I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Steve Jackson Games.

I hope all my US readers had a fun and safe Independence Day!

Death of Snipers: This was probably a bit less of an operation than you were expecting, but it's a warm-up act of sorts.

cko2: No, Mercedes is a purely US creation, based more on Mercedes Lackey's urban fantasies than anything. Come to think of it, that might be where my subconscious got her name, though at the time of her first appearance she was just going to be Ranma's school-age friend on base...

Mercedes felt naked. It wasn't a feeling she was unfamiliar with, thanks to her mother's posting to Japan. Her mother and trainers had known Mercedes would be without backup—the Japanese onmyoji preferred to pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist—so Jeff Davis and Andrew Two Feathers had decided that Mercedes' best defense would be to fly under the radar: no magic items or totems of any sort, no use of her magic when she was off the base, even when on the base only minor magics for healing and reconnaissance ... the little bit of fire she'd used to show off in front of Toshiko was the most she'd used since boarding the flight to Japan in Seattle. Since without a ritual performed with her present her personal magic could only be detected, much less measured, when she was using it, she would at most look like a very minor practitioner in both power and skill instead of the highly trained Guardian she was ... meaning the Things that might otherwise see her as a four-course meal wouldn't even see her as a snack.

And it had worked and had even become fun. She'd been able to live like any other teenager, going to school, hanging out with acquaintances (she couldn't really call them friends, considering how much she kept hidden), gossiping about boys (and discreetly eyeing some of the girls). Sure, Joshua had gotten in the way of that when he started making a nuisance of himself, but she'd figured he'd eventually either grow tired of harassing her or publicly self-destruct—and Toshiko might have short-circuited that anyway; since the newcomer had so publicly not only refused to be intimidated but blown him off, some of the girls that had pulled away had begun to cautiously become more friendly again. And the few supernaturals she'd sensed hadn't noticed her at all. And now she was throwing it all away to protect a bunch of burnouts living on the streets. After this was over, she'd have to return to the States and live with her teachers until her mother transferred back home.

Mercedes felt naked.

"So how we doing this?" Toshiko asked, raising her voice above the sound of the car's engine.

Mercedes assumed Toshiko was asking about how they were going to find the ice worms, since they'd already covered dealing with them during Mama's interrogation of Mr. Davidson and his men before giving her final agreement to Mercedes' participation. (An intense interrogation, that had raised eyebrows and apparently won a grudging admiration from the interrogatees.)

Hopkins apparently thought the same as Mercedes. He asked, "Didn't you read the file?"

"Yeah, but one thing I've learned from looking over different schools' scrolls is that there's theory and there's practice."

Andrews barked a laugh. "You got that right, kid. But in this case, the file pretty much gets it right—ice worms might use stored oxygen while burrowing through just about anything short of steel looking for prey, but they need enough oxygen that human-sized hunters can still find their nests. Since the maps didn't show any other major tunnels close to where Yasuhiro was killed they're almost certainly nesting in some chamber they've carved out in that same tunnel, we just need to find them and burn them out.

"And we're here, make sure you've got your masks."

Mercedes grimaced, but grabbed up her gas mask from the seat beside her as she exited the car. Apparently, even leaving aside the problem of smoke inhalation, flamethrower-torched ice worms really stank. Like, heave-up-your-lunch stank. Which was why as soon as they were in the tunnel below the apartment building and so out of sight of anyone on the street, but still in the sunlight coming through the tunnel entrance, the first thing they did was put on the masks, check that the built-in radios were working, and she and Toshiko had their masks' fitting checked by Hopkins and Andrews before the two soldiers checked each other. Then everyone put on their headlights (literally headlights, powerful lights on headbands that had been pre-fitted before they left), and then the soldiers did the same with the two flamethrowers they'd brought, putting them together, looking over each other's work, and two brief gouts of flame to clear out some of the inevitable cobwebs as a final check.

"Okay, we're good to go," Hopkins announced. "Like we told your mother, me and Anderson to the front, Mercedes to the right and rear, Toshiko left and rear. Keep your eyes on what's going on above and below as well as behind and to the sides, and if we tell you to run, you run. Got it?"

"Understood." "Got it."

Toshiko's response was ... less than enthusiastic, which didn't surprise Mercedes at all. But her mother had been adamant that the safety of the 'civilians' (a term that had gotten Toshiko's hackles up, if quietly, and amused Mercedes, just as quietly) came first, and had made sure that Mercedes and Toshiko made the same promise as the two elite soldiers to look after each other first. (And they were elite soldiers, Mercedes had met Special Forces before and the mix of utter confidence and sheer physical presence was unmistakable.)

Acknowledgements given, the group moved down the tunnel. Mercedes kept enough of her attention on the soldiers in the lead that she didn't run into them, and the rest on the beam of her headlight sweeping along tunnel walls, floor, and ceiling.

"Not so regularly, don't be predictable."

"Does that matter?" Toshiko responded to whichever soldier had given the advice. "These things are dumb, right? Not even as smart as fish?"

"Dumb doesn't mean stupid. Don't forget ice worms are ambush predators, and they're very good at it. And we've reached where the plumber died, so be especially watchful."

Mercedes felt herself tensing up, found herself glancing over her shoulder more often and not just to keep her distance from the soldiers. This was not how she'd imagined her first time in the field. She'd dreamed of hunting down a rogue Skinwalker, or a Wendigo drifting south from Canada during a particularly harsh winter, with her teachers by her side, not down in a hole with only civilians to back her up.

Be fair, in this case you're the civilian and they are the experts. Listen to them. Mercedes swallowed a barked laugh—her conscience had spoken with Two Feathers' voice, and she could almost see his scowl. 'Know better than men of that quality with years of experience, do you?'

No, I don't, I'll be good.

"Hey, Mercedes, can't you magic up a spell that can find these things?" Toshiko asked even as her own beam of light continued to sweep across her assigned sector of concrete walls and floors.

"No, my spells are geared toward magic and the supernatural. How about you? Ki is life energy, right? Doesn't that mean you can detect anything living?"

"Not really. I mean, yeah, but most people are really dim, they don't have the massive ki reserves Martial Arts masters build up. Animals have even less, it links to intelligence somehow. And however great their instincts are, these things are dumb."

"Maybe, but there are a lot of them." Mercedes frowned, swinging her light back. Had that been—? No, just a bit of concrete more reflective because it was a little cleaner than most.

" ... you gotta a point there. Hold on one— Down!"

It was hardly the first time Mercedes had heard that order during her training and she instantly threw herself flat, twisting around to see what was happening only when she was on the ground, and her eyes widened. Toshiko stood above her, hands flashing almost too fast to be seen, and with every grab and squeeze a falling ice worm died. Mercedes was so stunned she wasn't even nauseous at the shower of juices and pulped remains raining down on her.

So fast! Are even vampires that fast!?

Then Andrews was hauling her out from underneath the gory shower, shouting "Clear!" Hopkins' flamethrower roared, and the shower of pulped ice worms turned into falling flaming ribbons as the fiery stream swept across the cement ceiling.

Toshiko stepped back out of the way, and Mercedes glanced behind her and shouted, "Toshiko, jump!" As her friend leaped to the side, she thrust out a hand palm first and her own gout of flame swept across a mass of ice worms dropping from what looked like hairline cracks in the wall and undulating toward them. Mercedes could not believe how thin the ice worms could compress themselves as they squeezed through.

Then Andrews was hauling her to her feet and pushing her back the way they'd come, shouting, "Fall back, fall back!" She ran across the writhing strips of flame she had just ignited, Toshiko right behind her, and a fresh stream of flame swept across the floor at their heels before the two soldiers jumped across the conflagration to join them. As soon as they joined the two teenagers they whirled and swept their streams of flame across floor, walls, and ceiling. Mercedes imagined she could hear high, thin shrieks.

After a long minute, the two soldiers relaxed. "That was too close," Andrews said.

"Yeah," Hopkins agreed. "Good eye, Toshiko, you saved us all from Sergeant Baker ... oh, and saved Mercedes' life, too."

Mercedes' and Toshiko's giggles might have had a slight hysterical edge to them.

"So now what?" Toshiko asked as her giggles subsided.

"Now the surviving ice worms will be retreating to their nest, like they usually do after a failed ambush," Hopkins said. "We should be safe now until we find it, and then only from one direction. Why don't you two wait for us at the entrance while we finish this?"

"No!" "Not a chance!" both girls instantly responded.

The two soldiers gazed at them for a long moment, then looked at each other. Andrews shrugged, and Hopkins sighed. "We don't have time to fight with you on this. Same formation as before."

"Wait," Mercedes said, remembering what she and Toshiko had been talking about just before the ambush. "Toshiko, you said you might be able to detect the nest?"

"Oh, right, I've never tried to use ki sense like this so hold on."

"Let's get past the ambush site first, it'll be closer," Andrews suggested.

"Good idea, no idea what kinda range I'll have."

Passing the still-flickering char of the ambush site, the four slowly moved on down the tunnel. Mercedes looked around, her head light sweeping across surfaces now streaked with char, tiny streaks of fire still burning here and there. She was abruptly very glad for the gas mask—for one thing, after her gory shower she undoubtedly stank. The ride home was going to be unpleasant.

A few minutes later, Toshiko said, "Okay, let me see what I can do." She paused and closed her eyes, and Hopkins promptly motioned for Mercedes to step back and watch the way they'd come while the two soldiers took positions on either side of Toshiko, looking in all directions.

After a minute Toshiko said, "I think I'm getting something. It's about twenty meters further in and ... that way." Mercedes glanced back for a moment to see her friend pointing further down the tunnel, but at a slight angle that would have them walking into the wall eventually if they tried to follow it.

"So not in the tunnel but close, good." Hopkins gusted out a relieved breath. "Can you keep up your sensing while moving?"

"No problem, let's get this over with."

"Yeah, I'll bet your girlfriend wants to get clean in the worst way."

"She's not my girlfriend!" "She's not my girlfriend!"

Mercedes shook her head, her ears ringing from her and Toshiko's twin shouts, to be replaced by the laughter of the soldiers as the ringing faded. But Anderson just said, "Toshiko, take point. Hopkins, take her place in the formation. Let's move."

The twenty meters estimate turned out to be slightly short, but not much, and soon Toshiko stopped and turned to face the tunnel wall. "Through there."

"Shit." Andrews glared at the wall. "There must be another tunnel not on the map, or maybe an abandoned basement. And by now smoke from all the burning we've been doing will be pouring out of the entrance—the incredibly toxic smoke, at least that's what everyone that smells it and loses their lunch is gonna think. Police and who knows what other alphabet soup agency will be all over this, we aren't gonna have another shot at it. Which means they'll be finding the ice worms, with no idea what they're dealing with."

"Maybe not. The ice worms are really, close, which means the wall must be thin. Maybe I can blow through it."

The two soldiers glanced at her, then at each other. Andrews looked around, and nodded. "It's worth a shot. The rest of us'll back off a bit, in case of shrapnel." He motioned, and Mercedes reluctantly moved away to join the soldiers, only to find them stepping between her and her friend. She could barely see around them as Toshiko backed to the tunnel wall across from the spot she'd pointed out, took a deep breath as she cupped her hands together and a glowing blue ball formed in her hands just like her demonstration the previous evening, then she shouted something as she thrust her hands forward and the ball shot toward the wall. There was a roar and a flash of blue light, and the soldiers in front of her jerked but held in place, then stepped forward as Mercedes shook her head at the ringing in her ears.

A moment later she was peeking over their shoulders again as best she could over the hefty packs on their backs holding the flamethrowers' fuel, to a sight that she knew was going to haunt her dreams. In the beams from their headlights and fiery glare of the streams of flame, the crudely dug roughly six-foot chamber she could see writhed with a churning mass of burning filaments tipped with tiny gaping mouths of jagged teeth, more lines of flame falling from the walls and dropping from the ceiling as the red streams swept across them. Again, she imagined she could hear high-pitched tiny screams as the soldiers quartered the room again and again until all motion had long ceased and the beams of light grew dim with hazy smoke.

Finally Hopkins shut down his flamethrower and stepped back. "That'll do it, as best as we'll be able to manage. Let's get outta here, the alternate exit. With this much smoke from here and before coming up from where we entered, there'll be a mob watching there."

/\

She'd been right, the ride home was as unpleasant as she'd feared, so much so that her mother hadn't bothered asking for the story of what had happened before she shoved her into the shower (and Toshiko right behind her) while bagging up her clothes for the garbage. But even as she tried to avoid brushing against a wet, naked, squirming redhead in a shower really sized for one person, all while doing her best not to stare at Toshiko's athletically toned body, the glow at her heart lit by Andrews' final words when they were dropped off still warmed her: "I'm glad you guys came, me and Hopkins would probably be dead if you hadn't. Good job, both of you."