DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.
WARNING: This chapter has bad language, adult themes, minor horror, and shameless rip-offs. If this was an Australian site, it would carry an MA/MA15+ rating, which is less than an R, but more than a PG. You have been warned.
JUSTICE
by
Raymond Cooper
Weight Of The World
"Five."
"This has to go," Ranma pointed at a pile of unruly smashed crates lurking at the field of his vision. "And this. And these." A tarpolin, a bank of deteroriating ancient computers. Monsters scurried to carry out his orders. Something about the new General, dashing in a late-adolescent way in his black suit, made them scamper to obey his orders. Maybe it was the fact he didn't lord his power over them; maybe it was the fact they were more scared of the people watching him from the door to the decrepid battleship painted green.
"He's very busy," Umiko remarked, a little ruffled that Ranma seemed to be stealing the limelight she usually enjoyed from the younger monsters.
"Very," Yoshihiro remarked, but fell quiet again, watching his latest General begin preparations for his plans. What he had outlined to Yoshihiro the night before... breathtaking. Not only did it give a new way to operate, one that wouldn't attract undue attention of the various magical people around Tokyo and the rest of Japan, but it also gave some ideas for what to do once he'd won.
Still, watching Ranma assemble everything he needed was... disturbing. This was a reckless young man, one not given to a lot of thought - on the surface, at least. Ranma Saotome acted on his gut. So what was it that was giving him this drive? What was pushing him like this? When asked the night before, Ranma had shrugged in an embarrassed way, tried to laugh it off, but said being dead changed him - he wasn't human now, and he knew that, and he had to embrace his new heritage.
Well, reflected Yoshihiro, he hadn't said quite that, but that had been the meaning behind what Ranma said. And while it was at least partly true, it was also in a large part false. But no matter. Ranma was committed to helping, Yoshihiro could see and sense that. The part of Ranma that was now a creature of the Dark Kingdom told him that. And while it wasn't all of Ranma's plan (that much was obvious), for now it would work.
The Master was stronger than his Generals, of this Yoshihiro had no doubt. And Ranma would grow in strength, much as Tokhar and Raijin had.
And, yes, little Boku, sleeping in her cradle on the bridge of his warship. He eyed it. Green. Such a distasteful colour. He'd have to speak to Ayumu about that again; the ship didn't like it. But there was someone up there, painting something else on it while dangling from a sling. No, not a sling, he amended silently, dangling from the arms of the monster Umiko had taken to calling "Rubber-Bando".
Umiko was urging him wordlessly to confront Ranma, and bring the (Yoshihiro suspected) unintentional affront to his power to an end. However, the more Yoshihiro thought about it, the more he realised he was looking forward to what Ranma would manage to do. He had been a friend and ally to the senshi for so long, so even with the power of the Dark Kingdom flowing through his psyche, would he be able to turn against them?
When he'd asked the night before, Ranma had said it was time the senshi proved they could stand on their own two feet, and that it was his feelings for them that drove him to this. And something else, he said. "It's time for all'a you to grow up. Ya can't do that while evenly balanced. You've got no responsibilities except ta keep things the way they are. I wanna change that, make everyone fight for their destinies."
Chaos. Ranma was after chaos. Yoshihiro liked it.
"Four."
Spring was well and truly in bloom in Tokyo. The snows had melted, even after a last gasp of a sudden week of icy cold temperatures that had frozen leaves budding from dormant trees. But even under the bright spring sun, a haze of heat rising from the cement footpath through the park, it still made Mistuki feel cold.
To be truthful, it was more likely Mitsuki herself who was making her feel cold. While wrapped in a woolen jersey, warm jeans and wearing a scarf and matching gloves, even in the heat, it was her thoughts that chilled her blood.
She had killed Ranma. He had come to her, and she knew the consequences - if not his head exploding, than the feelings of Ranma's girlfriend - and she had gone ahead with what they had both wanted. Why had she done this? She had no interest in Ranma in those kinds of ways, not really, not anymore. She was attracted to him, sure, but Ranma was... Ranma. As much as Ranma had marked Hotaru as his territory in ways unseen by the naked eye, so Hotaru had marked him in chains and spikes and promise of death.
Just because Hotaru was quiet and smiled a lot when the subject came up didn't mean she'd forgiven nor forgotten what her erstwhile ally had achieved.
It was two weeks later, and as yet no evil plan had been hatched. No Dark Kingdom giant monster rapmages through Tokyo, no assassination attempts on magical girls or boy soldiers, no unlocking of the very gates of Hell in the sky.
At least, no normal evil plan had been hatched. The senshi, like most people of a magical nature, often went unreported in the news, at least in Japan. They were a fact of life, why dwell on what they and other heroes represented? In Japan, they weren't a source of national pride like they were in other nations; no, they were a reminder of the horrible, gory end that could come at any moment from something not related to one or one's actions. They were a stark reminder that at any moment, a demon could possess you and kill your family, or that something steeped in shadows and full of writhing tentacles could be waiting for you in that next alleyway, or that the entire world could be destroyed by some foul lord from another dimension.
Not everyone thought those thoughts all the time, though, Mitsuki had to admit. Mostly, people cheered them, because once the senshi were seen, or any of the other heroes of Japan, the people knew that their chances of survival or that one ultimate panty flash had risen dramatically.
Lately, though...
Since Ranma had died, the news was commenting on the men and women, boys and girls who fought the darkness. There was an undercurrent of xenophobia, paranoia - they're not like us! And it was everywhere. For the first time in history, Japan was openly questioning the need for magical and super-powered heroes, and exhorting the attributes of simply normal humans. It wasn't something Mitsuki liked to think about, and she didn't think people would be so easily swayed, but the change was disturbing.
"It is Yoshihiro," Hotaru announced, from behind Mitsuki, startling her with the accuracy of line of thinking. "You're thinking about the news, right?"
Mitsuki tried not to look as surprised as she felt as the younger woman passed by breezily. "I didn't know you were there," she said, lamely.
Hotaru waved it off, walking a step or two ahead of Mitsuki at all times. She was quiet for a few minutes before speaking again. "With the saving of Tokyo, and our saving of ourselves, we've become a major thorn for him. I think he's overreacting, though. It was always," Hotaru's voice caught for a moment, "Ranma he was more concerned with. Us Senshi... the Dark Kingdom knows how to handle us. That's all they've had to deal with for millions of years. They don't know how to handle a random element like Ranma."
"I suppose this makes things easier for them. And dammit, I had to -"
"No. It merely makes things... harder for them." Hotaru seemed to not want to follow this line of thought, her eyes casting out over the shrubs and trees surrounding them. "It is... not your fault. Ranma is capable of making his own decisions. And I do not know why he has made this one, but I'm sure he sees it as his only course of action."
"It's not fair, Hotaru," Mitsuki said, finally reaching out and grabbing the younger woman's shoulder. "You're being so mature about this. No, not mature, you're freezing your heart. I killed Ranma. Just like I killed my last boyfriend. How can you just let that slide?" At least, Mitsuki reflected, she managed to keep her voice flat and level.
Hotaru was quiet for a few steps, and then stopped, and leaned on some wooden railing looking out over a small pond. Ducks quacked, snacking up on bread thrown by excited children, and now that Mitsuki could see Hotaru's face, she seemed to be enjoying the sun and the birds. "Mitsuki... Ranma's not gone. He's still here. I could get angry... but that would be wrong of me."
"I just screwed your boyfriend! I just screwed him to death!"
"Yes, I'm aware of that fact. And as disturbing as it was for you to realise you were engaging in necrophilia, so it was for me to see my boyfriend's head splattered all over you and your room." Hotaru bit down on her lower lip, the words having been delivered more archly than she was obviously intending. "No, it would be wrong. Not so long ago, I had the same thing happen to me. I was seduced by the rose-tinted scent of power. Strong, intoxicating. And Ranma was better equipped to handle the sense of attraction... from a man. But... there's you, and there's me. Avatars of powerful planets. Saturn and Nemesis. And to Ranma, we smell as well, the same way."
"You must smell stronger than me, then."
Hotaru smiled wanly. "Probably. It's that whole 'strongest senshi' deal I have going. But Nemesis always had the power to disrupt the other planets... and it's no doubt the same with you. Ranma... I'm sorry, but Ranma was confused. It wasn't you he thought he was with. He was coming to see me. I'd left him a few minutes earlier, and was waiting. But he'd said he was confused. There was something he said about you. He said you hadn't felt quite right, and it was disturbing him. And he was talking about other things. About a baby. A baby crying." Hotaru's voice trailed off in thought.
"I'm not pregnant," Mitsuki said quickly. "I mean, I went and saw the doctor and got... well... there won't be any chance of me trying to claim he's mine by way of child."
Hotaru sighed. "Not you. Someone else. Something else. Remember, back when this all began -" And then she trailed off again.
"I am sorry, though. For however it happened. I should have said no. I wanted to say no. But -" Now it was Mitsuki's turn to break off. But she wanted to be loved, she completed in her mind.
"It's all right," Hotaru replied, patting Mitsuki on her arm. "Ranma was there for me after I made my mistake, and I didn't think I deserved it. I'll be there for him. And, as bad as it sounds, I think you were just collateral damage. There's more going on here than we know."
"Three."
"It's not wise to put all our eggs in one basket."
Umiko's words hissed in Yoshihiro's ears. She was still on about this. Ranma's plans were progressing well, with the battleship in the hangar being stripped down and painted in detail, and the stripped out parts being used for other concerns. Indeed, this 'farm' plan of Ranma's did have promise and it would be interesting to see how far the martial artist would go before turning on Yoshihiro...
"Master, I do not say this from jealousy..."
"Perish the thought, Umiko."
"... but he needs to be watched. He needs to have a tighter leash. You need to be seen in control of him."
"And I have just the perfect way to do that." Yoshihiro stood, and gestured at one of his monsters in the corner. "You, come. We have to go see your new General." The monster nodded in a distracted manner, and followed Yoshihiro from his throne room. Umiko's eyebrow arched up.
"Okay, this I do have to see." With a flick of her tail, she followed.
It took a few minutes to find Ranma, but they everntually did find him. Jacket and shirt off, he was rapid-punching finger holes in sheet metal while monsters behind him bolted the plating together. Ranma noticed Yoshihiro approaching, but didn't stop punching holes until he'd reached the end of the sheet, at which point he grabbed a towel and mopped his brow. "Master," he said easily, with a slight tilt of his head in acknowledgement.
"Ranma, I'd like you to meet your first lieutenant." Yoshihiro gestured to the girl standing beside him, who held a vacant smile and distant gaze. "Ayumu Kasuga. She's been here longer than you, and knows how to get things done. I am entrusting her to you as a sign of my faith in you."
Ranma eyed Ayumu carefully. "Faith, yeah, I get that."
"Hello :D" Ayumu said cheerfully, yet still managing her blank stare and empty smile.
"Hello," Ranma replied, ducking his head quickly, growing anxious to get back to work. "Master, I expect this all to be finished within a fortnight. Right now, we're reshaping Ho-Masubi into what we need, but it's taking a long time."
"And the other aspect of your... intriguing plan?" Yoshihiro asked.
"That we haven't started yet," Ranma dropped bluntly. "The other things are takin' an awful long time to get ready."
"You're not stalling for time, are you?" Umiko ask slyly.
"Yes, yeah I am," Ranma replied quickly. "This is a lot harder'n I thought it'd be, and we don't have a lot of technical help to put it all together. The basic plan is still good, but it's taking longer than I first thought."
"Results are what matter," Yoshihiro put his hand up to block further comments from Umiko. After a moment, he returned his attention to Ranma. "But for the time being, we still require energy - life force - to power this place. Are you suggesting -"
"I'm suggestin' nothing." Ranma placed his hands behind the backs of his superiors and pushed them away from his workplace. The sudden change in motion made Umiko blink. "You do what you gotta do. You let me work my idea, so I gotta do the same. It'll work, it'll just take me a while to get it together like I said." He gave a crooked grin. "Trust me, I know what I'm doin'."
Yoshihiro gave a grudging nod, and turned back and headed into the base complex proper. As he and Umiko disappeared back into the tunnels, Ranma swore he could hear Yoshihiro laugh, with what sounded like a muttered, "I do like that boy," as they went. Umiko's angry hiss was a lot more audible. He shrugged, and turned to go back to work, but Ayumu was right in his face, still smiling that blank expression.
"Hello :D" Ayumu said cheerfully. How had she snuck up on him so effectively? He wasn't aware that she'd moved. Fascinating. But first, he had work to do. He stepped around her, and hefted his sheet of metal above his head, only to shift his gaze and find her staring into his eyes again with that blank face.
"Uh... I got some work to do. So we can talk later, right?"
"Okay :)" Within moments, she was gone from sight. Ranma guessed she wouldn't be that easy to get rid of all the time. He went back to work, returning his attention to the shapes of metal in front of him.
"Two."
Ranma's thoughts had proven correctly. The last week, Ayumu had been at his side, smiling vacantly while her eyes went this way and that. Ranma gave up trying to ascertain what she was looking at; as far as he could tell, it wasn't his work, but he couldn't see anything.
After a week of work, Ranma needed a break. He called up a slipgate and headed into one of Kanagawa's small shopping centres. It was exactly a break, Ranma reflected, he needed items to complete his work. So he found himself nosing through fashion stores, but not finding what he was looking for. He also headed into a fabric retailer's, and upon questioning the owner, found what he was after.
Finding that out, he sighed, and let his shoulders droop.
"You found me? Ahhhhhh :("
"You were very hard to miss, Ayumu, standing in the doorway like that." Ranma scratched the back of his head and glanced back at the owner, who was returning from the storeroom with several large rolls of the fabric Ranma had requested. He paid the owner with bills taken from petty cash, and then paused. "Ayumu?"
She turned her head almost completely around to look at him without apparently moving her shoulders. "Yes?"
"Ya better at the whole 'draining life force' than I am, right?"
":D"
"Okay," Ranma replied, before thumbing over his shoulder at the store owner, who looked startled and confused by the conversation. "We need to test the whole farming thing. I want ya to drain him. But only maybe, say, ten or twenty percent."
Ayumu gave him a big thumbs-up. "Ooooo-kay!" she announced, before stepping up to the store owner, and before he could say anything, grabbing his hand and putting it to her forehead. "WaaaWEEE! WaaaaWEEE! KAPOW! Stealing your energy, stealing your energy, stealing your energy..."
Ranma slapped his palm to his face. Still, his senses told him the man's life force was indeed being lowered. "Ayumu, you have to be the most... unorthodox monster I've ever met."
Ayumu smiled, genuinely happy at the compliment.
"That's... not somethin' to be proud of," Ranma muttered, but the owner staggered back now, waking up to the shock of what had just happened.
"Hey!" he started, before Ranma grabbed his paid-for material under one arm, and put Ayumu under the other, and left the store very quickly. Once outside, he treated her to a drink, which she accepted with another genuine smile. He turned his eye around the small shopping area, and saw nothing amiss. He thought he'd know if any senshi turned up, a confrontation with whom at this time not being what he was after, but it still paid to be on the safe side.
"What are you looking at :?"
Ranma brought his attention back to Ayumu. "No-nothing," he stammered, caught off-guard with the quesiton.
"Ahhh..." Ayumu murmured in soft understanding. "You're checking out the girls!"
"Uh no! I got a... I don't need to look at girls."
"Ahhh :D You're looking at the boys?"
Ranma shook his head, and tried to take command of the situation again. "Were you following me because the Master still doesn't trust me?"
":( Nooooo... I followed you because..." her eyes drifted off to one side. "I followed you because..." her eyes drifted off to the other side, and Ayumu started smiling again. Her eyes turned upwards, and then focussed on something only she could see again as it passed downwards.
"... Ayumu?"
"Yes, Master?"
"You were saying...?"
"Oooooh... I followed you because you're my Master and I should follow..." Ayumu's voice trailed off again, and she fell into her own little world. Ranma sniffed in annoyance.
And then sniffed again.
Roses. Very strong on the breeze. He glanced around -
- Hotaru. Hotaru and Mitsuki, of all people. The elder of the two looked uncomfortable as Hotaru led her through the tables in the eating area, and Ranma dodged down behind a planter where he couldn't be seen, but he felt Hotaru twitch, felt her start to glance around with confusion and a troubled sense rippling through her ki. Ranma dampened down his power, dialled everything he had from the Dark Kingdom, Moon Kingdom, and his own physical strengths down as far as he could go, and waited with baited breath to see if Hotaru could still track him. No, apparently not.
"She's sniffing:D" Ayumu said excitedly. "Just like you! But it wasn't me :"
"Wasn't you what?" Ranma asked quietly, concentrating.
"Who farted .o" Ayumu sniffed disprovingly and folded her arms. "I can't even smell anything." Realisation hit. "You can smell ghosts!"
"Uh, no, not a ... a fart," Ranma replied, wondering where Ayumu's head was. "Um... hey... those girls... over there..."
"The ones who just had friends join them?"
"Yeah, those ones... there's a young one there. I want you to go tell her something for me." Ranma told Ayumu what he wanted to say, and she nodded with a determined expression.
"I shall do this :" Her face grew even more determined. "I must not make this Master look bad. I must not make this Master look bad. I must not..." Her voice grew faint as she headed towards the senshi. A few minutes passed, and she came back, looking depressed. "I must not make this Master look bad," she repeated another time, and then sat quietly.
"... what did you say to her?"
"I was determined not to make you look bad," Ayumu said, sounding determined, "but by the time I reached those people, I had forgotten what you said . And then I played with one girl's hair like she was a horse." She sighed.
"... forget it. Time ta go." He grabbed the material, and slipgated away again. Another week, another week and they would be ready to go. The ships were nearly ready. The uniforms would be ready soon. Ayumu had proven they could take little pieces of energy and leave the person whole and able to regenerate that missing life force after a few days as he had suspected... this would all work. For the first time, Ranma allowed himself to hope that things would go as he planned it.
There was a crash from behind him.
"Sorry :O"
Then again, perhaps not.
"One."
Hotaru was watching television with the other senshi, but was not really paying attention. Instead, her thoughts were turned inwards to her... for want of a better word, boyfriend. Her estranged boyfriend. Ranma couldn't be evil. He didn't have it in him to be corrupted so easily. The confidence she had shown Mitsuki was as strong as ever, but he was confusing her even more now. It had been a month now since he had left them all stunned at his funeral. Since he had turned and walked with the enemy, Yoshihiro. Hotaru knew he was scared, and likewise, she knew it was for his friends and family, and that was why he was doing this, why he was acting against form. And she also knew that he had some plan, some method of working against Yoshihiro. It was what he did. If the enemy was stronger, he learned from them, and then used it against them. Perhaps that was why Yoshihiro had always seemed to fear Ranma more than the senshi. The senshi, he knew how to fight. Ranma, being a random variable, was unknown and thus the greatest threat to Yoshihiro's plans.
Surely, if it hadn't been for Ranma's training, the senshi would have been defeated already. If it hadn't been for friends of Ranma's, the senshi would have been trapped a month earlier, in the computer system Yoshihiro had sucked central Tokyo and seven million people into. If it hadn't been for Ranma, they wouldn't have saved Keitaro, or the others. If it hadn't been for Ranma, Hotaru would still be weak and helpless and hating herself for having to continue to rely on others. He had helped the senshi too much, become to close to them for him to throw away that kind of investment.
Maybe that was it. Maybe this was the ultimate cap to his training. If so, they seriously needed a lot more. After Ranma had abandoned the senshi and the Ai Sou, almost completely they had given up on their practising for a week, but they were slowly coming back to it, realising this wasn't some kind of practical joke on Ranma's behalf. Not after he had complimented them so well at his funeral - his betrayal had come as a shock.
But Hotaru had faith in him. That was what love was about, she had realised. Trust. Faith. They were going to fight next time they bumped into each other, but that love that had grown between them, that had led Ranma to go to her room that final night, that would remain eternal.
Love. So exciting and new for the young senshi. She could feel that part of her that was always Saturn give a wry and knowing grin deep inside, but the trust she felt for Ranma was returned there also.
And then there was the message.
A week ago, a weird young woman had walked up to their table while she and Mitsuki were having lunch and had begun rambling about how she was going to conquer the world but save - and then she had started talking about dolphins and how nice it would be to ride one. Then, once Mitsuki agreed with her, she changed the topic again and started talking about a 'yotsuba party van', before returning to her original topic, saying, "The Master wanted me to tell you he was going to kill you now. It's a whole new war." And then she had turned, and drifted back in the other direction. She hadn't seen who the woman met up with, but Hotaru saw her stand still for a moment before leaving in a black slipgate.
Had it been Ranma the woman had been talking about? She thought it was him that she had smelt when she entered the food hall area. She'd smelt him, the same smell she got from Yoshihiro - roses. A strong smell of roses, almost overpowering. And then it had been gone. His ki had disappeared as well, which she didn't realise until it wasn't there anymore. So he had been trying to hide from her - but why? What did the message mean? Was Ranma intending on having their big fight there and then? No, that couldn't be it. If the woman was one of Ranma's, then she had to have had things wrong. Maybe she'd had it backwards. He wasn't going to kill her. He wasn't going to fight her. To conquer the world and save - save what? Tokyo? Friends and family? Everything? Hotaru didn't know. She didn't know if she cared to know.
The thinking was starting to make her head hurt.
Strangely, her heart felt at peace.
She came back to herself, in time to catch the end of one of Yoshihiro's announcements during a commercial break. He'd been running these for the last couple of days, preaching that the everyday man and woman in Tokyo and the rest of Japan was better than they thought. Their sameness, their normalness, which let them get on with life after huge events that should tear the nation apart, was their strength. He played on patriotism and xenophobia at the same time, exhorting that those of a superhuman or magical or technological nature should "butt out" and leave the security of the nation to people who were normal.
"Ha!" Rei snorted. "Usagi, that leaves you out. You're definitely not normal." Usagi threw a cushion back at Rei, which started off a minor but quickly escalating lounge war. With her crappy aim, Usagi quickly found herself on the losing edge of battle as technological capabilities moved up to including the television and stereo remotes.
"People won't be listening to this," Makoto said confidently. "People are smarter than this."
"People will be listening to this," Mitsuki countered quietly, "just because they like being like everyone else. It makes us feel normal. By blaming the ills of society on a small group, they can single out that group and victimise them. Don't tell me you didn't see that at school, not with your height and violent streak." Makoto fell silent.
The broadcast ended, but instead of going back to Daimyo's Creek, a news report flashed up. Jun Yamamoto was hanging out of a helicopter again, yelling into a microphone clutched in one hand because, probably, she thought it made things look more important and dangerous than it really was. Hotaru supposed there had been some car pile-up in the city.
"The scene here is one of chaos and danger! A giant metal beast has appeared in Minato, and is tearing through buildings still closed after Tokyo's reappearance a month ago." The camera angle changed to show an angular machine, shaped like a bird, roaring and blowing windows out for blocks. The senshi didn't bother to look at each other; they were up with transformation wands and out the door, heading for Minato.
The senshi arrived at Minato shortly afterwards, landing in front of the giant metal bird and taking up offensive positions. Before they could act, though, the crowd that they now stood in front of forgot their fear at the bird, and instead began pressing forward towards the senshi.
"Please go back!" Mercury called, worried about the bird stepping forward and taking up the buffer zone the senshi currently had.
"Go away!" someone yelled back in reply.
"You're kind aren't wanted here!" someone else yelled.
Nemesis shivered. "This is what I was afraid of."
Saturn shrugged off the comments. She had more important things to worry about. If this monster was a heavy hitter, as it appeared to be, her physical strength, and that of Nemesis, would be crucial in the battle. The others would provide magical support, and could afford to be distracted for the immediate moment. That said, she had her own distraction. Anxiously, she sniffed the air, peered upwards intently at the robot, to no apparent avail.
Sailor Moon stepped forward, and addressed the mechanoid monster. "Your attack on this wounded heart of the city shows the lack of true feeling a machine is reknowned for! This crime cannot go unavenged! In the name of the name of the moon, I shall punish you!"
The speech sounded good, Sailor Moon sounded as genuinely angry at the beast as any she had faced, but a moment later, a can bounced off her skull from behind. The shock made her start forward a step, before whirling around to find the crowd had swollen with additional people; not only that, but they had begun arming themselves with whatever they had available. Some waved pipes, some waved briefcases, several tattooed people at the back held what looked to be handguns. Sailor Moon sucked in a breath nervously, her eyes opening in panic.
Behind them, the robot took a step forward menacingly...
In a parallel pocket dimension, Ranma's eyes lit up. He reached up, and hit the intercom switch above his head. "This is it, guys. All systems go."
On a comm screen in front of him, Ayumu smiled happily. "Fully advised and briefed."
Satoru and Akio also chimed in with a "Fully advised and briefed," and a "FAB, General Ranma sir!" respectively.
Ranma shook his head, and held his breath for a moment. "We're a go, guys. Punch it."
From the nearby starship's bridge, Yoshihiro watched with Umiko at his side. His fingers were steepled in front of his face, as he watched the monitors in front of him show the various newly-made ships surrounding the picked-apart corpse of the Night's Pride. He felt the vibrations from multiple engine start-ups, and then felt the huge gravitational shifts of slipgating vessels as they left their docks for Earth. He sighed, and leaned back in his chair, swivelled around to gaze for a moment at Natsumi, still locked into her chair, head covered in her heavy datalink helmet, and wires and larger cables penetrating her flesh across her body. Eventually, he glanced up at Umiko. "The Thunderbirds are gone. Now it's time to see if Ranma is working against us... or for us."
SAILOR MOON SAYS:
Hi all! New chapter of the last arc up.
Hoping chapter 2 won't take so long, since it's already half-written, but who knows? I'm out of a job atm, so looking for work and trying to get over not having work for the first time in three years... it's difficult. It also means I'm sleeping a lot and not making sense the rest of the time.
This chapter is rather special; it's a good friend's birthday tomorrow, and so this is kind of a birthday gift (it's a dodgy attempt to get out of buying him something - but I'll get him something anyway). He does a lot of my pre-reading, so please everyone wish him a happy birthday and mentally urge him to write himself - he has some fantastic ideas I'm itching to see committed to something readable other than various conversations we've had.
The new arc: it's kind of obvious where things are going. Should be a bit more readable. Going by comments in places here and elsewhere, most people don't seem to like super-subtle foreshadowing, or even normal subtle foreshadowing (or maybe I'm being too subtle for anyone who doesn't know where I'm actually going, in which case this is a really valid point), so I'm still keeping a few things under wraps, which will come out as the story progresses as normal, but trying to be a lot more open with the inner thoughts people are having and plans that are being made, etc. There are a few characters to be introduced to this arc yet, on both sides of the fence, and they will be brought in over the next few chapters.
I think that's about all to say. Thanks for reading, hope you have enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy the series.
Next chapter: Can the Thunderbirds prevail over the mighty Terrorhawks? And what happens when the senshi stop being senshi?