Chinangel's Rant: Alright, if you think that "The Sound of Thunder" has dark overtones, wait until you see what my twisted mind has spat out THIS time. Once again, it's an Onna Ranma fanfic, meaning that Ranma will be turning into a girl forever, this time however it is not by choice.

I should point out that I am a hairstylist, NOT a Doctor. What this means is that my knowledge of medical practices and the inner workings of the human body is very limited, as is my knowledge of robotics and artificial intelligence. Therefore, suspend disbelief, and my sincerest apologies to anyone with any specific knowledge in these fields.

All this being said: if you can look past this, then you may have fun, if not...well then perhaps this isn't the story for you.

Mosh Shrieken'sRant: Hello and welcome to the Sanity Corner. I'm here to keep the original author, Chinangel /\ up there, from going insane \/ down there. I'm also gonna help her out with some of the fighting, tech, and medical stuff.

That being said, The main reason we work together so well is that we are very alike. So, this will have everything that she has promised, with a few of my own additives. Look for more comedy, often at the absolute most inappropriate times.

Now, ON WITH THE SHOW!!!!

Suggested Listening Music: Angels by Within Temptation

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"Preliminary audio report, Echo Squad. Rei Mitsuhito reporting. Have located candidate eight.Name: Saotome Ranma, age sixteen; Gender: Male and Female. Saotome changes gender with application of different temperature water, warm for male, cold for female. Birth gender is currently unknown.

Candidate appears to be in exceptional physical health, and has extensive knowledge of unarmed Martial Arts.Candidate appears to have a number of rivals in the area, and all appear to practice various forms of Martial Arts.

Continued observation of candidate is recommended. Suggest also extended observation of family. Will advise as needed."

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"Audio report number seven, Echo Squad. Rei Mitsuhito reporting. Have made contact with one member of candidate eight's extended family: Tendo Nabiki, and have purchased a series of pictures of candidate eight, which are included in folder. She appears to hold little concern for candidate eight's welfare, and thus squad leader suggests utilizing her as a source of information concerning candidate eight.

Squad will continue to observe and advise as needed."

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"Audio report number nine, Echo Squad. Rei Mitsuhito reporting. Have observed a probable candidate. Name of Hibiki Ryouga, estimated age, sixteen. Hibiki seems to hold severe hostility towards candidate eight, bearing some kind of personal grudge. Hibiki possesses great amounts of strength, much more than should be possible for any human, but also has no sense of direction. Hibiki appears unable to follow the most basic of directions and gets lost far too easily. If this was corrected, then he may be a valuable asset. If it is not, he could be a hindrance.

Squad will continue to observe and advise as needed."

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"Audio report number thirteen, Echo Squad. Rei Mitsuhito reporting. Other Martial Artists of Nerima, while exceptional are unsuited to the program.

Kuno Tatewaki and Kuno Kodachi suffer from extreme psychosis, and have rather mundane skills compared to the others. There are two elderly martial artists and while both seem to be the most powerful of all the Martial Artists, candidate eight included, neither would survive the process. Two gaijins, one named Shampoo, who relies on weapons, and another one named Mousse, who is all but blind and hevily relies on weapons. Both with little skill in unarmed combat.

There is also Kuonji Ukyo who also relies on a very unusual weapon that would be hard to duplicate.

All in all, the only other possible candidate would be Hibiki Ryouga, who has gone missing once again.

Squad will continue to observe and advise as needed."

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"Audio report number eighteen, Echo Squad. Rei Mitsuhito reporting. Candidate has been attacked by a Chinese Prince and his two vassals. The Prince is named Herb and apparently suffers from the same curse as candidate eight. However, the Prince somehow managed to seal himself in the cursed form and for some reason came looking for candidate eight. Candidate eight's curse is now locked too and she has left to pursue the Prince. Candidate eight also took two allies to help deal with the Prince's vassals.

Squad will pursue and continue to observe and advise as needed."

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"Dammit! We just lost visual of the target!"

"How? What happened?"

"The Mountain exploded! Likely some kind of massive ki maneuver."

"Retrieve the target immediately! Provide emergency medical assistance and await evac! We can't afford to lose her!"

"Yes sir."

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The Weapon

A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by

Dianna "chinangel" Machen

And Mosh Shrieken

Ranma flipped away from another blast from Herb, and and countered with one of her own. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lime go flying and crash into a wall, Ryouga close behind. She smirked to herself. Good ol' Ryouga: it was impossible to keep that stubborn fighter down; he would just get up twice as mad and three times as determined to beat you down.

Ranma of course always found a way of defeating the wandering boy, but not many that didn't involve getting him lost again.

Though, to be fair, Ryouga did that part well enough on his own.

Another explosion sprayed stony shrapnel, and a piece hit Ranma in the forehead, sending her into an undignified spin. She got up and cursed herself for getting distracted, and she refocused on the dragon-man hovering above her.

"Damn!" she growled as she spulled herself up, "I can't beat him punch-for-punch, he's jus' got too much ki." She grumbled as her analytical mind began to work in overdrive, "An' he can fire those double blasts...," her eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait! Fire! The Hiryu Shoten Ha!" A smile that many of Nerima's Martial Artists would recognize graced her features.

She jumped to her feet.

"Oi! Nice Shot!" She laughed heartily, before folding her hands casually behind her head. Herb looks (looked) at her, confusion starting to muddle his smug features. Uncertain of what to do he charged a smaller blast and launched it experimentally at her.

She casually evaded the energy attack, her smile not faltering in the slightest as the ground exploded behind her.

"Oops, ya missed." she teased her opponent childishly, and blew him a raspberry. Herb frowned and launched another ball of ki. But she ducked, and took her shoe off as the blast passed over her head, and put another crater into the mountain.

"Darn rocks," she loudly grumbled "always gettin' in my shoes." she slipped it back on, and gave Herb a winning smile, "But not a lot we can do about it, ne?"

It then Dawned on Herb.

"Y-you're...you're IGNORING me?!" he demanded angrily, as he started to shake. She looked innocently at him, her features brimming with (false) concern.

"Well no," she explained, "I jus' don't want the Musk Princess to hurt herself." Prince Herb's eyes widened and he shrieked in rage and flew at the red-head, who calmly hopped to the side, letting Herb plow head-first into the ground.

"Oh gee, that hurt. Ya want me ta getcha Mommy?" she asked with worry. Herb tore himself out of the ground and with another howl, launched himself at the girl, his arms and legs flailing uncoordinatedly. Ranma had her hands clasped behind her back, and a schoolgirl giggle escaped her smiling lips as she hopped, ducked and bounced just out of his way. Lightly commenting or berating the Musk Prince.

"Oi, come on Princess, girls shouldn't fight," she taunted Herb while dodging a punch.
"Please stop Princess, you're embarrassin' the Amazons. Oops! I meant Musk." she continued as she hopped away from a kick.

"I...I'LL KILL YOU!!!!" he roared and prepared another blast.

Neither of them saw the incoming kettle.

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Ryouga bounced away from another one of Lime's kicks, and countered with one of his own canon-like punches. Lime was fast, but Ryouga was very experienced in battle combatants that outstripped him in speed, and had aimed higher than normal to compensate for the impending jump. Of course, Lime did try and jump out of the way, and ended up folding around Ryouga's stone-shattering fist.

It was pure luck on Lime's part that he caught the fist in the stomach as opposed to his chest, and was simply fired back into a stone wall. It hurt, but not as much as broken ribs would have.

He peeled himself out of the wall and collapsed down in a pool of warm water, gasping as he tried to get his breath back.

Ryouga on the other hand stared hard, not at Lime but rather at the object NEXT to Lime, the Kaisuifu?. The kettle...

The object they had come all the way from Japan to find.

"I could destroy it now," he thought, "and Ranma would never be able to marry Akane, and I would have my revenge! I would have beaten Saotome! Then...Then I'd..." the more rational part of his mind sobered, "I'd never be able to repay Saotome for saving me from Herb's damn ladle." His features hardened. He didn't like it, but he did owe a debt to Ranma.

"DAAAMNNIIITTT!" he roared and charged the just-starting-to-stand Lime. The Musk warrior raised his hands in defense, but instead of a punch, Ryouga grabbed him with both hands, and threw him over his shoulder. Hard. Lime went flying off towards another large rock and Lime whimpered before slamming face-first into the stone (which cracked in a spider-web pattern) and sliding down the wall.

Ryouga on the other hand, had grabbed the kettle and filled it with water, then he turned and with a shout of: "YOU OWE ME RANMA!" launched the kettle at quarter strength (which was still twice that of an average person) towards the pig-tailed girl.

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The kettle landed with a heavy metallic sound on Herb's head, and he froze. Ranma did too, and in spite of herself began to shake, then snicker, then, she began to roll on the ground laughing. Herb stared, the slightly crumpled kettle on his head, and water trickling down across his face in a most undignified way.

His face turned purple as his enemy howled in laughter at him.

How dare she...how...dare...she! That little...that...he...

The sudden ki spike was the only warning any of them had before the mountain-top erupted in a field of rage-powered ki blast.

Not all that far away, a team began to scramble.

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"Damnit! We just lost visual of the subject!" a moment of silence followed as the speaker listened to orders coming out of the radio set in her hands,
"The Mountain has exploded, likely some kind of massive ki maneuver." Again more silence.

"Yes sir," she confirmed and reattached the com to her hip before turning to her team. They were all clad in special-ops black, and had been watching the engagement from farther down the mountain side.

"Right," she said, "we are to locate and retrieve the subject from the mountain top, stabilize her if need be, and then wait for extraction. Move!"

The five man cell quickly began to move up the mountain, seemingly oblivious to the falling debris, heading towards the newly crafted plateau, and hoping that they hadn't allowed their target to be killed.

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Ranma slowly regained consciousness, and immediately whished he hadn't. Or rather, she hadn't. Ranma-chan sighs, staring down at her naked body, noting the various injuries. Gonna lose both my legs. Wonder where my arm went. Oh, there it is. She looked to the right, seeing most of her left arm lying next to a destroyed kettle. Recognition slowly settled in, and she realized that it was the Kaisuifu, the one thing that could restore her manhood. As the emotional loss pulled her towards unconsciousness, she barely saw someone in black approaching her.

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Ranma-chan slowly awoke; aware that time had passed, but not how much. Oddly enough, something kept her detached from her body, as she could see what had happened, but not feel anything or particularly care about it.

She glanced almost unwillingly downward, and saw, past her large breasts (completely uninjured too. How ironic.) that her stomach was severely injured, and (that) there was a broken rib sticking out of her chest.

The rock that had been crushing her lower body was gone now, and she could see what was left of her legs. She imagined that if she didn't have this curious disinterest, she might vomit. Both legs were completely pulverized, little chips of bone and shredded muscles showing through her skin.

Sheglanced to the right, seeing her right forearm still under a large rock, but there were several pairs of black gloved hands on it, apparently trying to shift it off her. She heard movement to the left, and saw another black-clothed person bandaging up her stump where her left arm once was.

Ranma-chan looked up at the person, and realized that she was female. An ingrained response from living with Akane, who would mallet him from being within ten feet of any woman younger than Cologne, caused him to squirm slightly in an attempt to get away. The woman bandaging him noticed this, and immediately poked Ranma-chan with a syringe. Ranma's struggles got weaker, as she drifted into inky blackness of unconsciousness.

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Rei Mitsuhito was very worried. This was supposed to be a simple recon run, but instead her team was forced to provide emergency first aid and get immediate extraction of a severely wounded young girl. She grimaced, though, at the thought of what would happen to her and her team if anything were to befall this particular girl.

Rei's attention was drawn back to her unconscious patient as she finished bandaging the ruined stump of an arm. She shuddered unconsciously at what she had to do next. Slowly, unwillingly, she grabbed the pulped left leg of Ranma, and ripped it off. It was no big feat, seeing as how the leg was almost liquid, but the idea was just distasteful to her. She quickly disregarded her own sensibilities and repeated the procedure with Ranma's right leg.

Rei checked the status of the rest of her team, noting that the rock was off of Ranma's other arm, and one of her team was bandaging what could be saved and was not pulped, like her legs had been. One other person was gently pushing the exposed rib back inside Ranma and rearranging the fractured and broken ribs back into approximately the right places.

She shuddered again, and started wrapping up Ranma's leg, shifting slightly as one of her operatives kneeled next to her and bandaged the other leg. She looked over to the one agent not clustered around Ranma and asked "How soon till extraction?"

"Five minutes ma'am!" came the reply, and Rei snarled back "Tell them they've got three. Any later and we'll lose her." She worriedly turned back to Ranma-chan, finishing bandaging her leg and moving to help close the young neo-girl's chest.

Rei carefully supported Ranma, as one of her agents bandaged her torso. Rei was thankful that Ranma's spine was intact, as a broken or even fractured spine would have made things very difficult. Not like we couldn't work around it, she thought as she lifted Ranma up a bit higher, but it would have made things harder.

As the agent, who she didn't have the time to identify as they all looked almost identical, finished wrapping Ranma up, she heard the thumping roar of the helicopter. Rei looked up, and spotted the futuristic looking aircraft as it started to land. She gesturded to the agents, and hurried to confer with the pilot.

Two medics jumped out of the side hatch, carrying a stasis pod. The stasis pods were simple, man sized containers that could keep someone's condition from worsening. Rei didn't know exactly how they worked, but she knew enough. Someone properly hooked up to the pod would stay alive for at least an hour. After that, though, the person's injuries would resume(,) either improving (not likely) or deteriorating (extremely likely).

Rei stood by, feeling helpless, as the Meds hooked Ranma into the pod, and hauled it back to the 'copter. She would accompany them, but most of her team would stay behind for cleanup. She crouched next to the secured pod in the bay area of the specially modified medi-copter as it took off. Once high enough, the special jet engines would activate, propelling the transport at speeds not reached by normal helicopters.

She looked down at the bruised and burned face, and felt a tiny pang of guilt for taking this child from her family and friends.

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The very same friends were just awakening from the massive blast unleashed by an enraged Herb. Ryouga was first to awaken, groaning quietly as he attempted, and failed, to sit up. He looked around from his prone position, searching for Ranma, unsure if his throw had reached her. Him, his mind firmly reminded, Ranma is a guy, no matter what she, HE looks like.

"Right, now... where the hell am I?" The wandering boy grumbled and forced himself into a kneeling position. He looked about, while recalling what had happened: throwing the Kaisuifu, returning to Lime to beat him around for being a pain in the ass, and then light, and pain. Wait,…pain?

He looked down and sure enough, he had not escaped unscathed. His body was covered in burns and scrapes and he frowned. He knew he was not easy to hurt, the Bakusai Tenketsu training saw to that. He could soak up the most brutal of punches and kicks, ignore a majority of so-called secret techniques and ultimate attacks. So whatever hit him had to have been staggering, earth shaking.

Dammit! Why did Ranma always… wait! Ranma!

Adrenaline hit his system, allowing him to struggle upwards, perch on a nearby rock, and take in the view, and his heart sank. He was not in China, that much was certain. His heart was heavy as he stared at the billboard advertising soap.

Written in English.

Ryouga hung his head in frustration and anger, then looked towards the sky.

"God," he demanded, "Why do you hate me?"

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The Facility, as it was called was a humongous place. It was the kind of place conspiracy nuts whisper and hiss about, unnamed and officially nonexistent. Deep in a disclosed Japanese location, the labs and offices tinkered away, competing with the Americans to create better guns and more dangerous bombs.

They poked and prodded unknown technology, uncertain if they had a Martian death-ray, or a super-advanced toilet. The experiments performed were laughable and at first glance appeared to be the kind of thing out of a poorly written comic book or b-class movie. But closer inspection revealed dedicated individuals, working with determined proficiency.

Right then, a man ran at break-neck speed down a cold, metallic hall. He was an overweight gaijin, who's belly jiggled joyfully with every step he took. Though he wasn't actually overweight, he worked out, ate well, and followed a nutrition plan. His family just had a pre-disposition to weight problems. All in all, he was a nice guy in his mid thirties.

Pity the nice guy would never get very far in this line of work. He was a nice guy, and never ruthless. Poor bastard.

He pulled to a stop near one of the many metallic doors that dotted the length of the hall and fumbled in his lab-coat pockets. Pens and loose change clattered noisily against the floor, and people stopped to stare at the large gaijin, though he ignored them as he searched his pockets frantically.

Eventually, he produced a small thin plastic card, not much bigger than a playing card and he swiped it through the card reader blocking his progress. The red light on the reader flickered several times before reluctantly changing to green and the man shoved his way into the room after the lock clicked open.

"Doctor Karasu!" he bellowed in English and looked around, "Doctor Karasu!!"

The Lab was messy, horribly so. Post-it notes covered the walls and computers, various odd instruments littered the shelves and tables. In the center of the chaos, a startled Japanese woman with oddly golden eyes looked up at the fat gaijin.

"Edward!" she responded in unaccented English, "What's wrong?" the man huffed hard as he wound his way through the labyrinth that is Doctor Miyuki Karasu's personal lab. Though it looked more like a cross between a machine shop and a surgery. Various motors and engines were stacked next to human busts. Things that could have been guns were next to notes on human physiology and even a full working set of missile launchers lay attached to a human skeleton.

"One of your candidates is on the way here!" he explained though his eyes held a touch of curiosity as he looked at her. Miyuki blinked in confusion.

"What? I didn't 'okay' any candidates. I'm still going over their profiles." Edward shrugged.

"I'm just the messenger. They are on their way now, and she is in a bad way. Potentially fatal wounds." Miyuki frowned angrily.

"Which candidate is it?"

"Eight."

"Eight...eight..." her eyes widened, "Wait, the kid!?" she all but screamed. Edward nodded.

"Yeah, the Martial Artist." Karasu's eyes were completely unreadable, but her tone, if not her words, betrayed her thoughts.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" she roared and grabbed her forehead as if nursing a headache.

"Doctor Karasu?" Edward asked in an agitated voice, "What about the candidate? She's suffering from severe wounds. She'll be dead within the hour."

Doctor Miyuki Karasu stared at one of the busts, then she turned back and stared grimly at Edward.

"Once again, the choice is made for me," she grumbled bitterly, "Have the O.R prepped and get me her Team on the radio. I need to know what I'm dealing with."

Edward nodded and sprinted from the room.

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"We have the Doctor on the horn!" Came the cry from one of Rei's black-suited subordinates. the brunette nodded and grabbed for the headset.

"With whom am I speaking." Came an all too calm and detached female voice.

"Rei Mitsuhito, Squad leader Ma'am." Rei grit her teeth as she answered. Gods she hated these damn lab jockeys, they treated every situation like it was a test to be analyzed.

"Alright, Miss Squad Leader, what are the candidate's injuries?" fighting the urge to punch something, or someone, Rei made her way back to the stasis pod and looked through the clear glass view-window.

"Ummm...missing both legs, missing one arm at the shoulder and the other at the elbow. Multiple rib fractures, possible concussion, internal injuries, to put it bluntly ma'am: she's a mess."

There was a brief pause, and she thought she heard what sounded like a groan of frustration on the other side, but then the cold, almost bored voice came back.

"Very well, bring her to the twenty-second level, Operating Room fourteen. My team will take care of the rest."

"Yes Ma'am." she returned smartly, and she heard the head-set click off. Then she removed hers, moved. to the back of the helicopter, and punched the door. Her hand hurt. A lot. Now she was angry at the disinterested Doctor, the door, her hand, and herself. Why did men do that!? Why did SHE do that!?

"Damn." she cursed and turned to her team who were looking at her with mixed amusement and confusion.

"We have to take the candidate to the twenty-second level, and O.R fourteen. There the Doctor's medical team will take over." The other team members nodded.

"Yo! E.T.A: thirty seconds!" the pilot called from the cockpit. The team grabbed the redhead's pod and moved into position near the doors.

"Hit the ground running!" Rei called over her shoulder and the helicopter began to descend into a towering, snow-capped mountain.

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In the pod Ranma groaned and shifted, moving her severed limbs slightly, she then drifted back to sleep. A lifetime away, Kasumi Tendo felt a chill pass through her, and she looked towards the horizon.

"Ranma." she whispered in fear. Something bad had happened. She knew it. She just knew it. She was afraid that the pig-tailed Martial Artist's luck had just run out.

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"She has ten minutes left, move!" Rei snapped over her shoulder as the team bolted as quickly as they dared down the halls. Doctors and scientists in their pristine white lab coats dodged out of the way as the special-ops team charged down the hall.

"The damn pod wasn't fully charged!" she hissed angrily, and swore to shoot the person in charge of the pods. They shouldn't have had to rush like this, they risked aggravating the candidate's injuries and the candidate could not take much more of this abuse goddamnitt! If she died it was Rei's ass out on the line! The desperate Echo Squad leader cursed as she saw a particularly slow gaggle of the lab techies ahead of her, instead of moving they stood around and stared, with stupefied expressions.

She yanked her side-arm and began to wave it in the air.

"MOVE! MOVE GODDAMNITT! MOVE!" she yelled in her accented English. The techies didn't react to her words so much as they did to her gun, and leapt out of the way.

She looked at the different doors. each one had a digital number on their displays indicating which room it was.

"Fourteen...fourteen...fourteen...wait here, HERE!" she called and hit the door with her shoulder. The swinging doors flew apart as the team shot in, pushing the pod ahead of them.

There the golden eyed Doctor waited, her eyes completely blank. But her medical team was much easier to read: fear, anxiety and the rush of adrenaline pumping through them.

"Her pod wasn't charged, she has nine minutes of life-support left." Rei stated sharply. the Doctor looked at the pod as it was transferred to her team.

"I see...," she looked back at Rei, "Miss Squad leader. Find who was in charge of that pod and shoot them. Then, drag them outside and shoot them again." Rei felt her respect for the Doctor begrudgingly rise.

"Yes Ma'am." she turned and snapped her fingers at her team and they hit the exit doors, and as they did so, Rei thumbed the safety of her weapon off and pulled the slide back. This was one order she fully intended on following through with.

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In the Operating Room, Doctor Miyuki Karasu looked sadly at the girl as she was removed from the pod and her team swarmed over her, hooking up life-support machines to aid her failing organs and to relieve the stress on her poor heart. Then they began to remove the bandages. Meanwhile, another member of her team wheeled in a trolley.

The trolley had arms and legs on it. Arms and legs that though flesh coloured, were not skin and tissue, but alloy and circuitry. She shook her head miserably.

"Forgive me now," She whipered to the prone red-haired girl, "For tomorrow I shall not deserve it." Then she joined her team in unwrapping the girl's bandages, and destroying her future.

End of Part 1

Chinangel's Rant: Ye Gods! By and far the longest chapter I've ever helped to write. Please thank Mosh Shrieken for his hard, hard work on this fic. Without him, this fanfic would fall flat on its face! By this point you should probably realize that I don't write normal fanfics. All my fics are dark and disturbed and this one will be no different (Although, thanks to Shrieken there will be some light parts, but anything dark and brooding, will probably be my influence. Anyhow, thank you for reading this first part. Please drop all your comments and questions in the appropriate box and please, no flames. If you didn't like it, say why, but nothing like "Ha ha you suck!" because that betrays limited maturity. Now onto Shrieken!

Mosh Shrieken's Rant: Thanks Angel. Most of the fic was already planned out and in the process of being written before I even joined on. Still, I'd like to thank the beautiful Chinangel for letting me collaborate in this endeavor. For those of you who didn't understand what I just said, I thanked Kitty (my nickname for her, not yours) for letting me help out.

A very very special thanks goes out to Dumbledork for saving this from the mess that it was. Thanks hun!