Author's rant (752 words of what's up with me and plans I have for different storylines follows)

So this is just a little idea I had come up and started writing on to break a bit of writer's block. For those who think that explains why I haven't posted anything new or continued anything for more than a year. No, that's not it.

What's going on is I've been doing some original works. Head out to DrivethruRPG and look up Thrythlind Books and Games and you'll find five novels, eleven short stories, an anthology, a system-agnostic RPG campaign guide and a Fate-Powered RPG setting. One of the novels, the Fate RPG book and the short stories represent a rewrite of the Divine Blood fanfic done as an original setting.

Combined with my full-time teaching and some other projects, it's eaten most of my time.

I don't know how much further I'll go with this, but it presents some interesting possibilities. As usual for me, the premise is complex and involves multiple franchises.

I think I need to do more fanfic writing in order to keep up my original writing. Fanfic writing helps me come up with ideas and is just fun. I don't have to worry so much about editing or formatting. I don't have pay for covers or illustrations. I get actual commentary.

It's just fun and I need that.

I don't want to get too many people hopeful, because my time is limited. But here's what's floating around in my head. None of these are guaranteed.

I'm thinking of doing a reboot of Martial Artists and Mayhem using the 5th ed.

I'm also rereading Chi and Chakra and thinking of progressing that at least to the Valley of the End.

Duel Wielding I know what I want to happen so I might consider that as well.

Outside Context is being a pain. I'm at about the part where my Planeswalker's plans are falling apart, which was the plan. The Fate/Stay Night setting was always just meant for prologue not primary meat. But I'm having issues getting from where I am to where I want to go. I am sure that some of what I plan will annoy people over at the Beast's Lair, but what else is new.

A would like to continue New Life too. That has short chapters and should be good for getting me pushed on.

This fic, Splinters, I don't have much more than these intro scenes planned. At the moment, I'm not even entirely certain what the primary threat is, which makes it hard to plan out more. That said, there's a lot I can do with the various women just dealing with the settings I placed them in. (I rather feel sorry for Widow being stuck in a setting that's less lethal than the others, at least to start, but it will likely get more so as things go on.)

Divine Blood is unlikely to advance until the novels and short stories catch up to the fan fic. The novels are taking a slightly different tact, and developing a bit faster though, so that should help. (I speak in relative terms. The first 40k words of the fanfic resulted in a 150k word novel.)

As to my projects for original works, these will take priority:

I am running one-shot gaming nights online from here in Japan and I'm about 2 weeks late in publishing a new episode. These are one shot explorations of various tabletop RPGs. I've done Kuro, Numenera and am currently working on Accursed.

I am working on a sequel to the novel Bystander, I have about 14k of 75k planned words written.

I am waiting on art to put up with a twelfth Divine Blood $1 short story. After that, I will be producing three more shorts which will only be available in a compilation. The short stories are currently showing far more divergence from the fanfic than the novel did.

After the holidays, I will be writing a campaign guide for the slice-of-life style campaign for the Divine Blood RPG. It will focus on drama and comedy rather than life and death scenarios and thus deal more with the Community and civilian psychics than trained warriors. A mecha/upright warfare campaign guide will likely come after that.

I have discussed with Battlefield Press about working together on a new RPG. Since that is not entirely my project, I'll keep quite on the theme. However, I have worked with them before on both the Gaslight Victorian RPG and the Double Spiral War RPG.

Hopefully, my original works take off either on Amazon (look up Luke Green) or DrivethruRPG and I'll be able to make them my day job and thus have more time for fanfiction again. But until then, my fanfic is going to continue to be slow to come out. Given they've been around some time already, this is doubtful, but can always hope.

Actual story.

Consciousness came slowly in a serious of foggy blinks. The surrounding world resolved into a narrow, dingy alleyway between two tallish brownstone buildings. A festering scent of collected garbage assaulted the young woman's senses as she pushed herself to standing. It was after dark and the shadows were long. A slight powdering of snow was just beginning to descend out of the sky though there were signs that the storm was going to get worse.

"This is not my cell," the young woman noted as she looked around, trying to get a sense of just where exactly she was.

She was dressed warmly, at least. She noted the gloves on her hands and the scarf around her neck. The wool jacket was another layer over the shirt and school jacket and the leotard underneath. She was wearing the old uniform and she could tell from the variations of chi and weight that most of her old arsenal was in place as well.

She grimaced and looked about for cameras.

"I'm not sure why the nostalgia for my teen years," she commented with a raised voice to the air around her, "but if whoever has deposited me here would do me the favor of presenting a mission briefing I can get through with this and back to my prison cell."

No answer seemed immediately forthcoming, much to her annoyance.

"Well, what do we have here?" The voice spoke English with a rough sort of imprecise tone. "You look like you come from some sort of money, girl. Why don't you hand some of it over to me and my friends here."

The young woman turned about to stare at the four thuggish brutes that had somehow managed to materialize behind her. No stance to speak of. Significant size relative to her. A particular sound spoke to the presence of a switchblade knife and one of them was smacking a bat against his open hand in a vaguely threatening manner.

"Were I you, I would not dare to proceed further on this matter," she commented waving at them with a dismissive back hand as she turned to walk casually away from the thugs. Her own reaction struck a sour note with her. There was something about it that nagged at her.

There was a snarl as they took the insult and the scraping of boots on cold stone as they ran at her back. Her body reacted slower than she was used to, but it was still swift enough. A reverse cartwheel brought her heel in contact with the skull of one of her attackers, sending a shock of the impact down her leg and numbing it slightly, putting her off balance slightly as she righted herself. She took the chance to affirm her balance as she sidestepped the swing of the bat and drawing forth her own club and swinging it up into her target's face in reaction. For a moment she was tempted to depress the button and she had to remind herself there was no need to kill simple street thugs.

The distraction allowed for the switchblade wielding thug the chance to lash out and try to stab up through her face for some reason. Likely he had meant to slice her throat and misjudged the angle. A warm, wet sensation trickled down her face and she became acutely aware that a line had been cut across her face.

A thick, boiling rage erupted within her. "You dare. You DARE! You dare to mark the face of the glorious Kodachi Kuno, the Blood Rose!?"

As she railed loudly into the night she caught the hand of her enemy in his next attack and twisted him aside to collide with the last of the four thugs. The switchblade popped out of his hand and twirled into the air where the young woman snatched it cleanly. Then she bitterly eyed the groaning barely conscious forms around her.

"I shall take this plebeian instrument of mutilation and visit upon your body -"

Kodachi's eyes widened as she stopped her rant cold.

"Megalomania," she muttered haltingly. "I am displaying signs of megalomania."

The switchblade fell from nervous fingers before she moved between the four thugs, kicking them into unconsciousness without further preamble. As soon as the hostiles were handled she turned her attention on her own gloves hands.

Quickly she removed one of the gloves to reveal the smooth alabaster skin underneath. The hand started shaking vigorously as she stared at it.

"My skin isn't green," she whispered in disbelief before her eyes started darting around until she found a storefront displaying her reflection. She darted through the alleyway across the street and virtually pushed her face into the glass. "No, no, no. NOOO! Damn it! I'm human again."

She took a deep breath and forced herself to analyze the situation carefully. Investigating her appearance in the reflection closely, she found herself much younger than she last remembered. In fact, she looked quite like she remembered appearing as a student of St. Hebereke. Forcefully she closed her eyes and stepped back.

"I have time," she reminded herself. "I have time to fix this. I shall not allow this...this setback to divert me. Indeed, this shall be simply a minor...bump in the road for one of my abilities. It is a small matter."

Kodachi closed her eyes shut tightly and clenched her fist.

"Now stop monologuing and get to it," she told herself. Looking up she noticed the fluttering American flag on the pole down the street. Another scan of the area found a payphone. Walking purposefully toward it, she recalled the American emergency services number and dialed it up. "Yes, I'd like to report an attempted mugging. No, the victim seems to have left quite on their own power, but the criminals appear to need a hospital. I am not quite sure of my location, can you perhaps trace in on this payphone? It is about...one hundred meters south of the alley where the ne'er-do-wells are. Excellent."

As she walked back toward where she'd left the thugs, she found them groaning and trying to get back to their feet.

"Oh dear," she noted. "I had thought I inflicted more injury than that."

One of the thugs turned around to look at her dazedly as his vision started to resolve her as the girl they'd just tried to rob. She was shaking her head and shrugging as she spoke.

"Well, if at first you don't succeed..."

"What the fuck are you talking about..."

By the time the ambulance and police arrived there were, indeed, four thugs in need of hospitalization. Despite temptations, she'd managed to avoid dealing any sort of exotic injuries, she didn't want the police thinking this was anything too far out of the ordinary after all.

She watched the proceedings below and waited for the first ambulance to finish loading up the thug with a cop in attendance to keep an eye on them. She traced them from the rooftops of the brownstones for several blocks before taking a leap and landing nimbly on the roof. Flattening herself against the roof, she held on through the snowy night air until the ambulance came to the unloading bay for the emergency room.

A leap up took her out of the line of sight of the civilians and cops, holding onto the side of the building and taking several leaps upward, maintaining connection between her and the stone facade by use of her chi. Finding an unwatched aperture was more difficult. Fire doors were out of consideration, since she didn't want to alert the facility to anything unusual. It wasn't until she reached the roof that she managed to find an entrance that let her into the building unnoticed. The guard there was a bit more concerned with warming up than with paying attention to someone coming inside.

A discarded lab coat from a locker room near the top floor was pulled over her school uniform. She wouldn't pass most inspections, of course, she looked like a bloody teenager after all, but if she kept her manner to an appropriately busy hustle, most people wouldn't look at her long enough to see that she didn't belong. A far cry from trying to get around in a black school uniform in a country that didn't make much use of school uniforms.

A couple of hours later, she had the tests she needed and was standing beside a sleeping lab-tech covered in black rose petals as she calculated the implications of her two blood tests. The worrisome hormones were building up faster than she expected. Much faster than they had when she'd been a teenager. One hand idly noted down her conclusions on the print out.

"36 hours, maybe less," she muttered. "A day and a half in which to lose my physical humanity before I lose my spiritual humanity. This should be quite...fun."

The sound of an opening door drew her attention and she bolted for the open grate and slipping in before whichever doctor in search of just why their labs weren't getting done came into the room. She was already pulling the vent closed behind her when she heard the voices in the room.

"What the..." this was followed by several footsteps. "Security, get in here. Everyone in the blood lab has been drugged unconscious, there's an intruder in the building."

Kodachi didn't hesitate to slip through the vents and come out in a broom closet before stepping out into the lower levels of the hospital where a few civilians from outside the hospital were still around. Discarding the lab coat, she made her way down stairs and, as an after thought, approached the reception desk.

"Excuse me, I have a question, pertaining to a school project," she said without hesitation to the woman sitting there.

"Oh, what is that?" the receptionist asked with a well-buried trace of negligent annoyance as she glanced up to see a teen and then looked back at her work.

"Do you perhaps know if there are any labs or companies doing genetic research in the area?" she asked. "Who might the best be?"

"We don't do genetic research here," the woman said firmly, now glaring at Kodachi.

"I am quite aware of that," the physical teenager noted, rolling her eyes. "But is there any genetic research going on in this city?"

"Listen kid," the receptionist noted. "Just go look up Waynetech Bioresearch and move on. I have work to do."

"Waynetech," Kodachi noted in satisfaction. "Thank you, that will be most helpful."

A blonde woman woke up as light streamed in through a window into her eyes. Irritably, she reached up her hand to block out the sun and started to crack open her eyes. She took in the wooden walls with the vaguely Asian themes and tried to place the room in the catalog of locations she was familiar with. Failing that, she lifted herself up to a seated position, noting that she had apparently been sleeping on the floor. She corrected that thought when she looked back over her shoulder and saw that it was a traditional Japanese style futon.

"Okay, what the hell is going on here," she whispered to herself.

Looking herself over she found things even more confusing. There was a kevlar vest under her shirt which itself was under a jacket embroidered with softly glowing runes. Her shoulder holster complete with automatic pistol was securely in place. Hell, even her boots were in place and there was an extendable baton on her belt. A shoulder strap held her preferred assault weapon and a quick check confirmed that her back up pistol and a knife were in place.

All three of the pistols had that warm, reassuring feeling that she wasn't entirely certain of. She experimentally pulled the clip of both the pistols and the security weapon. They were all three loaded, but she had an odd sensation regarding that, something that she wasn't quite able to place.

"Since when do I go to bed in full tactical gear," she wondered before rising to her feet.

This held another surprise for her, the stiffness of old injuries failed to make itself known. Frowning, she took a few moments to perform a few stretches and test out her range of movement. All of her old pains seemed to be gone. A full two decades of fighting gangsters, cultists, fae, vampires, and assorted other supernatural beasties were just...gone. She felt better than she had since before the chaos entered her life. Actually, she felt better, and stronger, than she had ever felt before.

She glanced skyward, imagining herself seeing through the simple wooden ceiling above her toward the heavens. Such renewals never came for no reason. Her only question was whether this had come from the Heavens or some...other force. It wouldn't be the first time that an enemy or even The Enemy had managed to empower one of the angels to turn them against the cause. Of course, that was all supposed to be over and done with. They'd won, she was free to live out the rest of her years with family and friends in peace.

Barring things like this, of course.

"Okay," she said, rolling her eyes. "Let's see where the hell I am."

The door to the room was easy to find and not locked. Given her surroundings, she was in some sort of inn or hotel or something. She just hoped her room was already paid for. The hallways were narrow, like something out of older times, but at least she had no difficulty finding the stairs. She was passing down them easily enough when the sound of raised voices came up to her ears.

"...are you seriously trying to give us lip, you stinking cur?" someone with an almost inhuman guttural voice asked. "Don't you know who we are?"

Moving cautiously down the steps, she lowered her profile as much as she could so that her eyes would pass below the lower floor's ceiling quicker and give her a look at what was happening. Eventually, she came around the corner to find a pair of dark-clothed men pressuring who she assumed to be the innkeeper. One of them was tall and standing with his back straight and his arms crossed, a wicked smile across his face as his partner leaned over the bar and gripped the target of his intimidation by the throat.

"My brother and I are missing nin," the leaning man noted. "We're in the bingo book with a price on our heads enough to buy this stinking pit four times over. So if you don't want to end up adding to my bounty, just stay the fuck out of my way."

The woman frowned as she listened and understood what was being said, but yet the language was unfamiliar to her. She wasn't hearing English, that's for sure. It sounded a bit like Japanese but that wasn't quite right either.

As she pondered the matter, she let the personal security weapon slip to her back and pulled out the heavy auto-loader from her shoulder holster, making sure to set the safety off.

"Shinkichi," the tall man noted with cool amusement. "What did you have to say that for? Now they'll head to the nearest Hidden Village with word of our location." He tsked and shook his head.

The other man growled thoughtfully, looking over his shoulder. "Hmmm, guess we'll just have to kill everybody then."

The blonde woman set up her pistol and loudly pulled the hammer back. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The shorter, more bestial sounding of the men in dark clothes didn't even bother to turn and face her before moving to throw something in her direction. She recognized the movement coming easy enough and immediately set to rolling out of the way while still taking her shot.

A kunai imbedded in the wall behind where she had been perched as she rolled down the stairs. Her own first shot spiraled across the intervening air before slamming hard on target into the shoulder of the man that had just tried to skewer her. Instantly he started crying out and clutching the shoulder, but the blonde woman was already lining up another shot on the taller man, whose arms were uncrossing.

Her second shot was immediately followed by two more which struck center mass and pushing the second target back towards the wall. Or they would have if the target hadn't vanished into a puff of smoke to be replaced with what looked like a light fixture.

This wasn't her first rodeo by a long-shot, she'd been decoyed before and she immediately launched donkey kick backwards. Her foot connected with the wall, she'd figured that it would be too easy to assume that she'd hit the ninja. Still, this gave her the chance to propel herself forward over the last flight of the stairs, taking a flip in the air as she glanced back to see the tall man launching a near stream of metal pointy bits in her general direction.

This was part of why she'd kept low to the ground in her dodge forward. In her experience, you didn't jump through open air unless you had to. It was a terrible idea to be caught in mid-air, no way to redirect your movement, when the monster, or stream of bullets, came for you. This was no different, she kicked out toward the nearby wall and redirected her leap to the side, adding in her weight to push her out of the line of fire. Though one of the kunai dug a painful gouge into her her arm, it was mostly a flesh wound.

Rolling to her feet, the first of these thugs, the one that she had already shot, came back into the fight wielding a short bladed sword in one hand as he pushed into the fight. The man was fast and hardy to be fighting with a bullet in the shoulder. It didn't take her long to categorize him as above-human level in strength and speed. He was, however, effectively slower than an Einherjar. She took a simple step to the side and let the strike pass her buy, adding a bit of momentum so that he went flying into his partner.

As the man toppled away from her she leveled her pistol and fired twice. When she was a rookie, she would have tried for the non-lethal strike, but too many years of fighting monsters had taught her otherwise. She'd given these two a chance by announcing her presence and presenting the firearm. They hadn't hesitated to attack, so she wouldn't either.

One dead body toppled into the living body of his teleporting partner, weighing the tall man down. The blonde woman approached, drawing the knife from its position as she walked over the body and started to slice down for her enemy's neck. A puff of smoke revealed to her a chair in the man's place and her pistol pointed back over her shoulder and with the pull of a finger, the second ninja shuddered to a stop, hole in his head before toppling to the ground.

Standing up to her fully unimpressive height of five feet, the blonde woman looked about the room, gun and knife at the ready as she took in the civilians around her. "Everybody all right?"

"Uh, yes, Ma'am," the innkeeper said hesitantly.

"You've got anything like police around here to deal with this?" she asked.

"There's a place to turn in bounties a few leagues down the road," the innkeeper told her shakily. "May I ask, wha...what manner of weapon is that?"

She looked at her pistol and then the man. "Never seen a pistol before?"

At the shake of his head, the woman grimaced. Apparently she'd just wasted a fair amount of ammo in a place that didn't know what a pistol was. Taking the weapon back out, she removed the clip to take account of what she had left. What she found was a full clip. The frown grew on her face and she walked outside and looked for a good piece of dirt. She had a suspicion which she wanted to test. If she was wrong, she was about to render the pistol little more than a hunk of metal until she could get some tools to make her own bullets.

Pointing down, she fired repeatedly into the dirt until the pistol clicked to empty. She counted fifteen shots in doing so. Then, removing the clip, she looked at it and saw bullets filled to the top. Immediately, she pushed the clip back in and fired another round of fifteen bullets into the ground. Once again, upon removal, the clip was full.

A sensation dragged her attention to the cut on her arm which, as she watched, visibly closed itself. Her eyes narrowed as she considered that. Last she knew, she wasn't anything other than human, so where the hell had that come from.

"Okay, Toto, this is definitely not Chicago anymore," she said as she noted the various people staring at her.

Once again, the pistol was holstered and she looked through the small clusters of people to find the innkeeper. "Hey, where am I?"

"This is Sonoda Village in the Land of Fire," the innkeeper said quickly. "Uh..."

"Murphy," she responded. "Karrin Murphy." She walked to the door and looked in at the bodies of the two ninja.

The explosion woke her up in time for her to roll to the side before a large piece of the ceiling could crush her flat. Eyes darted about taking in the battered nature of her surroundings. The building she was in was old but sturdily built with signs of regular maintenance. It was most likely some sort of hotel or bank building. Nameplates that she could see told her that she was in an English speaking country of some sort. The repeated explosions told her that there was something of a war going on outside.

Another round of explosions convinced the young woman to stand up and get moving. A quick look at the back of her hands found a disturbing lack of scars there, but she shoved that out of her mind as she shoved one of her long ponytails out of her face. Her priority right now was to get to some degree of safety and then establish just what the hell was going on.

A stairwell took her down two levels to find the rest of the stairs blocked by a collapse and forcing her to head into the main portion of the building. She found herself in a long room of office cubicles with a wall-sized window looking out onto what was almost definitely New York City.

"Bank then," she reasoned as she picked through the scattered light weight furniture looking for another stairwell to proceed down from.

Her search for a way out was interrupted when a humanoid shape of red and gold metal literally rocketed past the window pursued by a number of figures on some sort of flying bike contraption. One of the vehicles was clipped by something and came hurtling in through the broken window and crashing in a headlong tumble through the debris on this floor and forcing the young woman to dive off to the side and avoid the main thrust of the crashing vehicle.

As things settled down, Rin peeked up to see the pilot of the flying bike: a strange figure in biomechanical armor of some sort. Three-fingered hands gripped a weapon that it pulled from the wreckage of its vehicle as it shook its head clear, finally fixing eyes on the young woman in her black skirt and red sweater. An inhuman shriek erupted from its insectile mouth before it started to raise the wicked seeming item to its shoulders.

The girl wasted no time in pulling her hand up and pointing toward the figure with an outstretched index finger. Reddish light immediately gathered at the tips of her fingers before rocketing out and pounding into the thing's armor and knocking it off center. It was only the first such shot fired, however, as a cascade of the reddish bolts of energy erupted from her finger into creature. Each moment coming with her advancing with one calm step after another.

As the inhuman thing was blasted by her, again and again, the girl frowned. The thing in front of her was no threat, but her magic felt somehow...different from what it had originally been. At the very least it felt stronger. Her spell was not drawing so heavily on her magic circuits as she was used to it doing, even when she were younger and hadn't passed the crest on to her child. A thought which came to her about the same time she realized that she could still feel her family crest where it had been implanted around the time of her father's death.

Curious, she pushed the last projectile as far as she could and felt her eyes widening further and further as she seemed to be tapping into some oddly limitless pool of prana. She stopped well before she reached her limit, afraid of what might happen, and watched the unleashed spell slam into the target. Both the creature and the very wall and floor around it dissolved with a speed so swift that it seemed like they were being torn apart by a physical blow rather than simply an overcharged disease charm.

"Where'd that come from," she wondered, eyes narrowed, as she approached the new hole in the floor and looked down to the next level.

Dropping down, she noticed for the first time, that her physical condition was also far better than it had been of late. Walking along, a shattered mirror attracted her attention out of the corner of her eye and she paused to look at herself in it. Some might have taken the following minute or so of examination of her smooth skin and dark hail to be something of vanity. Most would have missed the analytical, calculating expression behind her eyes as she considered the fact that she had someone returned to her physical condition of thirty years prior.

"I should be careful if I don't want to acquire a sealing designation," she commented, "and with this situation, I should definitely be on the look out for any Enforcers on the way."

The sound of a number of cries from further on along her level drew her attention and motion to a door at the far end of the debris. Stepping out, she saw a crowd of people being held under the gun point of several more of these inhuman things. The non-humans were talking amongst themselves in that shrieky, gutteral language as the girl considered her options.

She recognized preparations for a mass execution when she saw them. She'd been on both sides of the equation before, after all. Exterminating a horde of mindless Dead Apostles for one, and facing the Einzbern's assassins when they tried to prevent the dismantling of the Grail. She couldn't stand idly by and watch a bunch of mundanes be slaughtered.

Her plans were cut short, however, when a man in a red, white and blue uniform barreled in through the window and proceeded to beat the hell out of the inhuman creatures with a shield and his fists. The short fight culminated in the man taking shelter behind his shield in the face of an explosion from what the girl assumed to be a grenade of some sort. He was sent hurtling out of the the window by the force of the explosion while his opponents were simply vaporized.

The girl narrowed her eyes again in thought as she moved down from her place of observation to the level where the fight had gone on and then down to the ground floor. Pushing through the crowd of people she came out of the doors to see the uniformed man standing up seemingly unfazed at having just landed on a car. All around there was chaos as giant serpentile monsters and more of those flying bikes darted about the air.

"This is not my reality," the girl noted to herself with a grim tone as her eyes finally found the great black hole in the sky out of which these invaders were pouring.

She looked to the side as a number of police officers started working to herd the civilians out of the most dangerous areas of town. Slipping out of the way she dipped into an alleyway out of sight and watched for a few moments before moving on deeper into the war zone.

Whatever was going on, she wasn't going to be pushed aside like a civilian. If nothing else, she'd be able to stay on hand and watch things develop to get a better idea of what was occurring.

Slipping from one end of the alley to the next, she watched as a flying blond man with a hammer cascaded one of the monster things with lightning. Hugging close to the walls, she paid close attention to the vast amount of power that the man was tossing around with seemingly little effort. There was a...feeling about him that told her that he wasn't human as well. Her first thought was that he was a Servant or something else, but dismissed that almost immediately. She'd had way too many close-up...inspections of a Servant to think that this person was one of those.

She paused at the corner of a store and considered things for a moment. "Though Saber really isn't your standard Servant, now that I think about it."

Regardless, she started to turn a corner and then ducked back around as she saw a full unit of those invading things picking their way cautiously down the street, probably looking to flank the defenders of this city. She took a deep breath and considered the sort of spells or tactics to use. She had limited resources here, no jewels to use as power sinks, no Saber, no Shiroh. Just an unknown source of power with unknown limitations and unknown consequences.

"Well, I wanted to stay close to the action," she reminded herself. Taking a breath she turned the corner and spoke aloud in a confident voice. "Heed the Contract and Serve Me, O Queen of Ice! Come, Everlasting Darkness, the Eternal Glacier! Bring Death to All That Has Life, Eternal Rest! End of the World!"

The entire area ahead of her was covered in a sheer, glittering of framework from the moment she started speaking. The ice only grew thicker and colder as the spell continued until, at last, the incantation was complete and the girl was standing in front of an icy grotto of frozen fingers. She lifted one hand, middle finger and thumb pressed together.

"Shatter." She snapped and each pillar of ice shattered, sending pieces of alien warrior all over the scene and flying past her.

Brushing back her hair, she started to move confidently through the carnage that she had just unleashed, pausing only when she took in the sight of one of the storefronts she was walking past. Idly, she paused and considered the scattered jewels and gems on the floor of the shop in front of her.

"On the one hand, I don't like the idea of adding 'jewel thief' to my resume," she considered, cupping her chin before raising her index finger and considering on with the contrary point. "On the other hand, I am in an alien environment for an unknown amount of time. Best to have some sort of resource on hand."

It didn't take much of a spell to overwhelm the few remaining security features of the store, then it was just a matter of stepping in, finding a discarded purse to empty and gathering a handful of gems to fill it with before stepping back out again, eyes open for creatures or police officers directing civilians out of the area. As soon as she had the time and quiet, she could get to work on enchanting the jewels for later use.

She continued picking her path through the ruins of the city, moving closer to the tower over which the portal hung. Her forward progress was stopped for a moment, however, as she heard a groan coming from nearby. Twisting about she looked over and saw someone trying to push his way out from under some debris. Glancing from the portal to the young man, a high-schooler likely, she grimaced and moved swiftly to the young man's side.

"Hold still," she told him. "I'll get you out of there."

"How are you going to..." the young man asked.

"Just, hold still," the girl repeated, outright commanding this time.

She reached back to pull out her athame and found herself instead holding a particularly familiar jeweled dagger as a memory came to her mind. A long night of work at the end of decades of study resulting in...this. She put the distraction into a different fragment of her mind and decided to deal with that later. For now, she simply cut her finger slightly and reached down to pick up a piece of the debris surrounding her and the young man. She marked the piece of debris with her blood and watched as the pieces of shattered building rising up into the air rejoining the structure above the young man pulling off of him.

"What...what the hell was that?" the young man asked as the girl leaned down next to him and started looking him over. "Who are you?"

"My name is Rin Tohsaka," she said. "Now stop squirming so I can get this over with and back to my own affairs."

Above them, the portal closed tight as the invaders and their weapons all started falling out of the sky.

"Well, that's now moot," she said with palpable irritation. "So, back to this. Stay still or I will make you stay still. I swear, I prefer healing the unconscious and dying, it's easier."

A purple-haired woman stepped out into the hotel hallway, looking casually in either direction as she started to walk towards the back of the hotel hallway. She'd almost made it before the cart came around the corner and she found herself tumbling over it. It wasn't particularly difficult, especially with a restored youth, though she did spend a couple of moments chiding herself for the lack of awareness that made it necessary.

"Oh my goodness!" a woman shrieked as the purple haired woman landed on her feet and straightened up. "Are you all right, Miss?"

"It is fine," the young woman said, turning around. "I landed on me feet."

"That is so lucky," the woman noted. "I should have come around a little bit wider, I always take the corners too tightly and people don't get enough time to see me coming and – oh my God, you're blind!"

That statement confused the young woman somewhat and her brow crinkled. "I'm what?"

"Well, your eyes," the woman said, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have blurted it out."

The woman smiled then and shook her head. "Don't worry about it, it's a family trait. It can look disturbing, but I'm not blind."

"Oh, you're not," the maid asked. "Really? Are you certain."

"Quite certain, yes," the woman said with a gentle voice. "Other wise I couldn't say that you have brown hair and blue eyes."

"Oh, well, I suppose," the maid said. "Still, I should be a bit more careful. I mean, who can see through walls, right? Other than Superman, of course."

"Superman?" the woman asked in confusion.

"Oh, he's a character in an comic book," the maid said. "I guess they don't have that book in your country."

"Oh, I suppose we are a little bit distant from the place," the young woman agreed casually. "I'm actually rather surprised to find the speech and writing so easy to understand."

"Where are you from, anyway," the maid asked. "Somewhere in Asia I guess, but I can't quite place the accent."

"That's quite some distance from here, yes," the purple haired woman commented before quickly moving on. "Excuse me, I was trying to reach the roof for a better look at the city. Do the stairs here lead up there?"

"Yes, the heliport is up there," the maid said. "That has a good view of the city, but it is a bit chilly out there. Winter seems to come earlier and earlier each year. I mean supposedly the world's supposed to be getting warmer, right?"

"That's what they say," the woman agreed conversationally. "Well, thank you for the information. Now, if you excuse me, I want to get the lay of the land here."

"Oh yes, no problem," the maid said, "Let me just get out of the way here Miss..."

"Uzumaki Hinata," she responded. "But I believe the proper term in this language is 'Mrs'."

"Umm, aren't you a little young to be married?" the maid asked before her hands came to her mouth. "I don't mean to imply anything."

"It's all right," Hinata returned. "I look young for my age. Anyway, I'll be heading up to the roof then."

"Maybe I'll see you later, Mrs Hinata," the maid said. "Oh wait, Asia, umm Mrs Uzumaki."

Hinata nodded and turned back toward the stairwell, keeping her smile though it was a little bit strained. She shouldn't be too judgmental, she had been quite awkward herself at one point. Granted she had been a child at the time, but she knew more than a handful of people that had remained awkward well into adulthood.

The air was indeed rather crisp as she came out onto the roof and found what she assumed to be the heliport. She assumed the flying vehicles she saw in the air around the building were the "helis" that used this port, but they weren't exactly the chief thing on her mind as she looked about and then took a casual leap to the top of an antenna affixed to the roof. Once there, she made the hand sign to focus her chakra and send the veins about her white eyes bulging.

The byakugan active, the entire vista of the city became visible to her. She kept her head moving slightly in order to keep the one blindspot she had pointed in different directions. Granted, that was up into empty air along a very small cone, but was never a safe thing to assume there'd be no danger coming from a direction.

In the meantime she spent her effort on memorizing the general layout of the place as much as possible. Major thorough-fares, traffic nexuses and places of gathering power. The first thing she noticed was that the city was rife with power, but none of it looked quite like anything she recognized as chakra. Below her, people were closer in view enough for her to see that their chakra coils were...not exactly chakra coils. Where ever she was, the basic physiology of the people that lived here was similar but different from the people of her own country. Different enough for her to conclude this was some alternate dimension rather than some unknown country half-way around the world from Konohagakure.

The only people she knew of who could manipulate alternate dimensions were all sharingan users. She didn't remember seeing any Uchiha before she'd gone to sleep. Which, of course, didn't mean anything. Someone powerful enough to send her to an entirely different dimension would be able to get around her detection. She didn't use the byakugan all the time after all, especially not in these days of peace.

Before she could figure that out, however, she had to get the lay of the land here. One thing that made this not quite chakra useful was that there were numerous variations to it which pooled in different places. She assumed that this represented various major factions in the area, but the sheer level of power around was disturbing. The last time she'd seen anything like this had been in the Fourth Shinobi World War, with the only major difference being that most of this power wasn't active, it was just...sitting there.

She looked for an area where the various powers pooled together, or at least several of them. She needed a neutral ground, some place she could watch the various powers come and go without drawing attention. One thing she was very good at was sitting, watching and not attracting attention. Scanning about, she found what looked like a bar of some sort. Which brought up another problem.

Money.

But there was always an easy solution to that and all that required was looking for a place where two groups of people were exchanging money for goods in a not so upfront manner and track the party that received the funds to their home base. Then all she had to do was trace a path to that home base from this building she was currently in.

Not more than an hour later, Hinata was sitting on the roof of a much smaller building overlooking a shady seeming warehouse and counting guards, reading lips and listening to the voices of those close enough for her to hear. All the sorts of ammunition she'd need for a good disguise, assuming she let these people see her to begin with.

When she was ready, a chakra empowered leap took her to the roof of the warehouse and a simple hand gesture warped her entire appearance to that of one of the solo guards that she'd seen patrolling the area. Coming through the skylight was easy enough, and she soon found herself walking along the ceiling over the heads of these criminals. She was tempted to simply shut down the entire operation, but reminded herself that this was not her land and she was trying to avoid attention right now.

There was a moment of opportunity and she let herself drop silently from the ceiling down to the ground without anyone noticing her. Now, if she got spotted, they'd simply see their fellow guard and hopefully not question it, something that would be harder to pull off if they hand her walking along the ceiling. Quietly, she took a ladder up to the overlooking catwalk and started her way toward the office overlooking the scene as a whole.

A couple of people, the individuals in charge of this operation she assumed, were sitting around counting the bundles of paper that they had brought in with the briefcase. They were still counting as she brought herself over their position, overlooking a door just behind them. Dropping down, she slipped into the office behind them. She considered whether or not to use the Gentle Fist, without proper study of their alien physiology she'd as likely kill them as knock them out. Or perhaps do nothing. Of course, they were sitting too close together for her to quietly take out one without alerting the other.

She glanced up toward the ceiling light and retrieved a simple needle from her pockets. A simple throw and the chakra-infused needle struck the lightbulb, causing it to suddenly sputter and shatter, burying everyone in darkness.

"Damn it, I just changed that light bulb," one of the two men in the room with her noted. In the dark she noted one of the two standing up and moving toward the next room with the sort of slow care produced by trying to move around when one can't see. It was a behavior she was familiar with only from watching other people having obviously never had much trouble seeing herself.

"Maybe there's something wrong with the wiring?" the other man suggested from where he sat. "Just get it working so we can get this finished, then call an electrician in."

"Right, right," his partner noted. "Where's that flashlight."

As the man continued looking for a replacement bulb, Hinata came up behind his cohort and quietly secured her transformed arm around his neck. The man struggled for a bit but he was well and truly unconscious before a light appeared in the side room.

"Found it," the man declared. "Now for the light bul..."

The light tumbled out of his hand to floor as Hinata slipped in to choke him unconscious as well. Moving quickly now, she turned to the piles of paper money on the table and rolled out a scroll from her pocket. Outside, she could see several guards getting concerned about the goings on in the office. She could even hear questions about what the light was doing out.

"Hey, is everything alright up there?" someone called out.

Making sure she was clear of cameras, Hinata shifted her hands and transformed again, taking the form of one of the two men she had just taken out of the situation. "The damn light went out, don't worry about it."

"All right, boss, but if you need any help, we can," the man outside continued.

Inside, Hinata, within her disguise, was biting into her index finger to draw some blood and complete the seals to place the money into the seal scroll. "No, there's no need for that, just stay out there. Make sure no one gets anywhere close to this money."

"Right, boss," the thug outside noted. "You can count on us."

As the minion spoke, Hinata was rolling up the paper scroll and pocketing, along with all the money it now contained, aside from the bills that went into her pockets for easy access. She waited for the guards to once again stop paying direct attention to the office before slipping out the side door and leaping silently up to the roof. From there she easily made her way to the skylight and then was out into the city at large.

Perhaps half a mile away, she activated her byakugan and focused back on the criminal warehouse. As expected, there was something of a commotion going on as her victims woke up and started demanding answers from the thugs guarding the warehouse. Angers flared, and Hinata found herself lucky to see the use of one of the odd weapons of this world demonstrated. One of the bosses pointed the piece of metal at one of the thugs and pulled a lever. The projectile it released moved too fast for her to track, perhaps a sharingan user could do it, but it tore through the body of the target and quickly the man's chakra, or whatever it might be called here, faded away with his death.

"Well, this is good distance to be at one learning how that works," she said to herself as the commotion continued on. She let the byakugan drop and started on the path to the bar she had seen earlier. Some miles out, she let her disguise drop and returned to her true form. Eventually, she found herself walking down a small flight of stairs into McAnally's Pub.

Amongst several customers in the Japanese internet cafe was one redheaded young woman sitting at a computer in the back corner with a fair-sized overnight bag beside her. Her attention at the moment was focused on the computer screen, though her back was to a wall giving her a good view of all the entrances into the building.

She'd woken up earlier in an unused sewer facility that looked like it had been converted into a sort of headquarters some time in the last twenty years. She'd found some old skeletons, mostly children, which had been there for an unknown period of time. Not exactly the most comforting of places, it sort of felt haunted in a way, though she knew her usual working partner would scoff at such a superstitious analysis.

In any case, she had decided to come up to the streets to start working out just what had happened so that she woke up in Japan looking like she had in her twenties and easily able to walk. Hence why she was now sitting in the back of the internet cafe. A little bit of hacking had done the job of getting her into the public computer and set-up with an account status that had her as paid in full. After she finished her research, she was going to see about building herself a bank account and identity. This was normally rather criminal stuff, but she didn't exactly have much choice.

After all, when she'd tried to access her own bank account she'd found that it didn't exist. Nor did the company she had banked with for years. In fact the entire city and county where she had spent most of her life simply seemed to not exist anymore. Or ever, in fact. It wasn't as if her hometown had been wiped off the face of the map. It had been wiped off the face of history.

With that stumbling block making itself a nuisance, she'd moved on to studying her current location. It was a Japanese city that she had never heard of before, but then she didn't know everything about everything. She simply never forgot anything. The fact that a city wasn't one she had heard of meant nothing more than that she hadn't heard of it. That said, it had all the characteristics of a city which would have made it into her friend's files at some point and she knew those files inside and out.

Interesting as the history was, with mentions of notorious hired killers, serial killers and mysterious explosions, it wasn't quite telling her how she could have appeared in this place and how her old injuries had been healed and her body made younger. Though the more she researched recent history and current events, the more she felt there was similar pattern developing now.

Though the authorities were trying to keep it quiet, she'd gotten into some of their files and found reports of various missing persons or "gas leaks" explaining cases where multiple individuals had either died or been placed into a coma. It wasn't just the general nature of authorities trying to keep panic down, however, there was a lot of active cover up going on above and beyond the efforts of the local police offices trying to make sense of unusual events.

The powers that had covered up the events ten years ago were acting now to cover up and conceal the current situation. There was a sort of paranormal event going on. There was no public admission of the existence of things like the meta-humans she was familiar with, but she was finding lots of evidence that things like that, or maybe beyond the average she was familiar did exist.

She had to assume that her presence here had something to do with the paranormal situation developing in the area now.

That decided, she worked at building herself a quiet bank account and laundering the funds so that she could get herself a bit of working capital. Finishing that, she checked to see if there were any feelers out trying to track her hacks. There was a bit of activity on some of her trails, but they weren't close to locating her yet. Shortly before closing the connection, she set off a process to lead her trailers on a continuing wild goose chase.

She picked up her bag and walked out into the daylight.

One thing that hunting the criminal element gave you was a firm grounding in the techniques of those criminals. Techniques her mentor had used to great effect at times, often going incognito as a gangster himself. Her primary focus had always been on computers and hacking, but sometimes things just had to be done in person. There was, fortunately, an immigration office on hand and lightly manned. The computer security was also lacking and easily penetrated, which was why her worm had such an easy time triggering a gas leak alarm at the desired time.

She watched from her position as the building was evacuated, slipping in during the chaos and making for the appropriate office. The information and approval for the card had already been filled out and waiting for her command to make her appear on the files and print the ID. All in all, it took her more time to walk to the office and out again than it did to print the new ID.

There will still other IDs to arrange for, passports, drivers' licenses and the like. Currently she was giving herself a Tokyo address and a security consultant's certifications. She'd crafted enough false identities for her comrades and mentor over time, she knew how to handle all the small details that would come up.

She had the ID in hand when she walked up to the counter at the bank with a smile on her face. "Hello, I'm sorry to be a bother, but I need to report a lost card and withdraw some funds."

"And the name, please?" the teller asked politely.

"Gordon Barbara," she answered, handing over the card.

"Just a minute, Gordon-sama," the teller told her. "If you could wait, please?"

"Not a problem, thank you," Barbara responded.

The rest of the day was spent collecting the computers and gear she needed to rig an ad hoc Batcave for the near future. Once night fell, out came the old work gear.

Barbara held the hybrid Kevlar weave reverentially for a few moments. It had been a long time since she'd taken up the mantle of the bat. Even before the Joker had shot her, she'd retired from active field work. The woman had been Oracle for so long that she quietly wondered if she'd lost the feel for field work.

Mission command was a very different task than field operative.

More than that, however, there was a sort of electric feel to the costume now. That was the only way she could describe it. It felt very much as if by taking on this mantle again, that she was accepting the will of her comrades. Beyond that she felt as if she was being watched by…something lingering in this place. Something that was waiting to see what she would do. She half thought that the light around her was dimming save just a small circle immediately around her.

"Please, Barbara," she muttered to herself, eyes still fixed on the costume. "If Bruce could hear you now, he'd be chiding you on falling for superstitious nonsense."

Taking a deep breath, she stripped down before pulling the armor over her body. Lastly, she pulled the cowl up over her head, concealing her red-hair. She was in Japan and would stand out as a foreigner even in the costume, so she added the air-filtering mouth cover and slipped down the flash lenses to cover her eyes. Then she started arming herself.

Everything in place, she felt a thrill of anticipation pass through her. She rather wished she had a mirror on hand to check everything.

"Well, Cassandra, take a break," she whispered. "The original is back on duty. Now let's see if I still remember how."

A few minutes later she was at least confident that she still had the hang of using a grapnel launcher or the glider cloak. Her first errand tonight was to check out one of the gas leak sites and do her own investigation of the area. She was looking for something in the nature of the paranormal, there was nothing else to explain what had happened with her. Well that or this was all a hyper real dream. It was better to assume super-human powers and be on the look-out for it than to assume a dream and be unprepared.

She reached out with the grapnel toward a tall building, the reconstructed Hyatt Hotel, with the intention of adding a bit more momentum and sweeping past it, a shadow through the night. That was before the heat sensor function of her lenses alerted her to the individual in dire need of medical attention within one of the rooms.

Twisting in the air and refiring the grapnel, she pulled herself to the top of the balcony on the victim's room and immediately pulled herself inside. It was a European woman with red-hair and dressed in a business suit of some sort. One of the woman's arms had been brutally removed and Batgirl was surprised that she wasn't already dead.

She didn't hesitate to drop by the woman's side and retrieve the limited bandages her first aid pack had. Alfred had given them all training on combat medicine, and Bruce had supplemented that with his own training on dealing with pain and first aid. Sad to say, this was not the first time she'd performed triage an involuntary amputation. Nor was it the messiest job she'd ever seen, she could thank Killer Croc for that.

"Bastard took my command seals," the woman muttered quietly as Batgirl started applying pressure to the wound and bandaging it.

"Hold still," Barbara spoke, her voice coming out of the filtering mask with a sort of electronic distortion. A finger to the side of her head started her communications array searching for the local emergency band. "Reporting an assault at the Hyatt Hotel, tenth floor, suite…" she glanced around before finding some sort of labeling. "Ten-sixteen. Subject is female, Caucasian."

"We receive that, may I have your name please?"

"The left arm is severed and she has lost a lot of blood," Batgirl continued without responding. "Triage is being attempted, but she doesn't have much time. I'd say the assault happened…" She looked around, scanning the room. Without a Batcomputer, she didn't have a full detective vision active, but she still had her training and her memory. "…within the last ten minutes, possibly as long as fifteen."

"Paramedics are on the way," the dispatcher noted. "Please state your name and unit number."

Barbara simply disconnected from the frequency without answering.

Aside from noting the signs of a struggle, she noticed a few other things as well. There were signs of some sort of ritual though they had been erased as much as possible. Out in the hallway she could hear the sounds of feet coming off the elevator in a hurry. Most likely the emergency dispatch had informed the hotel's own medical staff. Barbara tied off the bandage she was working on and wrapped another layer around before standing up and making for the window.

Someone must have caught the tail end of her exit because as she turned about, she caught the sight of someone coming to the balcony to search for movement. Taking that into account, she angled her body to take her path around the far-side of the hotel and out into open air, gliding to a graceful landing atop a closed department store some three or four miles away.

"Well, today is turning out to be a little bit strange," she decided.

At first she thought that nothing could have been more surprising than waking up apparently in a Japanese town. That was before stood up and watched a rather worried looking panda running by pursued by a rather bizarre menagerie of pursuers. There was a white duck, wearing glasses; a black piglet, with a bandanna; and a red-haired girl in Chinese clothes.

"Damn it, Pop, get back here!" the red-head demanded with a fervent agreement from the duck shortly before it veered up and unleashed a small stream of sharp knives after the panda.

To her amazement, the panda produced a sign from somewhere, [Why are you chasing me? It was the Master who drank the water.]

"Yeah, well the Master ain't here," the red-head snapped. "And you and Tendo are the guys that hid it when it was damn thank you for the rest of us!"

[Hey, I fought too,] the panda retorted.

The red-head picked up a momentarily surprised looking black piglet before winding up and launching him through the air. "Yeah, you fought on the wrong damn side!"

The woman standing there watching this simply shook her head as the pig took on a determined and angry appearance before twisting into something of a flying kick pose. Then he struck the back of the panda's head. The observer rubbed at her eyes and shook her head, wondering if she'd been hit extra hard in the head at some point.

The unusual scene of violence and vengeance passed around a corner out of her line of sight. She turned to the side, starting to get ready to leave the area when a light brought her attention to a hand mirror lying to the side in the abandoned lot. Curiosity got the better of her as she walked over to pick it up and take a better look at it.

Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the fading images of the battle in New York when the Chitauri had first invaded so many years ago. Immediately, she started examining the mirror, looking for signs that it was some sort of recording device. In doing so, her fingers brushed over the surface of the mirror and sunk briefly through the surface. In her surprise, the object slipped from her hands to the ground below before shattering. When she picked it up again, the image of her past was gone and the reflection of the mirror had turned foggy.

"Normally when we come across potential alien tech, it's a lot more durable," the woman complained.

Bending down to pick up the item, she looked about again, figuring out which direction she wanted to go. She'd pass on the mirror to other people who could toy with it to figure out what it was. Her eyes settled on a chiropractor's office which showed signs of having been closed for some time. Getting inside was easy enough, as was proving that utilities and phone were apparently still paid up on the location.

Picking up the phone she dialed a number and waited for the line to pick-up.

"The number you have dialed is not in service, please hang-up and try again," the phone relayed after several warnings about international calls.

Undeterred, the woman continued to speak. "SHIELD Operative, Code Name: Black Widow."

The phone simply responded by repeating the same automated message. To which, an irritated red-headed woman glared at the hand-set before putting it back to her ear and repeating again. "I say again. This is Black Widow checking in."

The third time that the phone gave her the standard automated message, Natasha took it as proof that it wasn't a glitch in the security program and that the number really was out of service. She hung the phone up and started to walk about the small clinic. She didn't particularly have a reason to do so, but with nothing else to do, investigating her current location was at least something to keep her occupied while she considered her next step.

Coming around to the front, she found a small pile of mail dumped just inside the front door and picked some envelopes off the top of the pile. Finding a utilities receipt, she didn't hesitate to open it. It took very little time for her to note something of interest: the date.

"1987?" she said to herself, checking the paper for any signs that it had aged significantly. Finding none, she turned a closer look to the state of the facility and especially the tech that was present. It wasn't too much of a benefit, unfortunately. There wasn't much in the facility that could be considered very tech-heavy.

Finding a seat, she sat down and stared at the broken mirror. A little bit earlier, she had seen Thanos's Chitauri invading Earth for the first time through that glass.

"Time travel?" she wondered out loud. "Is that even possible?" With all the other weirdness she'd seen over time, she could accept it. On the other hand, this could be some sort of Hydra mind game meant to get her to reveal secrets.

Pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration she let out a long sigh and tried to remember any SHIELD assets that would have existed in this time period. Not the easiest thing in the world given that she was barely a toddler in '87. She didn't exactly feel confident about walking into the local American Embassy and identifying as SHIELD either.

The youthful image she held one of the several mirrors she passed did not surprise her or draw much attention. Age had always been something she hadn't really had to worry about. Rogers wasn't the only one who had a bit of enhancement. She just didn't talk much about hers.

With a long suffering sigh, she stood back up and picked up the mirror on her way out of the chiropractor's office, making sure to lock up on her way out. No sense in attracting people's attention with an unlocked door. Once outside, she started simply walking as a way to clear her head and also avoid staying at one place for too long.

Her simple walk did not remain simple for too long, however.

"You there, hold!" a voice declared. Natasha at first kept walking but the woman, girl really, persisted. "You with the red-hair and Western clothes."

With a sigh, Natasha stopped and turned around to face the speaker. "I'm sorry, I didn't at first realize you were talking to me. What do you need?"

"I have heard tales far and wide of a warrior of flame-red hair and the skills of a demi-god," the woman explained. She was a foreigner like Natasha, that was for sure. Her skin was dark and she had an improbable shade of green hair. Natasha placed her manner and accent at somewhere from central Africa. "I seek to test my skills against this powerful warrior."

"I think you have the wrong person," the Black Widow protested cautiously. "There was another red-head I saw a while ago, maybe you mean her."

"The trollop who was pouting for free ice cream?" the woman demanded. "I think not. My cousin described a red-head of ample bosom, masculine manner, stubborn disposition and offensive attitude. Certainly you do fit the bill most appropriately."

Natasha arched an eyebrow as she looked down at her chest to start and looked up as the girl continued to pile on less than flattering descriptions. "Okay, listen, kid, I am not going to get in a pointless challenge fight with a teenager."

"Are you then a coward?" the woman demanded before smirking. "I suppose even after facing gods and monsters that a dragon would be too much for you."

"How…" Natasha started to ask a question but was cut off by continuing monologue.

"Nay, do not bother to mention my cousin," she declared. "He has only the barest traces of the bloodline of a True Dragon as stolen by the cursed tribe he is heir to the rulership of. You will not find me, Nomusa, such a pushover."

"Are you kidding me?" Natasha asked under her breath, not really expecting an answer. "All right, what is the nature of this challenge then?"

The girl paused and looked confused for a moment. "You have done this before have you not. I can see you carry yourself as a warrior."

"Not particularly," Natasha responded with an irritated expression.

"But my cousin said that you had had many such challenges," Nomusa protested. "I was expecting you to know the protocol for this."

"Look, you've really got the wrong person," the Black Widow noted. "I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm not even sure how I got here. I'm more of a soldier than wandering warrior taking on challenges and such like that."

"You are Ranma Saotome, right?" Nomusa asked.

"Not my name," Natasha protested. "Heck, I'm not even Japanese."

"Oh, well…." Nomusa looked around, somewhat deflated and kicked at a pebble in front of her looking rather dejected. "This is my first martial challenge…so uh…I'm not sure where to go from here. I mean, Cousin Herb said that Ranma would either be a red-headed young woman or a black-haired young man depending…"

"She's a shapechanger then?" Natasha asked, momentarily amazed at how casually she said that.

"Jusenkyo curse, I think," the green-haired "dragon" snorted. "Not a true shape-changing ability such as I have."

"Right," Natasha said. "Well, I've never been anything but female, so you've definitely got the wrong person."

The sound of someone clearing their throat attracted the attention of both women, who turned to see a tall man in a tatty brown gi with a dark mustache standing there holding a barrel or keg or something. "Excuse me, have you seen a panda being pursued by a…"

"About two hours ago, yeah," Black Widow noted irritably, just trying to avoid getting further entangled in conversation. "They were heading that way."

The man nodded and turned in the direction that she pointed. "Hold on, old friend! There's still some left, the schools can be saved."

Natasha rolled her eyes and turned toward Nomusa again, she opened her mouth but was interrupted when a shriveled midget of an old man appeared out of the sky to land on the back of the man in the tatty brown gi sending the keg flying into the air.

"Damn you, ungrateful student!" the old man demanded. "What are you doing stealing my…" he was interrupted as he looked between Nomusa and Natasha. "Pretty ladies!"

Natasha winced at the suddenly lecherous attitude of the old man and stepped back away from him almost simultaneously with Nomusa, who was heading in the other direction. That sort of put her into the arc of the flying barrel, but that was easily side-stepped. The wooden container came down beside her with a wood-splintering crash that showered her in irritating splinters and harmless water.

Or at least, she thought it was harmless water. Almost immediately after covering her face to keep any splinters out of it, she felt her civilian clothes tightening uncomfortably. As she watched, a crestfallen look came over the face of the old man as the sensation came to a close. Likewise, Nomusa was pointing with her index finger, an expression of rage coming over her face.

"What the hell just…" Natasha paused in confusion as she realized the voice speaking her words was male. Looking at her hands and body, she could see quite clearly that her feminine body had given way to something on the other side of the gender divide. "What the hell?"

"I see, a young man with black hair," she said. "So then, you sought to deceive me! Coward! You shall not get away from making a fool of a dragon!" The green-haired girl started to rise up in the air, hovering somehow as her dark skin started to grow somewhat scaly and the eyes began to glow with a pale, greenish light.

"You need a time out," Natasha snapped angrily, tossing a small disc out that contact Nomusa's shoulder and proceeded to send an intense charge of electricity through the girl causing her to convulse in a manner that would have been humorous at another time.

As the charge came to an end, the shocked girl, figuratively and literally, gave a weak whimper and collapsed unconscious to the ground.

Then Natasha pointed toward the man in the brown gi who was trying to sneak out of the area. "And you need to tell me what the fuck was up with that water. Before I use something a lot less friendly."

"Okay," the woman at the monitor said, turning to look back at her superiors. "We've successfully tagged six splinters for observation. They've been successfully diverted to non-native realities."

"I hate just sitting back and watching," the blonde woman in the dark suit noted with a frown. "I'd rather be in there investigating myself."

"We're still not sure how this phenomena spread from reality to reality, Ma'am," the woman at the monitor reminded her. "We need to find out what's causing it before we can determine it is safe enough to send anyone into the quarantine zone."

"I know," the blonde noted. "It just feels…wrong. And please don't refer to them as 'splinters', these are people."