AN: Sorry for skipping a week here. I've had so many lousy memories associated with Christmas build up over the years, that at this point, I just about fall apart around this time of the year. And forget things, like to post the end of the story.

((()))

Kota Kinabalu wasn't a city that most westerners (or Japanese for that matter) had heard of, but it was the largest city in the northern reaches of Borneo, and was one of the largest industrial and commercial cities in eastern Malaysia. It also boasted a fair bit of tourism, and as such, while it was strange to see a cruise liner such as that which brought Natsuna Sakurada and her entourage to the city sailing into the bay, it wasn't altogether unheard of. If the American fleet (and the handful of JSDF ships that had moved with it) hadn't remained out at sea, it might have drawn more attention, but as it was, only those who went on long fishing expeditions, the Malaysian Government, and the local police were aware of the battlegroup's presence.

Some of them had developed the suspicion that the Emperor and President Clinton had both decided to go for a cruise, and they were seeing the appropriate escort in position. That when the ship docked, only a handful of Japanese of no particular note disembarked (most of them schoolgirls), and began to engage in generic tourist activities, resulted in some confusion, but allowed many to pass time in idle speculation.

It wouldn't be until nearly noon, on October 24th, that the presence of said 'tourists' would begin to be relevant to activities that were unfortunately energetic within the city.

((()))

"So, cat-man," Revy asked as she stared at the 'human' across the compartment from her, "If you can teleport and shit, what the hell do you need a boat for?"

'I'm cursed,' Jaeger wrote out, 'You ever tried to save an entire city?'

"Why the $(*$ would I try to do that?" Revy asked, glaring at Jaeger.

'I did,' Jaeger said, 'Three times, depending on how you define 'city.' The third time I did, somebody was pissed that I broke their magical toys when I did so, and cursed me for my insolence.'

"Why didn't the !#$er just kill you?" Revy said, "I've just met you, and I can already tell you're annoying as hell."

'I don't know,' Jaeger replied, 'But I strongly suspect that it's because it wanted me to suffer more than just killing me would have caused.'

"That's pretty twisted," Revy said, a predatory grin spreading across her face, "What do you intend to do to the $#(*er if you find him again?"

'Kill him,' Jaeger replied, 'He's too powerful, and too callous, to leave loose.'

"Just kill him?" Revy said, disbelieving, "That's $#*(ing boring, how you gonna kill him? With the glowy slash thing, drop a bomb on him-"

She cut off and nearly drew her pistols, as Jaeger's snorted and his eyes glowed, and for a second, his presence seemed to drown the entire room out.

''He,'' Jaeger wrote, 'Was a damn dragon, larger than this boat, capable of magic powerful enough to level a city with a single word, and not someone you take chances with. You shoot him, you stab him, you bomb him, you throw acid on him, then if you do manage to kill him, you melt the body down into slag, burn it into ash, then shoot it into the sun. You do not screw around with dragons at the height of their power.'

Revy was grinning, a crazed light in the back of her eyes.

"I've changed my mind," Revy said, "I like your shit."

((()))

Nephrite had frequently found his assigned task of keeping a divinatory eye on Jaeger to be dull; aside from odd moments like the one he'd just been witness to, which revealed a great deal about Jaeger's character. The fact that the shapeshifter (Nephrite still wasn't certain if the ability was inherent to his species or magical) was of a sufficiently utilitarian mindset to be... thorough was highly relevant news; as well as knowing that he apparently had experience with fighting greater magical beasts.

But, knowing that the shapeshifter would be arriving at the nearby city shortly before noon meant that he had news to deliver to his queen, and an army to begin moving. Nephrite grinned; war was upon them, and part of him relished the coming challenge, even if he would spend much of the battle tracking Jaeger until the cat lead them to the jewel-bearers.

((()))

When we made landfall at the docks, at three minutes past noon, I was nervous. It was hard to miss the USN carrier battle group parked just far enough off the coast to be in international water, especially when they challenged us. Fortunately, when Greenwood answered the call, they elected not to give us any further trouble, though Dutch and Rock probably figured out that there's military proper involved in this situation at that point. The Japanese guy is sharper than he generally lets on, and I wonder how closely his history parallels that of his fictional mirror in the dimension I originate from.

That's actually something of considerable relevance, considering that when I reverted to my cat form and joined Greenwood and Aippaq in making landfall, he and Revy were the only members of the Lagoon's crew who accompanied us. It wasn't easy but I managed to talk Revy into wearing something a bit less attention-getting, in exchange for smuggling her guns past port security for her; she spent a good five minutes inspecting them after I gave them back to her, to make sure I hadn't 'messed them up.'

If we hadn't had our little talk about offing Dragons, I somehow doubt she'd have even let me do that much.

'Immigration' difficulties aside, once we'd made it past Kota Kinabalu's docks themselves, we were swept up into the most common feature of southeast Asian cities; huge crowds. Greenwood was of somewhat average height for a Canadian, which meant that he was tall enough to stick out in the crowd, and I selected him to use as a mount, while I tried to catch sight of any of the people we were looking for.

((()))

Ami was more than happy to spend time on a vacation with her (many!) new friends, even if she knew it wasn't 'really' a vacation. A few days traveling on a luxury cruise liner, followed by a visit to a city in the tropics, certainly felt like a vacation to her, even if they were in Kinabalu for a purpose much more important than simple relaxation. That they were making their way towards the Jalan Tun Razak City Center, to hopefully meet with her cat again sometime between two and three PM, was for her of both personal and 'professional' interest.

It was also interesting, from an intellectual perspective, being in both a different city, and a different culture simultaneously. Both the size and style of the structures in Kota Kinabalu were drastically different than Tokyo's glitzy hyper-modern facade, and although the language barrier largely prevented her from plumbing the depths of it, said barrier in and of itself was strong evidence of the cultural divide. Ami hoped that once the troubles with the Dark Kingdom were resolved, they'd be able to spend at least a week in the city, so that she could learn about it and its people in more depth and detail.

Her thoughts were jarred from their usual course as an alarm started sounding throughout the city, and the pedestrian traffic came to a shuddering halt, the people on the streets (both local and tourist) more confused than scared by the unexpected sound. The alarms lasted for only about ten seconds though, before cutting out to be replaced with a loud, commanding voice barking out clipped instructions in Malaysian.

"Close in girls," Saeko instructed, the adult who had more or less taken 'charge' of the girls for their expedition into the city, "We could have a stampede on our hands shortly, and we'll want to keep together so we don't get trampled."

"I don't think anyone here would be too much trouble," Makoto opined as she eyed the (mostly shorter than herself) Malaysians and tourists surrounding them; given her longer legs, she tended to be slightly farther out than the others.

"Doesn't matter in a mob," Minako said assertively as she tugged Makoto in closer to Saeko and the other adults with them, "Quantity has a quantity all of its own."

"...What was that even supposed to mean?" Rei asked absently, most of her attention on the body language of the translator/tour-guide they'd hired to show them around the city.

For her part, Ami followed her mother's instructions quietly, practically molding herself to the older woman's back. Saeko herself was standing behind and between the two detectives Natsuna had sent to 'keep an eye on them,' making sure the girls closed in while the translator finished listening to the announcement.

"It seems a strange group is attacking the city from the East," A usually-cheerful man by the name of Joyo said grimly as the crowd started to move again, "It is being asked that everyone clear the streets, either returning to their homes or to a public building if their homes are more than ten minutes away on foot."

"That seemed like a long announcement for so little said," One of the escorting officers remarked casually.

"They names a number of districts where people should simply flee West while the police and army try to mobilize," Joyo said grimly, "We are in none of these districts. Come, I will guide you back to the boat."

"How far are we from Jalan Tun Razak?" The other guard said, tapping an earbud as he spoke.

"Perhaps twenty minutes on foot," Joyo said as the crowd around them began moving again in earnest, some people attempting to force their way through slower pedestrians, "If the streets clear quickly, we could be there in as few as ten."

"Then we will go to Jalan Tun," The officer said, "It is imperative that we meet up with our friends there as soon as possible."

"But what about the attackers?" Joyo asked, eying the girls nervously, "Surely you would not want to risk the children when you could just sail away?"

"You are aware of the American battlegroup nearby?" The officer asked.

"Some of the guides on tour boats have mentioned it," Joyo said hesitantly, his eyes on the thinning crowd around them.

"We will be able to call them for support from helicopter gunships if necessary," The officer said bluntly, "If your government has requested it, they are most likely already on the way."

Joyo's eyes widened in shock, and it took a few moments for him to stop stuttering, but once he did, he began leading them all to the city center.

((()))

On the outskirts, blood was flowing in the streets. Youma were, compared to modern humans, nigh-tireless, immune to most small arms fire, and between their ability to drain energy and their claws, more than capable of tearing through anything less than full-up body armor. All things which none of the Malaysian civilians possessed in anything approaching meaningful numbers. The Youma moved out of the forested slopes just above the Dongongon district of the city, a small residential area directly bordering one of the outlying commercial districts, and moved from house to house, draining or killing everyone they found, whichever their instincts directed them towards.

Zoicite had focused on quality over quantity, and as a result, most of the Youma hadn't had their paranatural equivalent of 'higher brain function' restored, though as they gorged on the energy of defenseless Malaysians, that began to change. Not that the change was of much help to the Malaysians.

((()))

Fortunately, we were able to make contact in spite of the alarms, and Revy managed to avoid killing anyone in spite of several jostlings from the crowd as a half-panic swept through the tourists and denizens of Kota Kinabalu. I hadn't expected contact to be made with Saeko, the Senshi, and just three adult men; my messages to Natsuna and Saeko weren't exactly long on detail, but I'm pretty sure I was clear enough that I was not certain about having lost pursuit.

Ami's reaction when she caught sight of me was... awkward.

((()))

"Jaeger!" Ami burst out, somehow catching sight of the cat riding on a caucasian man's shoulder before any of the other girls did, and immediately breaking away from the group.

A flair for drama, a conceptualization about how heartfelt reunions were supposed to occur, a piece of pathos that was a lively part of Usagi, Minako, and Rei (though certainly not absent from others), told them that Jaeger and Ami should have both broken apart from their respective groups, and met dramatically in the middle while the others tried to catch up. They were somewhat disappointed to discover that, despite the mostly thinned out crowd, Makoto and one of their two escorts were both too wearing of letting the slender Mizuno girl run off alone, and their longer legs and higher level of overall fitness allowed them to keep pace with her easily.

Jaeger also failed to fulfill his assigned role of breaking off from his group, instead carefully dismounting from his current 'ride' when Ami neared the group, then rearing up on his hind legs to plant his forepaws against Ami's belly as she reached him, helping her stop without crashing into the man who'd been carrying him.

"Jaeger!" Ami shouted, clumsily dropping down to seize the large cat and hug him, "Don't you go disappearing and make me worry like that!"

Jaeger purred deeply, his chest resonating deeply enough that the small girl could feel it in her bones, thrumming through her arms and ribcage.

"Hey kid," Revy's brash voice called out, interrupting the 'moment,' "You know you're hugging a #$*(ing shapeshifter man, not a cat, right?"

"Yes," Ami said sharply, looking up with more steel in her gaze than any of her friends had seen in her before, "But he's also my first friend, and he has never lied to me."

Then she stood, holding the cat tightly to her chest as she glared up at the chinese-american woman who wasn't exactly trying to hide that she was armed any longer.

"He's fully literate, he's fought to protect me, and he's trustworthy," Ami declared emphatically, "Jaeger is the best cat ever. Even if he's not really a cat."

"Feisty little bitch, aren't you?" Revy said, not sure if she should be impressed or pissed.

"I take it you are the contact we are here to meet?" Rock said, stepping forward and carefully laying a hand on Revy's shoulder.

"That'd be us," Saeko said as the rest of the group closed to conversational range, "We need to get down to the docks, the attack coming out of the East is probably here for Jaeger, us, or both."

"You're going to need more than a pair of suits to deal with something big enough to take on a whole city," Revy said as she eyed the two plainclothes officers escorting the girls, "And what's with all the brats?"

"Operational cover," One of the escorts said, "Now if we could get back to the ship as soon as possible, hopefully we can end this conflict with a minimum of bloodshed."

None of those present were sufficiently separated from the potential dangers of the situation to disagree.

((()))

I had no idea that Natsuna had either this kind of money, or this kind of pull. She brought an entire cruise liner to Malaysia. I don't know if that's personal wealth, or personal influence speaking, but either way, I'm glad she decided to use the pull. Once we boarded said cruise liner, it also very quickly became apparent that she had brought what amounted to a small private army along with as well; what looked like a couple hundred of Tokyo's riot police, roughly as many of the Japanese SWAT equivalent, and and indiscriminate mess of beat cops who'd been issued sidearms more powerful than the pissant little revolvers they usually carried.

Revy and Rock were so stiff around the huge mass of police, even if they weren't in uniform, that it was almost hilarious. I was, unfortunately, painfully aware that her being so tense could result in a bloodbath, but both her and Rock were aware that not even someone as crazy-fast as her could hope to cut her way through all the police on that ship. Natsuna, being the social master that she is, figured out the dynamic within seconds of catching sight of our group, and dealt with it adroitly.

((()))

"Ah," Natsuna said, a just-slightly-predatory smile edging across her face, "Jaeger, so good to see you again. I assume these are your latest conveyors?"

Jaeger rolled his eyes, before twisting around slightly in Ami's grip to present the notepad at the back of his neck, and wrote out a response.

'Independent Contractors, I picked them because they were the best balance between heavily-armed and discreet I could find. I see you went for neither in your travel options.'

"Discretion," Natsuna said, her smile widening as she gestured idly to the top deck of the cruise ship around them, "Is sometimes a tool best discarded when it is what your foe's entire survival depends upon. I decided concentration of force was a better plan than trying to remain unnoticed when my opposition has magic."

'I hope it's enough,' Jaeger wrote out, 'There's one, probably two more Dark Generals out there, probably leading the attack on the city, and we haven't even seen Beryl yet.'

"Enough?" Natsuna said, raising an eyebrow, clearly amused, "This is just what I brought, the Americans brought an entire fleet and aircraft carrier."

Revy tensed; Rock gawked, Jaeger twitched.

'There is no overkill,' Jaeger wrote out, 'Only 'open fire' and 'reload.''

((()))

"Where the hell is our military?" The mayor of Kota Kinabalu demanded, nearly screaming into his phone.

"Mobilizing, sir," The strained voice of a junior officer came from the other end of the line, "Every Royal Army asset in East Malaysia is now on alert, and Royal Navy and Royal Airforce assets in all of Malaysia are deploying as we speak."

"We need men here now," The mayor hissed, "The beasts are a quarter of the way through the city already, and the police are doing nothing to slow them down!"

"Sir," The officer said, a hint of anger beginning to leak into his tone, "I can see, directly outside of my office, soldiers sprinting to their armories and transports to begin deployment-"

"THEN TELL THEM TO RUN FASTER, DAMMIT!"

"IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO THAN SCREAM AT PEOPLE TRYING TO HELP YOU," The officer shouted back, finally snapping, "THEN SHOUT AT SOMEONE ELSE!"

The line went dead as the officer disconnected.

"#! (*$," The mayor swore, casting his mind about desperately for a way to keep his city from being torn about, before turning to stare out over the ocean.

"Someone else, eh?" He said, "Suicide to talk to the Americans, but the JSDF..."

((()))

Nephrite continued to watch as the shapeshifter was ushered through the sea-faring vessel's interior, until conveniently enough, he arrived in a room with what the Dark General immediately recognized as the six of the seven champions of the Youma clans. Who were strangely docile, considering that a known hostile was amongst them, and that six rainbow jewels were sticking out of their chests. For a long moment, Nephrite considered acting on the information himself, but after long, long thought, he chose instead to go to his queen with the information, confident that she would order swift action.

He was right.

((()))

Revy was starting to get a bit freaked out by just what she had walked into, though she would never admit it. It hadn't been too hard to figure out that Greenwood was military, though guessing based on how not-stiff he was, she'd figured he was either done with his service stint, or in some sort of reserve service. One Canuck soldier she'd been more than able to handle; the Eskimo he'd brought with him was probably decent in a fight, but he'd completely lacked the killer instinct that would have had her label him a serious threat.

The cat-man was shit-bonkers disturbing at first, but way too loose to be any kind of cop or military; she'd kept an eye on him anyways though. But an entire ship full of cops, and a woman Rock said was the head of the entire damn Tokyo police force, which put her in charge of forty thousand men...

This shit was bigger than anything she'd ever been involved with, and if it weren't for her complete unwillingness to present a weak front, she'd have jumped overboard within five minutes of boarding the damn cruise ship. When they walked into a room filled with six !# $iing monsters though, she hit the cap of her weird-shit-o-meter, and only Rock's tight grip on her shoulder kept her from drawing and opening up right then and there.

When a # $(ing pretty boy appeared in a #$*(ing flash of *! #ing dark light, her weird-shit-o-meter blew its top, and she drew and opened fire, regardless of Rock trying to pull her back out of the large cabin by the shoulder.

((()))

Nephrite's memories of being shot via his shadow were not wholly clear, but they were clear enough that when a woman started shooting at him less than a second after he teleported into the room, he knew that the weapons were not to be taken lightly. Not that two handguns by themselves were a major threat to him, but his (only) prior experience told him that where there was one weapon, there would soon be more.

Bullets crashed into his shield, and Nephrite deftly angled it so that it also shielded him against Jaeger's lunge, the large cat bouncing off of the barrier, heedless of the bullets whizzing past him. When the woman paused to reload her weapons, however, Senshi Jupiter stepped up to support the cat in another attack, and Nephrite was forced to fall back a step. Several of the others in the room had started to react by then, drawing weapons or recoiling away from him, but that was alright, Nephrite had expected it.

A single step further back put the Dark General within arm's reach of Boxer, one of the more potent champions; after that it only took him laying a hand on the Youma's shoulder, and they had disappeared in a flash of magical teleportation.

((()))

"I've got him," The elder woman called over the CB radio that the younger woman was holding, "He's aboard the big cruise liner at the docks, but he won't be for long."

"Why not?" The younger asked, carefully surveying the city around her from her seat atop the Tun Mustapha tower.

"There's an army of monsters attacking the city out of the Southeast," The elder replied, "It looks like elite mooks, and they're attacking the civilians."

"I'll go looking for him there then," The younger said, moving towards the tower's edge, "Will you be coming in?"

"Too early," The elder said, "I'll keep an eye out for whatever is leading them, and move in only if necessary."

"Alright, I'm moving now, out," The younger said as she leapt off of the tower, stowing the CB in an oddly-shaped backpack as she did so, "Time to go get some bastard's attention."

((()))

"We have just lost the strategic initiative," Natsuna barked, quelling the chaos that had nearly broken out, "Our enemy has located us, most likely by scrying Jaeger, and has shown the ability to strike and fade with near-impunity. We know they already have assets locked down in the city however, and we need to force them to engage here if at all possible. Luna, Artemis, Jaeger, or anybody else, any advice on how to do that?"

Jaeger jumped forward to stand directly in front of Natsuna, before his shape rippled, expanded, and formed into a fully-grown male human, seizing the attention of everyone in the large cabin, especially the Mizunos'.

'Attack the leaders' egos,' Jaeger wrote out, holding his notepad directly in front of Natsuna as he did so, 'Beryl, their queen, is a raging egomaniac, and the surviving Dark Generals aren't much better.'

"I agree," Luna and Artemis said simultaneously, before Luna continued by herself, "Earth Kingdom nobility always had overly-large egos, and it only became more intense after Metallia became involved from what I remember of the assault on the Moon."

"Anybody have anything to add or detract from that?" Natsuna asked, speaking so quickly she nearly cut the Mau off, and reaching out to one of her aides for a radio after just five seconds in which no-one else responded, "All TMPD personnel," she declared through the device, "We're going on full alert and deploying into the city at once. Bring heavy weapons, and don't stop for anything, we have entered a Ragnarok scenario."

She lowered the radio, and swept her gaze across the cabin's occupants, some of them only just realizing how captive her force of personality held them.

"Senshi, jewel-bearers," She declared, "None of you are military, none of you are police officers, and I hold no legal authority over you, but if you want to help me save the world, now is the time."

She held their gazes for a long collective moment, before turning and heading towards the large cabin's exit.

"Come with me if you want the world to live," She called back over her shoulder, "And Jaeger, we brought a toy for you."

((()))

"You have brought me only one jewel," Beryl said, her gaze harsh with disapproval as she looked back and forth between the bound orange-skinned Youma, and one of her two surviving generals, "How do you justify this failure?"

"The Senshi have subverted the champions somehow, my queen," Nephrite said crisply, his voice full of professional respect, "And both all of the Inner Senshi, as well as six of the champions and the shape-shifter Jaeger, were present in the same chamber. Considering the fates that Jadeite and Nephrite suffered, I decided it would be wiser to deny them one of the jewels, and thus the Ginzuisho, and allow Kunzite to move in force to take possession of the rest of them."

For a long, tense moment, Boxer's thrashing attempts to break from his bonds were the only sounds within the clearing Beryl had appropriated for the course of their assault on the city.

"I will accept this for now," Beryl declared, her gaze harsh and forgiving as it bored into the back of Nephrite's bowed head, "But if Kunzite's assault on the city should fail to bring me the jewels, you will share his punishment for failure."

"I understand, my queen," Nephrite declared, "With your leave then, I will join him in pressing his assault."

((()))

The streets of southeastern Kota Kinabalu were filled with screams as the city government's initial attempts to protect its inhabitants turned against it, the families which had returned to their homes finding themselves effectively helpless in front of the onslaught of monsters swarming through the city. The largest mass of Youma was moving up a primary road known as Jalan Kolam, practically swallowing those still attempting to return to their homes, and rapidly running down those who abandoned their cars to flee on foot.

A young woman rocketed through the air and landed a hardened fist directly in the chest of one of the Youma, shattering it and causing the Youma to dissolve into dust. It was but one in a tide of bodies however, and those alongside and behind it immediately swarmed in on her, burying her athletic form in a wave of bestial pseudo-feminine bodies.

A feral roar tore across the broad six-lane road, rattling the bones of everyone close enough to hear it, and the Youma's advance stalled as a massive, lupine head tore its way free of the pack of bodies. With a sound like a band saw tearing through soft pine, a dozen Youma were torn to dust and ash, and the woman's transformed body fully emerged into view of the surviving onlookers, both human and Youma.

Over ten feet tall, weighing half a ton, covered in silky, almost glowing white fur, lean, powerful muscles rippling up and down its legs, abdomen, chest, and arms, a legend stepped onto the urban battlefield. One of the larger Youma near it sensed the challenge of a larger predator, and lunged forward, seeking to squash the the rival before it could begin to assert itself.

The white werewolf seized the Youma by its arms, tore them off, then rammed one through its chest, dusting the creature.

"Come and FIGHT ME!" The Werewolf roared, its massive chest and fanged maw giving it a deep, snarling voice, "All you bitches try someone who can fight back!"

The more instinctive parts of the Youma's minds, for most of them the only part that was even active, warned them that they had encountered something far, far, greater than they could hope to defeat, and given the choice, most of them would have run. The thrall that held them to the Dark Kingdom's will, however, gave them no such option, and instead, they rushed as one to the attack.

The advance down the Jalan highway stalled.

((()))

A hastily-procured semi truck hauled a tarp-covered cargo away from the cruise-liner's flank, and began driving into the city, heading South towards the hostile force. Within the cab, Rock drove, Revy sat in the passenger's seat, with a radio linking them to Jaeger in between. Trailing behind the heavy rig, were an assortment of armored, unmarked police vans and cars, filled to the brim with heavily armed TMPD officers. Amongst the train of vehicles that had been offloaded from the liner's considerable cargo space, a single armored limousine held Natsuna, the Senshi, and the more human-sized jewel-bearers.

If the police and customs officers intended to serve has port security had been on hand, they would never have allowed the convoy out, but the mayor had already ordered them to join the mass of police and small military force within the city already moving to oppose the Youma. They entered the city unmolested, but they weren't the first non-civilian force to enter the city.

((()))

While most people living in modern nations were at least peripherally aware of the existence of American 'Super-carriers,' and that said ships were functionally the kings of naval warfare, something that fewer people around the world, including American citizens, were aware of was the existence of Amphibious Assault Ships. Easily mistakable for an aircraft carrier, especially when not seen alongside a 'proper' full-up aircraft carrier within an American fleet, they were in fact quite a bit smaller, and their role was substantially different.

As an example, the USS Kearsage, one of the new Wasp-class AAS, fully loaded with the lion's share of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, weighed in at just over 41,000 tons. That weight included 6 Harrier attack aircraft, 4 SuperCobra attack helicopters, 12 Sea Knight transport helicopters, 4 Sea Stallion combat transports, a handful of Hueys, and three heavy hovercraft that served as assault amphibious assault transports, primarily ferrying vehicles to shore. The ground vehicles that the Kearsage carried for the Marine Expeditionary Unit included 5 full-up M1A1 Abrams battletanks, 25 Amphibious Assault Vehicles, 8 155mm howitzers, and almost 80 Humvee's, trucks, and other assorted support vehicles.

The Malaysian Royal Army had more manpower within relevant strategic distance; even with the presence of the Forrestal alongside the Kearsage they arguably had more air power within relevant strategic distance. What the Malaysian military did not have was personnel with significant combat experience, or operational doctrine for rapid-response to major threats developed during the Cold War, and tested during operation Desert Storm or the incident in Mogadishu. Perhaps more importantly, the admiral commanding the American task force had been ordered (even if he didn't fully believe it) to expect 'paranatural attacks' on the city.

The American battlegroup was just over fifteen miles off the shore of Kota Kinabalu; the nearest major Royal Malaysian Army base was more than four hundred miles Southwest, at the opposite end of Malaysian territory in Borneo. The American fleet received news of the attack on the city before the Royal Malaysian Army did, though only by a few minutes; it would be four hours by the time a full-scale response force could arrive from the First Division.

When the Mayor of Kota Kinabalu contacted the Americans to ask for support, alert aircraft were already airborne, and advancing towards the city in less than two minutes; the first wave of helicopters with Marines on board were launched within five (around the same time the first surface transport launched), and SuperCobras (armed with Gatling guns, rockets, and missiles) launched to support them five minutes after that.

By the time the Mayor ended his 'call,' American aircraft were already over the city.

((()))

"I am Sakurada Natsuna," The superintendent-general of the TMPD announced via megaphone, standing up through the sunroof of her limo, "And I challenge the so-called 'queen' of the Dark Kingdom to cast aside her craven cowardice, to come out and face me, rather than cower in the shadows like the pathetic wretch she has thus-far proven herself to be!"

Her challenge was punctuated by a rocket launched by one of the American helicopters, the first of many, detonating further across the city.

((()))

While substantial support from the Royal Malaysian Army was hours away, there were lesser elements already present within the city; they simply weren't numerous enough to function as more than hard points slowing the assault, rather than pressing it back. Worse, once they ran out of their small stock of grenades, their assault rifles were only effective at point blank range, where the soldiers could reliably target the throat, eyes, or joints of the Youma; center of mass shots did nothing. A handful of combat shotguns proved more effective, but by and large the Malaysians were decidedly on the back foot, strategically.

When the American Marines began landing, they sought secure landing zones near the forefront of the conflict, most such areas defined by the small pockets of resistance that the Malaysian forces had created. Within three minutes of landing, the marines had not only better than tripled the manpower at each hardpoint, they'd also provided the Malaysians with armor-piercing ammunition, which did pack enough penetrative force to work on Youma.

Zoicite, directing the battle from within the forest, watching through the eyes of his thralls, immediately noticed the change, and had no interest in having his primary combat assets slaughtered. He ordered a retreat.

((()))

"You're not getting away from me!" The werewolf snarled, loping swiftly after the abruptly-retreating Youma, tearing into their backs as she ran them down.

"Shit," The lieutenant in command of the marine squad that had been dropped in behind her said, "There's no way in hell we're going to keep up with her on foot. SLOW DOWN YOU CRAZY BITCH, YOU'LL GET CUT OFF!"

"Sir," The company's senior sergeant said as he jogged forward with the rest of the unit, "I don't think she cares."

((()))

With Nephrite otherwise occupied, Beryl had chosen to keep a divinatory eye upon the battlefield herself. She was perhaps less skilled than the general of the skies in the art, but if so, the discrepancy between Nephrite's skill in his specialty, and the former court-sorceress' proficiency in the one amongst many of her skills was negligible. Beryl customarily delegated the task to Nephrite for two simple reasons; first, if he was occupied, it kept him from spying upon her, and second, she was the queen, and he was her subject.

What she found occurring throughout the city did not please her. Up until the arrival of the new army with the strange, magic-less flying machines, her forces had been utterly-unstoppable, only a few pathetic enclaves of soldiers even managing to slow them. Now her forces were in full retreat, a full tithe of the Youma cut down before Zoicite had managed to recall the vanguard. The wolf-creature that had stood to bar the most prominent passage into the city's heart had been nothing but an irritant when it stood alone, but now...

Strange mechanical monstrosities held aloft by an insane mechanism of spinning blades were sweeping across the battlefront, launching explosives and arcs of fire into the retreating horde of Youma, cutting down her thralls by the dozen.

"Zoicite!" Beryl barked, opening a channel through which to communicate with him, "Explain this farce of a battle you are conducting!"

"Of course my Queen," Zoicite responded promptly, "Our foes have finally revealed their reserves, and I shall shortly be deplooying my prepared counter."

"You expected this?" Beryl demanded, not bothering to keep the disbelief from her voice.

"Please, my Queen," Zoicite replied, his voice taking on the air of a long-suffering underling, "I am a General. I did not expect this specific counter, but this 'Jaeger' has consistently shown himself to have a trump up his furry little sleeve, and as such, I expected some form of tactical gambit on his part."

"And how will you deal with it?" Beryl demanded.

"If my Queen wishes to know," Zoicite declared grandly, "All she need do is recall that I have yet to deploy any airborne Youma, and turn her eyes to the sections of the city we have already seized control of."

((()))

Lynette had been a full time general practitioner five years back, but her 'career' since then had become complicated. Complicated to a degree that resulted in her sitting quietly within a small glade, staring into a natural pool of water, watching the battle in Kota Kinabalu that was supernaturally 'reflected' on its surface. Scrying, and other forms of Divinatory magic, was something she had become very skilled in through the last year, a necessary result of the search she and Caitlyn had undertaken, and it was due to this skill that she noticed she wasn't the only one scrying the field.

It was difficult, but not altogether impossible, to notice the subtle magical presence of another's extra-normal senses being used in an area with one's own; Lynette couldn't honestly say that she was terribly surprised when she did. Despite several attempts to trace the other's supernatural eye back to its owner as it traced across the parts of the city the monsters had already swept across however, she failed to do so. Her fifth attempt, unfortunately, alerted the other to her presence, and seconds later the pool began to steam, and Lynette's view of the battlefield was replaced by the visage of a haughty redhead wearing an overly-revealing dress.

"Who dares to spy upon the Queen of the Dark Kingdom?" The woman demanded furiously.

Lynette stared impassively back, studying the woman's expression, apparent age, her eyes, hair, the talon-like red nails on the ends of her fingers, everything she could to gain a gauge of the woman's character. In the last five years, she had seen in many extraordinary things; in the last two, she had seen many bizarre things, otherworldly in a way she'd never imagined, some of them in ways she had never wanted to imagine. All of these things brought together lead her to a single tentative conclusion, that she immediately decided to test.

"My name is Lyn," She said, brow furrowed in concern, "Are you possessed?"

An instant of terrified vulnerability flickered across the other woman's face, before it was supplanted by incandescent rage. Reading the other 'woman's' intentions like a book, Lynette hurled herself away from the pool, avoiding the beam of crackling destruction that erupted from it, then cast a spell, and leapt into the trunk of a nearby tree, phasing into it without leaving a trace.

((()))

"It isn't working," Rei said, frustration clear in her voice as she stared out at the city through the limo's armored windows.

"We'll reach the line of battle in four minutes," Ami said quietly, glancing between the truck in front of them, and the city around them, worriedly, "We'll be fighting then either way."

"Don't do anything stupid," Minako said, her tone and expression uncharacteristically stern as she swept her eyes across the other girls and boy in the limo, "Stay together, don't let yourself get isolated, and remember that it's always better to keep yourself alive, than kill a few more Youma. If one of us goes down, that's more than a tenth of our magical fighters, but a Youma is just one amongst thousands."

"Ryo-kun," Usagi asked, her voice betraying her nervousness as much as her fidgeting did, "Will we win?"

"I don't know," the only boy in the back of the limo said quietly, "I can't see anything past the end of the battle at all."

Usagi shivered, and most of the other girls felt a chill as well.

"We'll just have to win," Makoto said forcefully, clenching a fist as she did so, "I kicked Jadeite's ass, and I can deal with his crappy little monsters too."

((()))

Like many tourist-trap cities, Kota Kinabalu's civic architects had made efforts to 'prettify' the city, and as a consequence, many stretches of road were lined with cultivated trees. Any number of them were close enough to Caitlyn's position that Lynette had no difficulty tree-walking into her comrade's immediate vicinity.

The older woman's arrival was immediately succeeded by an entire wall of stone erupting across half the breadth of the highway, stopping Youma's retreat cold. It only stopped them for a brief moment, as at a mere twenty feet tall, it was too short to stop them from scaling it, but it still cost the Youma momentum, and in the few seconds the lead rank were stunned by their collision with the wall, another emerged atop the first. The Youma began to climb, but in raising themselves above street level, on top of being held in a single area for more than a handful of seconds, they unintentionally created what is sometimes referred to as a 'killbox' by modern soldiers.

The soldiers on the ground opened fire, and the helicopter gunships began launching rockets.

((()))

Further southeast within the city, roughly two hundred Youma were moving with far more purpose than the horde at large was. While a significant fraction of the humans living in that district of the city had been killed or drained already, most had successfully fled into their homes and barred the doors. Not that doors were any meaningful impediment to Youma, but 'out of sight, out of mind' generally applied to the simplistic mentalities the sustenance-starved Youma were capable of.

The ten-score Youma that Zoicite had dedicated to other causes, however, had been directly guided to smash their way into the houses and apartment blocks that people remained within, then drain them to the very verge of death. It was a mentally draining task, to directly guide so many thralls, but before long Zoicite no longer needed to directly guide them, as the rapid gorging upon life energy rapidly revitalized and empowered the Youma.

Within five minutes they had regained the capacity for coherent thought; within ten, the capacity for coherent speech. By the time that the Malaysian and American forces that had been counterattacking reached the first of the empowered Youma, it was twice the size of its lesser brethren, and vastly more dangerous.

Watching through Nephrite's divinatory focus, Zoicite smiled at what he saw.

"Not as clumsy as I would have expected," Nephrite admitted grudgingly, "But what of that wolf-creature?"

"I will send the Doom and Gloom girls to deal with it," Zoicite said, "If they cannot, we shall attend to the matter personally."

((()))

Slotted into a prepared place of concealment, I waited. Waiting during a battle can be hard, especially for someone with a hero complex like me; I want to save everyone ever (more or less), but I'm also realistic enough to recognize that I'm not God, and I'm not a little-g 'god' of sufficient power to dominate a battlefield either.

So, I sit and wait, while I use my Ki-sense to retain the best general-awareness of the world around me that I can. I have a radio with which I can contact the Senshi, Sakurada, or her similarly-equipped subordinates, but as none of the soldiers on the ground have been willing to pull us into their own communications loops yet, it's of limited use. My Ki-senses, however, reveal the presence of large swarms of Youma, even if details are largely lost to the distances. The numbers don't concern me; the hundred-plus signatures that are growing significantly stronger, do. I decided that I should contact Natsuna about that.

And then I realized that I'm a damn cat, and can't use the damn radio to send.

((()))

Caitlyn first became aware of her new foes' presence when a lash of steel wire whipped towards her furry flank. Cait had learned the mentality of her de-facto mentor before he had been taken away however, and while she was brutally powerful on offense, she was far more skilled at defending herself; primarily by not being in the way of something trying to hurt her. She ducked, twisted, rolled, then clawed the wire, which was twisting to follow her in clearly-supernatural ways, apart, buying herself a moment's respite to examine her new foe.

Foes, she silently noted to herself, a half-dozen scantily-clad beings, more human-shaped than the others she had fought thus far, and in her esteemed opinion, doing the worst possible thing with it by dressing like cheap sluts. Something sent a tingle down her side, and she instinctively leapt forward, snarling, towards the six (winged) foes that stood in front of her, narrowly avoiding a blast of shadowy energy launched by a seventh from above.

A hurricane of steel wire leapt from the other six towards her as she leapt towards them; Caitlyn ducked, dodged, and slashed at the wire, but some of it still slashed into her thick hide, where it failed to do much more than scratch her. Apparently, they'd expected her to be torn apart, because the one Cait had charged failed to react in time to prevent the werewolf from grabbing her, and tearing her limb from limb.

Unlike any of the other Youma Cait had fought thus far, however, the other five still on the ground took to the air and fell back outside of her effective engagement range, but did not flee altogether. Then, things became complicated.

((()))

In a clearing, stood a Queen, or at least a being that called herself a Queen. Her eyes stared into a sphere that revealed the happenings in a city not far off, but they were unfocused, unseeing. Her shoulders twitched occasionally, she swayed slightly where she stood, as though the muscular control necessary to maintain proper balance was somehow beyond her.

As though she was distracted. Unable to focus. Consumed by something else, something different.

((()))

"Hostiles reforming for counter-attack," warned Tango Four, gunner of the second Supercobra in the MEU's combat wing, "Looks like they've got some bigger, different monsters whipping the gribblies back into shape."

"Please describe, Tango Four," The report from command came back.

"Big bastard that looks like a Lion moving up three streets West of Jalan," Tango Four reported, "Moving into and through civilian habitations we have marked as uninhabited, likely more intelligent and making use of cover. Being followed by what looks like a woman's top half stuck onto a spider's body, it's making use of unnaturally large spider webbing. Should we reposition and look for more?"

"No," Command replied, "Fall back to airspace over ground we control, and take targets of opportunity as they are in the clear. The Admiral is adamant that we avoid civilian casualties as much as possible."

"Yessir," Tango Four replied as Tango Three, the SuperCobra's pilot, confirmed the order, "Pulling back to friendly airspace."

((()))

Lynette had never been much of one for fighting in her life 'before' the one man Tornado that hit Chicago's criminal underworld, destroyed it, and dragged her away from what she'd known before. Fortunately, brawling was a role she had very rarely been forced to take, despite associating with dangerous and driven people, largely because said dangerous and driven people engaged in it themselves, allowing her to take a support role in most conflicts.

Which wasn't to say that she was incapable, or that she was incapable of dealing large amounts of damage without entering a melee, something that she found much less distasteful. Unfortunately, 'Boss' wasn't around to take the lion's share of the combat load on the Jalan highway, and Cait by herself wasn't enough to occupy the enemy's full attention.

Which was why, standing atop the roof of a derelict car, trying to use spellfire to ward off an anthropomorphic bat-woman that was persistently harassing her, regular barrages of screeches powerful enough to make unprotected eardrums pop (Lynette's ears were protected), and not giving her enough time to wind up for a spell powerful enough to put the creature down decisively. The Malaysian and American soldiers further up the street were trying to lend support fire, but small arms fire seemed to be ineffective, and the damn thing was moving too fast for RPG's to be brought to bear.

As the continued harassment went on, Lynette got so frustrated that she turned into a giant bear and bite the damn Youma in half.

((()))

When Revy finally closed enough to the battlefront to see what was going on from the cab of the truck she was driving, the first thing she saw was a woman turn into a giant bear and bite one of the monsters in half.

"I like this city," Revy half-shouted, a manic gleam in her eyes, "Rock, we're taking our next vacation here."

"Revy," Rock said, failing to keep the tension from his voice, "I don't think that monster attacks are a regular event here."

"Well # $* this then!" Revy shouted, kicking the door beside her open, "I'm going to enjoy this shit while I still can!"

Then she jumped out of the truck and sprinted towards the melee ahead, drawing her guns as she ran.

((()))

Beryl's eyes slowly refocused, though her body trembled, and she stared into the scrying orb, turning its gaze to her Dark Generals, who in turn, were watching as the Doom and Gloom girls fought with the white were-wolf. The Queen watched the Generals watch their subjects (thralls) fight the Earth's rebellious (free) inhabitants, seeking to assert their Queen's (usurped) authority and clear the way to recover that which was stolen from her.

Her minions forced the werewolf into a retreat, the shifter dancing back down the street, constantly harried by the six flying females, forced completely onto the defensive, especially after a single attempt to lunge up high enough for a retaliatory attack failed to net it anything but more wounds as it was unable to maneuver effectively in midair. The razor-sharp wire the Doom and Gloom girls used failed to inflict anything more substantial than light slashes against the Werewolf's thick hide, even though Beryl could dimly recall seeing the selfsame weapons cut directly through full plate-mail, but the Youma seemed perfectly content to subject the wolf to the death of a thousand cuts.

The Generals turned their attention (and Beryl's by proxy) to other parts of the battlefield, where other empowered Youma were turning the retreat into a counter-attack; dozens of soldiers were dead, and they'd been forced to withdraw into the open streets, their primitive, non-magical weapons ineffective against Beryl's soldiers when they had returned to the fullness of their power. Blasts of shadowy energy were launched, magical knives were thrown, swarms of vermin under the sway of Youma engulfed the soldiers; Beryl even saw 'Jaeger's' ice-puppets, appropriated for control by one of her subordinates, turned against her foes. Several of the larger Youma were cut down by strange flame-propelled weapons from the ugly flying machines that the rebels (humans) were using, but most managed to avoid fire by using the city's squalid dwellings as cover.

When the Generals' attention turned back towards the Jalan highway, however, they discovered two disturbing facts. First, a strange twilight had begun to overtake the city, and second, a powerful spellcaster now stood behind the Werewolf, acting in support of the creature. The caster also appeared to be a bear.

It took less than half a minute of deliberation, and watching two more of the Doom and Gloom girls being felled, for Nephrite and Zoicite to decide that the time had come to enter the field themselves.

((()))

One of the limits of scrying, is that the field of vision it offers is substantially limited; no matter how skilled the diviner, it simply cannot offer as broad a view as one's own eyes. When Nephrite and Zoicite teleported into the Jalan highway in order to support their minions, they had not been aware of the sizable column of heavily-armed Japanese police less than half a kilometer away. It did not, however, take long for them to learn of their presence, courtesy of a pair of Beretta 9mm's in the hands of the only half-Chinese, half-American in the convoy.

((()))

The truck has stopped, and I sense conflict beyond. More, both Dark Generals have arrived; it is time for battle.

((()))

/edison-dervishi-1/warriors-return

((()))

The steel cables binding the tarp to the semi's bed snapped. Servos whirred, the rhythmic clanking of extraordinarily large machinery ratcheting against itself echoed out from beneath the tarp, and an immense form unfolded beneath, rising up to stand over the truck which had carried it, and shedding the tarp in the process. Set beneath an armored brow, brilliantly glowing azure eyes shone forth as the construct's head was revealed, standing directly over an immense, steel-fanged maw.

Thump. Thump.

The gigantic feline's forelegs descended to the surface of the street to either side of the truck bed, and as the tarp completed its fall, revealing the construct's sleek midnight-blue steel armored shoulders and spine.

((()))

((()))

Thump. Thump.

The rear legs descended to the pavement, and the trailer visibly rose on its suspension; the driver, in a substantial display of practical wisdom, immediately threw the truck into reverse, and it rapidly slid out from beneath the titanic feline automaton, narrowly avoiding the sinuous writhing of its tail. Its jaws cracked open, revealing a fiery glow in its 'throat,' and a deep, bassy rumble rolled out, the warning growl of a predator challenging an interloper within its territory.

Then it leapt, shattering the road surface with the sheer force of its mechanical muscles, pouncing on the pair of Dark Generals arrayed against the Wolf and Bear already on the battlefield.

"TANK CAT IS STRONG," A thundering voice bellowed from a powerful speaker somewhere on its superstructure, "TANK CAT WILL CRUSH ALL ENEMIES."

((()))

"EVERYBODY OUT," Natsuna roared, holding her megaphone in one hand as the other seized her sidearm and drew it, "FORM UP AND ATTACK BY SQUADS, LET THE CIRCUS HANDLE THE CLOSE-IN WORK, WE'RE HERE FOR FIRE SUPPORT."

The Senshi piled out of the Limousine, already transformed. Within, Artemis and Luna finished orchestrating a spell over Ryo, whose body swelled and warped into an armored green-and-white form fully as large as the bear already on the battlfield, tearing open the middle of the Limo as it did so. Police officers in full riot gear, armed with assault rifles, shotguns, and anti-material rifles swarmed out of the other vehicles and began moving in efficient organized chaos forwards towards where American Marines and Malaysian Royal Army soldiers had already taken up positions behind cover provided by derelict vehicles and torn-up road surface.

Most of the Senshi, their running speed and endurance enhanced by their magical transformations, moved up with predesignated officers escorting them, Natsuna amongst their midst, while Jupiter sprinted out ahead to engage the more powerful Youma and Dark Generals directly.

Overhead, gunships were approaching as American soldiers on the ground began relaying the locations of recently-arrived enemy officers, while fixed-wing aircraft began approaching for another bombing pass, the Forrestal continuing to launch more ground-assault equipped F-18's. All told, literally hundreds of tons of firepower were being vectored towards the largest focus of conflict in the city.

((()))

Nephrite and Zoicite, Dark Generals both, and Shittenou long before Metallia had appeared and seized their allegiance, had both fought giant monsters before, Zoicite had once even fought an enlarged Lion. Both knew well enough to raise shields of greater than normal power, allow their minions to screen for them, and never hold a blow back, because predators only respected strength (or the appearance thereof).

Zoicite, swept into a rage at seeing the enormous machine-cat descending towards him, avatar of what had slain his closest friend, immediately cast his most powerful shield, and began gathering his magic for the most powerful offensive spell he knew how to cast. Nephrite, being of clearer frame of mind than Zoicite, realized the implications of the cat being forged of steel rather than flesh, and rather than raise a defense, snapped out a short range teleport to the top of the wall that the bear-mage had created earlier during the battle.

The cat came crashing down on Zoicite's shield of shadow like a steel avalanche; the shield, being a magical construct fully capable of twisting the laws of inertia like a pretzel in spite of having no tangible mass, cracked, but didn't even come close to buckling under the strain.

"Housenka!" Zoicite barked, and a quartet of Youma leapt over the wall, immediately attacking the massive cat-machine, launching a barrage of fireballs, thorns, concussive blasts, and knives.

The cat leapt over the barrage, evading all but the most the very edge of one of the concussion blasts, and lashed out with one of its massive armored paws as it soared over Zoicite, its paw moving faster than the Dark General could track, sweeping inside of his shield and mercilessly smashing into his side. Shock erupted across Zoicite's face as a strangled gasp was forced from his throat, crushed ribs weighing down on his lungs. The shock only lasted for an instant, however, before rage supplanted the shock, and Zoicite continued to focus on the magical energy he had gathered.

One of the Doom and Gloom girls broke away from the furious engagement around the werewolf to attempt an attack at the mecha-cat's joints; it was blocked by a contemptuous flick of the machine's tail. The quartet of Youma strikers that Zoicite had summoned moved with smooth efficiency, three of them attempting to pressure the cat, while the fourth moved to retrieve their wounded commander; Nephrite took the opportunity to add a layer of shadowed armor of his flesh, not willing to lay his trust in shielding spells as Zoicite had.

The mechanized feline turned its back to them all, the grossly massive scale of its movements allowing it to evade their attacks with only a modicum of effort, as it instead turned its attention to the Doom and Gloom girls still harassing the werewolf. Another powerful leap brought it easily to their altitude, and a single slash with glowing claws lashed out at all of them. The glowing blades of energy that leapt from its steel claws only managed to even clip one of them, though it forced the others to focus on it, a critical distraction which allowed the Bear-Mage to incinerate two more of them inside of a conjured column of intense flame. Their numbers diminished and initiative lost, the Doom and Gloom girls fell back to the top of the wall, where Nephrite and three of Zoicite's summoned minions still stood.

Both sides took the moment of separation to form up with their allies, the Youma forming a cordon around the Dark Generals, the bear and the werewolf standing at the steel feline's flanks. For just under six seconds, the two forces sized each other up; then Zoicite unleashed the spell he had been preparing since Jaeger's avatar had stepped onto the battlefield, less than half a minute prior.

An intense bolt of raw Un-Being lashed out from Zoicite's magically charged hands, tearing the very fabric of reality as it augured through the air towards the steel avatar. Reacting with supernatural speed, the feline titan seized its allies by the scruff of their furry necks, and the approaching Senshi Jupiter with its tail, and leapt backwards, allowing the concentrated beam of annihilation to tear yards-deep hole into the asphalt it had been standing over when Zoicite had moved to release the spell.

Then the first wave of fighter-bombers dropped its payload.

((()))

Beryl watched, a cold fury held rigid upon her face, as a shattering wave of explosions washed across the the position of her most powerful subjects, leaving only broken and shattered bodies behind. The traitorous rebels (free spirits) were not content to leave it at that, however, and two more waves of explosives deployed by flying machines washed over the stone wall they had stood on and above, reducing it to rubble, and what remained of her loyal subjects (unwilling thralls) to so much charred ash.

"It seems that nothing may yet be accomplished," She uttered, her voice as frigid as a glacier, "Save that which I accomplish myself."

So saying, she disappeared from the small clearing where she had been keeping watch, dragging the comatose form of the Boxer with her.

((()))

Nephrite stood, fighting off the shakes as he stared at what had become of his position just seconds before. He had known that despite their lack of magic, the humans of the day had possessed powerful weapons, but he had not, until that moment, realized just how powerful. Certainly magic possessed vastly more potent spells, many of which he could cast himself, but he had seen that each of the flying machines had dropped, at most, a third of the bulbous devices attached to the underside of their wings, and there were dozens of them in the air.

And for all of the power and endurance that represented, it was only the force allocated to a single island, even if it was a large one, to say nothing of what forces would oppose them if they attempted to assail an entire continent. Nephrite was glad that he had forced himself away from the imperative to confront and overwhelm the enemy directly, a 'strategy' that lacked any subtlety or actual strategy at all, in fact, it was almost as if-

Something in Nephrite's mind cracked, and his face twisted into a rictus of fury.

((()))

Beryl arrived on the battlefield, floating gracefully over the shattered ruins of the positions her subordinates had held just a minute ago, and cast a single spell.

The sky, already overcast from the progressing eclipse, was suddenly blotted out by pitch-black clouds, hovering less than a hundred feet above the city, and for a handful of terrible, horrifyingly brief moments, a caustic black rain erupted from them, raining down on everything within a kilometer radius of the Queen of the Dark Kingdom.

And everything that the rain touched, began to dissolve. Soldiers and police officers attempted to take cover beneath or within cars. Those within were saved for only a handful of seconds before the un-making rain chewed through the thin sheet metal and devoured their flesh as well; some of those beneath survived, though few did so unscathed. Revy ducked beneath an overturned section of asphalt, which protected her from the acid, but then collapsed on her, trapping her in place.

Natsuna was caught out in the open, away from any cover, and found herself buried in ferociously loyal subordinates, who literally protected her life with their own, half a dozen dying so that she would live, albeit covered in the horrendous slurry of melted flesh that remained of them. The massive armored form that Urawa Ryo had taken when his jewel shard was drawn forth hurled itself atop the four Senshi he stood with before Beryl had even completed the spell, his precognition allowing him to save the lives of not only the Senshi, but the half-dozen men who'd been assigned to escort and protect them. It didn't allow him to save himself as well, as more than half his body was liquefied by the attack, ironically being the only reason his corpse was light enough, after the rain passed, for those he'd protected to shove it off of themselves.

Makot, Cait, and Lyn leapt beneath Jaeger's massive armored puppet, sheltered from the rain by its immense armored bulk, though little of the armor along its dorsal surfaces was left by the time the rain passed, and its face was a ruined mess of half-melted steel. Several joints nearly locked up, before application of brute force tore runnels of melted and re-solidified steel out of the gaps they'd lodged into, costing Jaeger some of his fine control over the construct in exchange for remaining functional at all.

The worst off though, were the aircraft; between their thin armor and the delicate nature of their engines and control mechanisms, the six gunships, two transports, and three fixed-wing aircraft that were within the radius of Beryl's spell when it took effect all lost control and crashed. More than half of those aboard them died instantly, and most of the survivors suffered serious injury.

"It would appear," Beryl announced, her supernaturally empowered voice echoing across the highway, while the pitch-black clouds disappeared as quickly as they'd come, "That I have nothing but imbeciles and incompetents for subordinates, and that I will need to attend to this affair myself."

The steel predator roared again, though the sound was distorted by the damage to its' muzzle and neck, and leapt towards Beryl, but she simply disappeared.

"Where is she?" Natsuna shouted, her face taut with pain and tears streaking her makeup as she shouldered her way out from the mess of half-melted corpses she'd been buried under, "Hino, take Urawa's shard and run for Jaeger!"

Rei, no less shocked than the other Senshi by Ryo's abrupt death directly in front of them, and the many other deaths they did not have their faces (literally) shoved into, but more emotionally numb to it due to her own recent personal losses, staggered to obey. She thrust her gloved fist into what remained of the Ryo's Youma form and tore the jewel free, then staggered away from the corpse, moving awkwardly towards Jaeger's armored mecha.

Jaeger turned to advance towards her as well, unwilling to risk jumping the distance with much of his fine control lost, and half the articulated joints of his prehensile proxy tail seizing up intermittently, but between the two of them they'd barely covered half the distance before Beryl returned in a flash of not-light, the other jewels already clenched within one of her hands. She appeared directly in front of Rei, who snarled hatred at the woman, raising a clenched fist instinctively to attack, before Beryl burned half of her face off with a beam of shadowy destruction.

Screaming wetly, Rei dropped the jewel she carried and clutched at her face; an idle gesture from Beryl calling the dropped gem to her hand as the Dark Queen studied the thrashing Senshi.

"There," She said, before casually ramming a glowing claw into the fire Senshi's chest, tearing into the girl's ribcage, but more important to her own interests, retrieving the rainbow jewel that had rested on within a locket against her chest, "And that is seven."

A multi-ton paw slammed down onto the Dark Queen, but she paid little attention to it beyond raising a shield with a casual gesture, as she studied the jewels within her hand. Cait, Lyn, and Makoto all rushed to attack the Dark Queen, but functioned as little more than minor distractions, as she effortlessly directed her shield to deflect each attack, summoning a second when they flanked her. A small spattering of weapons fire began to flow forth from the surviving soldiers and police officers, as others tried to drag their (more heavily) wounded comrades away, and Natsuna stalked towards Beryl, furious murder in her eyes.

"Tch," The Dark Queen declared as she eyed those around her with distaste, "Too distracting."

Then she cast her second major spell of the day, and an enormous sphere of absolute darkness leapt into being directly above her, immediately sucking everything around it save the Queen herself into its blind depths much as though it were a black hole. Cait and Lyn both immediately identified it as a Sphere of Annihilation, one fifty meters across, large enough that its shadow completely enveloped Jaeger's mechanoid cat, which was busy anchoring its claws to the asphalt beneath it.

A keening wail began to sound across the city, as everything within three kilometers was affected by its pull, the air itself screaming as it was devoured by the sphere of anti-existence. Cars began to skid along the surface of the road, bodies of both the dead and living were sucked into the air, Youma and human alike, while those aircraft not already downed by Beryl's earlier spell were dragged off course as pilots struggled to compensate for the abrupt gale-force winds.

Directly beneath the sphere, Jaeger struggled desperately to keep his steel combat puppet from being torn into the air, while Cait and Lyn both anchored themselves to the mecha's forelegs. Makoto chose a much more direct rout, hurling herself towards Beryl directly, intending to grapple with the Dark Queen and force her to end the devastating spell. To Beryl's considerable shock, the most physical of the Senshi managed to twist far enough around the woman's shadowy shield to seize the redhead by the collar of her elaborate dress.

"TURN IT OFF!" Makoto screamed, as the utterly unprepared Beryl soon found herself completely pinned by the enraged Senshi.

"Unhand me you wretch!" Beryl shouted, "I'll de-"

Further words were cut off by Makoto slamming her forehead down on the other woman's head, knocking Beryl silly for a moment, though the sphere of destruction remained, and began to drag the pair of them up towards it, bodies, cars, trees, and dirt, all disappearing within, even as Jaeger's mech was finally torn from the asphalt. Rei, already dying from the wounds Beryl had inflicted on her, was smashed into the surface of the sphere, and though her mantle protected her from instant disintegration, she cried out in pain as the destructive magics sought to un-make her. The other three Senshi were among those unable to retain a grip on the earth, and were rapidly being dragged through the air towards the sphere; amongst them, only Minako had retained the presence of mind to prepare a combat spell as they closed.

Makoto, however, had much more decisive options available to her, and effortlessly twisted around as they rose through the air, angling so that Beryls would slam, face-first, into the Void of destruction first, in the hope that her death would end the spell. Beryl thrashed wildly, but was unable to break free, and screamed as her own destructive spell began tearing at her face, seeping through even the intense magical protection she raised to defend herself. A second voice screamed along with her, deeper, broader, wrong, and the very sound of it tore at the ears of everyone within the entire city, even through the keening wail of air being sucked into the void.

Jaeger's combat platform slammed into the sphere just over a second before Beryl finally abandoned the spell, more of its mass being torn away by the contact, but both its 'pilot' and those clinging to its limbs were protected from destruction. Makoto was the last to feel the sphere's wrath, Beryl's thrashing tumbling her onto her side, where the sphere tore away most of her hair, and much of the skin on her right shoulder, arm, and leg, taking some of the muscle with it. The sphere disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared, gone in an instant, and all those carried to it immediately dropped to the Earth, a hastily-cast spell by Lyn saving Makoto, Cait, and herself from the full force of impact, though the Senshi of Jupiter still screamed in pain when she tried to stand back up on her maimed leg.

The sheer drop would have killed Minako, Ami, and Usagi if not for the magical armor infusing their bodies; as it was Usagi broke a leg, and all three were stunned by their impact with the asphalt beneath them. Cars raining down all around them did nothing to aid their recovery, and only a quick spell from Minako kept one from tumbling down directly atop them as they struggled to regain their wits.

Revy, the only surviving non-magical combatant within a hundred yards of where Beryl fell, found herself granted an open line of fire to the Dark Queen, and even though the collapsed chunk of asphalt pinning her in place made it difficult, managed to open fire with one of her Beretta's. Shadowy shields flickered to life around the fallen form of the Dark Queen, absorbing the bullets, and Revy cursed violently, before reloading and continuing to fire anyways.

Cait lunged for Beryl as soon as she hit the ground, but a pair of energy bolts swatted her down before she could reach the downed queen, nearly cutting off her legs and crippling her ability to close effectively. Lyn, the only other combatant still on her feet, had seized Rei's mutilated form, and was desperately trying to ply the tormented young woman with healing spells.

A mere twenty yards from where Beryl struggled to her feet, Jaeger's war machine crashed to the ground.

((()))

A number of control lines have been cut, and the right rear leg is completely non-responsive. Enough armor and machinery has been stripped from my mech's dorsal structure that I myself have become exposed for the first time in this battle, but for all of that, I remain the most capable combatant on the field, and the sole meaningful foe remaining is just two steps away.

I am tired though. While the steel skin of this combat 'puppet' I build is not my flesh, it was soaked in my blood, and it was infused with my Ki when it was destroyed, inflicting a form of pain that goes beyond the mere physical. Hundreds, possibly thousands are dead around us, lives I could not protect in spite of everything that I did, despite the advantage that fighting under a shrouded sun grants me.

I am tired of being unable to speak.

I am tired of being a damn cat, when I was born a man.

One step away.

I am tired of the curses that stripped me of the power I held a year ago, the power to defeat heroes of legend, and have utterly crippled my attempts to rebuild that power.

I am tired of needing to twist my shape into a false form constructed purely of Ki in order to have hands, and opposable thumbs.

And now I stand over my fallen, but not defeated foe, staring at her through the only functioning optical relay remaining as she struggles to her feet and glares up at me. I pray for strength, rear my paw back to strike, the combat mech's much larger appendage mimicking my movement, and for the second time in my life I feel a direct, forceful premonition, one that says I must not strike.

Even before I was stuffed into the body of a cat, I have long been one to instinctively go for the throat. Find the most lethally effective path to victory, the best 'Win' button, and mash it repeatedly until all opposition is absolutely crushed. But a deeper conviction guides me, I am a man (even trapped in the body of a cat) who serves a Lord, and I have received guidance like this once before, in a manner that was of major importance to my life, even if it was less so.

So I hesitate. I wait, I silently ask, 'Why Lord? What am I to do instead?'

Then in my moment of distraction, Beryl unleashes another spell that cores my mech, and it collapses around me as 80% of my remaining control runs are severed.

((()))

Minako lashed out at Beryl with a spell, but even with one hand using her hair to conceal the ruins of her face, the woman deflected it with contemptuous ease, and sent a set of shadowy bonds out to pin the younger girl down. Another lance of destructive shadow-energy followed soon after, but Ami had already reached out and dragged the struggling girl behind one of the ruined cars, and Beryl was forced to pay attention to more immediate threats.

Makoto lunged towards her awkwardly, having hopped over on one leg, as her other was not fit to bear her weight; a second set of bonds downed the Senshi of Jupiter, causing her to tumble into the crater Jaeger's mech had created in the street when it had landed. Beryl's attention turned towards the crippled Werewolf not far from her, just in time to see it sink into the suddenly-permeable surface of the road; a swift glance revealed Lyn, the only other active spellcaster on the field, doing likewise with Mars' sedated body, glaring balefully at the woman as she did so.

All immediate threats dealt with, Beryl swept blood out of her eyes, though the ruined mess of her forehead made it a temporary measure at best, then turned her attention to purpose behind the entire battle, the seven rainbow jewels within her palm.

And found that she could do nothing with them. They all lay together, literally within her grasp, but pressing them together accomplished nothing, and no spell that she knew (was allowed to know) could rejoin them again. It was utterly impossible; all of her ability with spells of destruction, corruption, domination, and control, none of them was capable of restoring what Serenity had rent asunder long millenia past.

Something within her snarled with infuriated rage, and then with a sensation like a vast pressure she had not been consciously aware of, her mind changed.

((()))

Hostiles and friendlies were too close together for the pilots and gunnery officers to deploy munitions, but air assets from the US Navy, the small Japense detachment, and at long last the Royal Malasyian air force were all close enough to clearly see the immense form of shadow and... wrongness that erupted from Beryl's body to hover over the ruined stretch of the Jalan highway. At first, it was much as a column of smoke, ascending, expanding, dark and ominous, but after a handful of seconds, it solidified into a writhing mass of eyes, mouths, teeth, and clawed limbs.

Reports and requests for orders were relayed back to officers with operational command authority, and more severe measures for dealing with the situation began being considered.

((()))

Ami was trying very hard not to hyperventilate. Beside her, Usagi was futilely trying to help Minako free of the shadowy cords that restrained her, while crying and muttering about how she wished everything was normal again, and that people would stop dying, stop being dead, and that her mother were there, and-

Ami shook her head, and forced herself to creep upward and look over the edge of the car she was hiding behind, up at the massive twisted wrongness that had emerged from Beryl's body, and at the maimed Queen of the Dark Kingdom herself, who looked to be a single light breeze away from collapsing. She knew she needed to do something to help, she knew there was something she could do to help, but the only two spells she knew how to cast were a fog spell, and a powerful repair spell, neither of which she expected to accomplish anything against Beryl, much less eldritch abomination which now hovered overhead.

Then her eyes zeroed in on the collapsed mecha that her cat had been piloting through the battle, and she realized why Ryo had told her to learn the repair spell. It would take her a long time to gather enough magical energy to cast it to such a powerful purpose, but she could. And so, Ami Mizuno, Senshi of Mercury, set herself about contributing the only way she knew how, and in the process, was able to overcome her panic.

((()))

For the first time in literally thousands of years, Beryl's mind was free. Her body was free, and for a moment, she marveled in the simple ability to make her fingers and arms respond to her own commands rather than the whims of another. The pain across her face and side were unfortunate, but she had already been aware of those, and she would consider them a small price to pay for her freedom.

Then she looked up, and beheld both the destruction around her, and the being that floated above her; the small flicker of hope that had sprung to life in her heart collapsed instantly.

"YOU KNOW THE SPELL," Metallia spoke from many voices, and the mind of everyone who heard it screamed in protest. "YOU HAVE THE SKILL. REFORGE THE GINZUISHO."

Beryl cringed, feeling an utter despair as she realized that she had simply exchanged direct control for indirect control.

"ATTENTION!" A voice suddenly interjected, drawing the shocked attention of everyone remaining on the battlefield coherent enough to notice, "ELDRITCH ENTITY, AS YOU ARE AN UNLAWFUL IMMIGRANT OF THIS WORLD, AND IMPLICATED IN MANY FELONY CRIMES, I AM PLACING YOU UNDER ARREST."

Natsuna Sakurada, covered in gore, grime, and an aura of absolute resolve, strode towards Beryl and Metallia, megaphone in hand.

"IF YOU SURRENDER YOURSELF," Sakurada continued, "YOU MAY FIND LENI-URK!"

She was cut off by a clawed limb extending down from the horror above her, and spearing her through the abdomen.

"CAST THE SPELL," Metallia continued, "OR YOU WILL BE NEXT."

Beryl trembled as she felt the full weight of her long-time master turn onto her.

"ASSAULTING AN OFFICER OF THE LAW," Natsuna continued, no trace whatsoever of pain in her voice as she fired on the limb that had impaled her, "IS ANOTHER FELONY OFFENSE. IF YOU DO NOT SURRENDER, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF FACING THE DEATH-"

A second limb lanced out to take Natsuna through the throat, but she intercepted it with the megaphone; the device was destroyed, but the woman survived, and turned her attention to reloading.

"HEY!" Revy shouted, grunting as she finally managed to pull more ammunition free from the half of her belt trapped beneath the rubble, "YOU BIG ! #$ER UP IN THE SKY, DIDN'T YOU HEAR THE POLICE BITCH?"

Revy coughed as she reloaded, splattering blood on the clip; Metallia sent a limb down to skewere the trapped mercenary as well, but Revy was faster, and a torrent of bloody bullets shattered the claws at the end of the limb, and she punched the end of it away from her as the mangled ruin closed, causing it to slam into the asphalt beside her instead. Metallia sent more limbs after the gunwoman, but its first failed attempt had knocked enough detritus off of Revy that she was able to roll free. A manic glee entered her eyes, and she charged towards where Natsuna was still struggling, drawing a knife in her off hand and bloody mutilation on her mind.

"You have seen such things before," Metallia boomed, "I crushed the Moon Kingdom, and I will crush these mortals as well. Now CAST THE SPELL."

"No," Beryl rasped weakly, her voice rough with pain, but her eyes full of defiance, "If my death is what it takes to see you finally waste away to nothing, then I will die."

"So be it," Metallia declared, readying another limb to rain down upon its former host, when several things rather abruptly..

((()))

"Es!," Ami declared quietly under her breath, the final word of the repair spell, and launched the carefully-constructed lattice of magical energy towards where Jaeger was struggling out of the ruins of his war machine.

((()))

In a flurry of motion that took just under a second, every component that lay ruined about me, every shred of armor and machinery that lay scattered about the battlefield (and some that didn't), all leapt back into position, and rejoined as they were meant to be, including my control harness, which pulled me back into the command capsule.

The premonition, the voice-that-was-not-a-voice, the subtle divine command changed.

'Now' it said, and I struck.

((()))

Beryl saw a clawed, seven-jointed limb with an eyeball in the palm of its 'hand' descend towards her, death coming to take her away. Then a steel cat weighing hundreds of tons slammed into Metallia's eldritch form, and it was torn away from her. For a handful of seconds, Beryl's bewildered eyes locked onto the horror and the cat, as otherworldly screams of pain and outrage mixed with the machine's subtly metallic roars of challenge.

Then her eyes snapped down to the rainbow jewels clutched in her hand, and she realized something. As magically sensitive a she was, she did not need to look to know where the spell that had restored Jaeger's avatar of war had come from, she had felt it. A furious, desperate hope rose within her, and contrary to what she had said just seconds before, she cast the spell that Metallia had demanded of her, straining her mind, magic, and body in haste to complete it before the abomination could break free of the warrior attacking it.

Three seconds of intense magical reconstruction later, the fully-restored Ginzuisho rested within her palm, and she turned to where the three intact Senshi lay, hurling it towards them.

"GIVE IT TO SERENITY!" She roared, and to hear her, none would have understood the deep personal hatred the woman had once born towards the heir to the Crystal Throne.

((()))

Ami, reflexes enhanced by her Senshi mantle, caught the deftly thrown gem, stumbled for a moment as her academic's mind tried to keep up with the rapidly changing battlefield, before twisting around and thrusting the gem towards Usagi.

"Use it!" She shouted desperately, "Use it to make all of this stop!"

Usagi, startled by the scintillating gem thrust into her face, instinctively reached up and grasped what had been proffered to her, the foremost, desperate thought and wish in her mind being thus:

I wish nobody had died, I wish everything was normal again.

A blindingly bright pure white light erupted from the Ginzuisho.

((()))

"The hell is that?" The Forrestal's captain shouted, staring as brilliant white light erupted from the city fifteen miles to the Southeast, expanding into a dome which rapidly began to consume the city.

"Hell if I know," His XO said, eyes widening as the dome's spread accelerated, rapidly spreading into the water, directly towards them, "But I'm thinking-"

He was cut off as the dome washed over the fleet, and he was far from the first or the last, as the dome of light propagated across the entire planet, altering everything it touched, some things in subtle ways, some in ways far more blatant.

When it the wall of light had fully encompassed the globe, it faded, and once it had fully gone, there was no trace of Metallia in Kota Kinabalu, nor any trace of the damage the battle had wrought upon the city.

((()))

Epilogue for first arc:

((()))

Kota Kinabalu was enjoying an unexpected influx of tourism at the end of October; a cruise liner with literally thousands of people happy to spend money in the Malaysian city had just docked earlier that day, and the passengers were already beginning to filter into the city. If the customs agents had looked a little more closely at the paperwork of the lion's share of the 'tourists,' they might have noticed something a bit strange about it, but given that the first passenger off the dock had been the recently-famous Natsuna Sakurada, head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, nobody was feeling particularly suspicious.

Sakurada was famous, of course, for resolving the bombing case centered around the Hikawa Shrine (which fortunately had been empty during the bombing, the proprietors out due to renovations), and capturing the strange, rambling blonde foreigner responsible without any fatalities, despite the language barrier. It had made her into a national hero, as well as garnering her some international renown as few officials at her level personally visited crime scenes in progress, and the Diet had rewarded her with an all-expenses-paid vacation as a result.

To those who knew the woman, it had come as no great surprise when she had invited the families who had been trapped on-scene during her negotiations with the incoherent foreigner along with, for 'therapeutic recreation,' paid for out of her own pocket. Sakurada herself, accompanied by every civilian who'd been at the final potential bombsite where she'd talked things down, from the Anglican Vicar to a local doctor and her daughter to a reporter and his family, had been first off the ship, and down to the beach, just in time for the unveiling of a massive new steel machine-themed cat statue.

None of the tourists were quite sure why the city had decided to build such a statue, but it certainly was impressive, and the children thought it was cool, so they were hardly going to complain, even if it was a bit confusing. A pair of Americans, a middle-aged doctor and her adopted daughter, also on vacation, seemed to find the statue amusing, which further confused a number of the onlookers.

None of them however, were quite as confused as the Mizuno family cat, which had only one thought on its mind: 'Why the hell do I have paws?'

((()))

AN: And that's a wrap for the first plot arc of the Dungeon Crawler in the Sailor Moon setting. I'll be posting updates over on SpaceBattles as I write them, but you most likely won't see more here until the arc is completed, at which point I'll aim at posting it weekly until it's all up. Some other writers on SB have actually been inspired to start their own Dungeon Crawler stories over there as well; you may wish to pop in and have a look.