Nabiki had complained, but only once.

"You know," he (or rather: she) mused, while Nabiki took another
picture. "Without this curse, I'd have had a hard time beating Ryouga
back when he learned the Shishi Hokoudan. I may not have even figured
out Herb's Ryu-sei Hishou in time, because I wouldn't have understood
how ki gets weaker in a girl's body..."

"Having second thoughts?" the Tendo sister asked, with an amused smile.
"You could always just hold onto the water. Save it for a... rainy day?"

"Ha. Ha." Ranma-chan remarked, and after a few more pictures,
disappeared into the bathroom. A few minutes later, Ranma emerged dry
and dressed. Nabiki was already half done taking down the sheets they'd
put up against the walls and bed, to make sure no one figured out where
the pictures had been taken.

"Hey, Nabiki," Ranma asked, reaching up to help her. "How much have ya
gotten out of Kuno over the years, selling pictures of me?"

"A lot," she replied, leaving it at that. "After this, I'll only have
pictures of Akane. It'll be like the old days, before you came to the
dojo. Its true I won't have any competition from Gosunkugi, but I won't
be able to sell anything to Kodachi, either..."

"It ain't like you need to sell pictures of Akane and me to afford stuff
anymore!" Ranma folded up one of the white blankets, and tossed it onto
Nabiki's bed.

"Oh, I know," Nabiki assured him, still wearing that amused smile from
before. "But how can I leave a niche market unexploited? And besides,
it's fun!"

Ranma just stared at her incredulously.

"Anyway, Ranma..." Nabiki folded the last of the makeshift drapes, and
put it neatly down on her bed next to the one he had thrown. "It seems
almost all our friends ... or your friends anyway, have ended up here."

"Yeah...?" Ranma half asked, half agreed, not sure where she was going.

"Ranma," she said again, with her back to him so he couldn't see her
face. "Ryouga's girlfriend. The pig farmer. She's dead, isn't she?"

The pigtailed boy didn't respond, unsure what to say, and Nabiki nodded.

"I thought so," she continued, taking his silence for a yes. "I've
suspected that for a few days. It... explains some things."

"You knew her?" Ranma asked.

"Only a little..." Nabiki placed her hands flat on the bed, and Ranma
silently wished she'd turn around. "We met when she visited the house.
She seemed... nice. Sweet. Girly. Even a little normal. I always thought
it was... funny... that the lost boy would hook up with someone like
that. It's like you being engaged to Kasumi, I guess."

"Akari was... she was a friend, too." Ranma inwardly cringed at how he
wasn't good at expressing his feelings, even for a poor deceased girl.
Akari had been a great person, forgiving and kind and friendly. She had
been a friend herself, and she had made Ranma's best friend happy. He
just... couldn't really verbalize all that. So he headed for the door
and a quick exit.

"They told us Dr. Tofu was alive," Nabiki quickly said from behind him,
but he didn't turn around. "Is that true?"

"I don't know." Ranma then added, about to open the door, "I think it's
classified. Sorry."

Nabiki, as usual, wasn't so easily deterred. "I don't suppose you'd tell
me for..."

"I'm pretty sure trying to bribe me to release classified information is
a violation carrying much more than a fine," Ranma cut her off.
"Besides. I take my promises pretty seriously. You know that."

"Kasumi and Akane are a little worried," Nabiki explained.

Ranma gritted his teeth. "If you, or Akane, or Kasumi, need to know...
submit an inquiry. Say you're engaged to him or something. That's all I
can say for now."

He opened the door, and stepped out. "I'll see you at the party,
Nabiki."

And the door closed behind him.

Nabiki carefully cradled her digital camera in her palms.

"Goodbye, Ranma-chan," she whispered.

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