Chapter One

By Michael Fetter

"That’s enough you damn old lecher!" Ranma ran into the backyard of the Tendou dojo after knocking a small pervert through the open doors. A blue aura burst into life about her petite wet figure. "I ain’t your recharge station!"

"But you are my prettiest little heir, Ranma-chan!" Happosai chirped as he jumped nimbly over Ranma’s extended fist. "And don’t let anyone tell you different. Now give nice old Happosai a hug to say you're sorry!" He once again hurled himself through the air to latch on to Ranma’s chest, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

"EEEK!! HENTAI!!!" Ranma followed up the startled insult with a vicious uppercut that caught the old man under the chin and sent him flying into the stratosphere. As the little man ascended into the sky he cried out his favorite parting words.

"SWEEEETOOO!!!"

Her hand was still raised in the last position of her punch, imagining all the other painful treatments she would like to give the lecher. Behind her, a small procession of clapping could be heard. Ranma relaxed her stance enough so that she could turn back around and face the person who had caused the fight. "Come on, P-chan. It’s time for your daily beating." Her voice was low and intimidating, or would have been if she were in her male form.

Ryouga only smiled at the mayhem he had caused with just a bucket of water and an aquatransexual freak. They had formed a sort of truce during the war to protect Akane and her family, but they were still rivals. A reasonably friendship had arisen between the two youthful martial artists, but it had become strained as the quiet returned to Nerima, a few months after the war. Now they had begun to revert to their old ways. Ryouga would get upset when Ranma did something stupid to Akane and attack him, though recently he had become a little more devious. Besides all of that, Ranma was the only real rival Ryouga had that could give him a good work out. He still lost most of the fights, but they stayed in shape at least.

Reacting as he normally would to the nickname Ranma threw at him, Ryouga scowled and charged the little redhead. "Don’t call me P-CHAN!!!" Both cursed individuals leapt at each other and began another of their property damaging fights, throwing lightning fast kicks and punches to work themselves into ki tournament.

The fight carried both teenagers into other parts of the destroyed city. It seemed everything but the Tendou dojo had been destroyed during the war. That had been in no small part, due to the combatants trying to beat the other into a bloody pulp.

Like all fights previous, this one resulted in both fighters to begin displaying their martial superiority over all others. Ranma dropped down into the parking lot that used to be filled with cars on days like these so people could go shopping. Focusing some of her energy in the palms of her hands, she cupped the energy at her right hip. Across from her, Ryouga adopted a similar stance.

"Mouko . . ."

"Shi Shi . . ."

The energy began to sparkle and intensify as they both gathered enough energy to form a ki attack the size of a basketball. Wind picked up around either fighter, whipping their clothing around and lifting their hair into the wind funnels surrounding them.

"TAKABISHA!"

"HOUKODAN!"

* * *

Four hundred miles away, on a small man-made island country, a large surge of energy was being recorded, originating in the city that used to be Nerima Ward, Tokyo. The blast was not particularly spectacular considering the capabilities of modern science, but the origins and the power types were of interest.

Similar readings had been taken from the same area over the last couple of months and especially during the previous world war. It had been a while since the new powers have had enough peace to pursue new interests, but with a certain calm settling over the world in most places except Badside, the council of Olympus has seen fit to renew their research into the human species.

"This could be ideal." Remarked one of the elder council members, perched on top of his easy-glide chair. "These new humans could help remake the species. The loss of genetic diversity has already placed Homo sapiens in a slow downward spiral within the next few generations."

Another elder took a step beside the first and examined the readouts. "Our first tests into the human subconscious were fairly incomplete. These new factors may require more testing, but the information we have thus far is not encouraging. We can’t be certain that a new strain will reveal itself as an optimization or as an occurrence due to environment. ‘Nature versus Nurture’ seems to have taken steps so that we may compare these new types to those already raised in Olympus."

"I must agree with my associate." Interjected an older man, lounging on a nearby couch, a graybeard flowing down his front. "We should take steps to insure their capture. When we see them as docile enough to enter society, keep them under guard even still."

The rest of the council nodded in agreement and removed the plug sets from the central computer of their dark room. Fluorescent lights slowly intensified and brought the Greek architecture of the cathedral-ceiling room.

"I will contact Hitomi and have her set up a new reconnaissance team to enter this area of Badside. Do we have a total to retrieve?"

Another man with a recently printed dossier approached the speaker. "Here, pictures and data concerning the individuals. There are a total of seven humans we believe. Our prime targets are these two men and one woman."

The speaker flips through the pages of the printout until he comes to the indicated targets; young man with fangs, another of the same age with a pigtail, and a pretty girl with red hair. The pictures are all taken from spy satellites, observing the post-apocalyptic Badside regions. "Excellent. I will begin preparations immediately. Meanwhile we should continue to monitor the situation in case they require more drastic extraction protocols."

The remaining council members returned to the monitor displaying the events occurring over Nerima Ward. The fight between the young man and woman was coming to a close. Already a sizable crater could be seen from the use of ki blasts. The young man was lying on his stomach while the redhead sat on his lower back making derisive comments.

"I wonder if we could procure an offspring with one of the young men and the redhead. It would be quite a pairing I believe."

* * *

"Good fight, Ryouga, but your still a little slow to keep up with me! Not bad for moving bacon, though!" Ranma sat on the lost boy’s back, taking the time to relax and regain her energy for their next inevitable fight.

"Get . . off ‘huff’ . . . me." All of these years and Ranma was still able to outclass him. What was worse is that Ranma could now do so in his female form. Ryouga had been able to beat the female form at first due to her lack of power, but now she could really lay it into him with some of her new techniques.

Ranma-chan considered getting off of Ryouga, but . . . "Nah, you’re a lot less bumpy than the ground and I don’t want to get my clothes dirty." Did this seem a bit effeminate? You bet, but Ranma had been stuck with his curse for so long that he no longer minded being a girl half the time. Ranma went so far as to adjust his speech when in cursed form. Akane hadn’t liked this change at first, but she eventually started to soften up to Ranma a lot more because of it. Ranma even found a new desire for the opposite sex, but he wasn’t going to share that with anyone. The war had taken care of any cure their might’ve been, leaving Ranma a husk of his former self for the first month. After some thought though, he came to see the potential of his curse.

What was really remarkable was the secondary affects of the curse neither Ranma or anyone else had considered, life-extension. Depending on the curse, everyone’s life had been extended a certain degree. Obviously a pig, duck, panda, or a c-c-c-cat didn’t live as long as a human, so Ranma had changed the least over the years. Sure he and his female side had gotten stronger, but that was it. No added height normal for a growing teen or even the stubble of a young man.

Ryouga and Genma had aged slowly, but where Ranma seemed to be the same, they had grown at least two years older since their curses. That was half as slow as normal. Shampoo, at least when she was still alive, seemed to be on a normal aging pattern, maybe just a bit slower.

Poor Shampoo. Poor Ukyou. Ranma hated when he started thinking about the people he lost during the war. Many of them had been caught in one blast or another. Ranma hadn’t seen his parents in a long time, not since Genma and Soun had gone out to escort Nodoka to the Tendou dojo.

Taking advantage of Ranma’s apparent lack of attention, Ryouga tried to lift himself off the ground again. Of course, with Ranma-chan’s added weight, minimal though it was, his body was simply too exhausted to respond properly. He ended up dropping right back onto the ground with Ranma-chan bouncing off his back.

Ranma-chan looked over at Ryouga and shrugged at her first idea to relax. Taking one arm and hooking it over her shoulders, she proceeded to help her friend back to the dojo. "Phew, P-chan! When we get back I think it’s time for you to get a bath. You smell like a pig!" Ranma laughed and ducked under the lost boy’s lazy right hook. "Alright, c’mon. Akane’s gonna get upset if we don’t get back soon."

Ryouga relaxed again, draping his arm back over Ranma-chan’s shoulders. "How long till Happosai makes his way back to the dojo you think?"

Ranma shrugged. "I hit him pretty hard this time. He might have to swim back for a few weeks before he hits Japan again." Ryouga chuckled; he knew it was true. He also became aware of Ranma-chan’s helpful nature recently. These fights he picked with Ranma weren’t entirely bitter as much as they were to keep both men, or women, sane. Ryouga didn’t like it when Ranma went into a deep depression over the loss of her family and friends, so he tried to reassure her or him with the one thing they did before the war, pick fights with each other.

"Did you see the way Cologne brightened up at his appearance?" Ranma nodded. "You think she still has it for the old pervert?"

"Could be. Anything is possible in this fucked up world, I guess." They were at the entrance of the Tendou dojo when Akane rushed out of the house and stood angrily before the two cursed individuals.

"RANMA!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO POOR RYOUGA!?!" she demanded.

Ranma did her best to make a path around the angry girl, but she cut her off with every step. "Aw, lay off, Akane. We were only letting off some steam. Besides, pork chops here picked the fight with me!"

Ryouga gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists. "RANMA!!!"

Akane reacted just a little bit faster, however, and Ranma was reintroduced to Mallet-sama. "Stop picking on poor RYOUGA!!"

* * *

In the monitoring room of the council, the elders big sweated as the witnessed the young redhead being sent into low earth orbit for the umpteenth time of the last few months. Ideas for gathering offspring from the human subjects seemed to be a far off goal at the moment. Oh well.

* * *

"Alright people, this is priority. Learn it, live it, and like it." The captain of ESWAT, a highly skilled group of police officers operating in Olympus, began his briefing on the latest assignment handed down from the HCCS department, a lower division in Aegis. "Our primary targets are these individuals. Not much is known about them except they are to be approached with extreme caution. Don’t let their looks fool you. We have footage of them performing feats of massive destruction without any visible weapon." He indicated with a laser pointer at the pictures of two young men and a redhead on the white screen.

The assembled alpha team included Magus, Kotus, Fang Blackbone, Morton, Briareos, and Deunan Knute. Each lounged in their seats, reviewing the personal data files on each of the targets. This was not their usual work. Most of the time they dealt with terrorists because they were the best. The only reason to send ESWAT anywhere was to destroy something, quickly. Extraction required very little destruction; that sounded boring.

"So the kids know some magic or something; is that what you’re saying?" Magus quipped. "I could probably set up some equipment and get the same results."

The captain stopped the briefing to stare at the joker with a serious and pissed off gaze. "Funny, but they don’t know a little magic and if that is what it is, it’s a whole lot more dangerous than our popguns. We have video capture for you to review. None of this is to leave the room." He nodded to an assistant at the back of the room.

A moment later, the white screen held a moving image taken from high earth orbit under heavy magnification. It displayed the latest of ongoing fights between Ranma and Ryouga. Though no one in the room knew these individuals, they could see one was the young redheaded woman and the other was the fanged man. Some of the men made comments on her luscious figure until the fight headed into some sort of climax with the two fighters squaring off with each other.

"So they’re martial artists, not like they can dodge bullets or overpower any of our landmates." Morton frowned, not understanding what the big deal was.

"Actually, you are watching this fight at one-third speed, but that is not the most impressive detail." The captain remarked and turned back to the screen. This last part still amazed him, no matter how many times he saw it.

The martial artists were still squared off with each other, holding a position Deunan had seen in a video game somewhere. She told her partner Bri, but he waved her off and focused on the image. A light was beginning to form from an unknown source. Everyone shut up as the light from each fighter became more intense. The young man and woman released the energy at the same time, the resulting clash of power created a blinding white explosion, lasting for several moments. When the light dissolved and the world could be seen again, the young man was lying on his stomach, smoking slightly. The young woman skipped her way through the debris left in the ten-meter crater. She sat on the still form, apparently talking to the young man like everything was all right.

"She killed him?" Magus asked.

Rather than answer, the captain just continued to watch the video. The young man shrugged the woman off his back and stood up with her help. "They have these fights almost daily. We think it is a simple sparring match to these individuals. There are several other individual in your mission files that have these abilities but these two seem to be the strongest with the other young man," The screen image shifted to a close up of Ranma, "as an unknown. We have seen him defeat all the others except the woman. She and this man do not seem to fight. Read the mission files, we will leave in five hours and approach the home under night." This time an image of the Tendou dojo appeared. It seemed ridiculous to see a single plot of untouched land amongst all the destruction. Considering the display of power they just witnessed, however, this made everything seem that much more dangerous.

Alpha team was dismissed to prepare for the upcoming extraction.

"HCCS? Does that mean Hitomi will be coming with us?" Deunan asked no one in particular.

Magus took the initiative with her question. "Yeah, that’s right. She picked the two of you up too, didn’t she?" They made their way to the motor pool through multiple levels of security until Bri revved up the engine of his motorcycle, built for cyborgs and landmates.

Deunan nodded her head as she sat down between Bri’s legs, the large mass of metal and flesh making a good barrier. "That’s right, but she came in on her own for us."

"Don’t let it get you down, Knute." Magus smirked at her. "I’m sure Aegis thinks you’re just as dangerous as ever too."

Deunan stuck out her tongue and was ready to back it up with some verbal assault, but Bri decided he wanted to get home for a few hours rather than listen to another argument. The speed at which a landmate motorcycle can travel is considerable with the size of the engine and torque that is required to move the machine. Polycarbons and some biotech made a hybrid, self-healing vehicle to be reckoned with. Streets and buildings became fuzzy images as they flew by without a worry for slip in road friction thanks to Hermes.

"Briareos?" The blond officer looked at her partner with some concern. The cyborg hadn’t spoken a word for the last half-hour. "You gonna talk to me or do I have to cut down on our late night exercises? I mean, if you are too tired to talk . . ."

"What?!" Bri almost swerved into oncoming traffic before he regained control of the bike and finished the turn into their apartment complex. "I was just thinking. A lot about the stuff they want us to do on this assignment just doesn’t seem right."

"What do you mean?" Deunan swung her legs over the side of the bike and walked with Bri up to their apartment. He remained silent until the door was closed and locked behind them. After making a quick sweep of the room for bugs, he sat down on the couch and let his mind unwind a bit.

"When we were taken from Badside, Aegis wanted us for guinea pigs in their experiments into the human species. Could they be doing more of the same with these knew humans?" Bri only said aloud what he had been thinking. It was one huge headache trying to keep up with the way Aegis, the council, or even Athena thought. Everyone seemed to be a dozen steps ahead of Deunan and Bri and it had caused some major problems. This time, he would like to be on the right side of the sword.

"You think these are more guinea pigs?" Deunan asked as she brought out a couple of cold drinks from the kitchen. She sat down on the couch beside Briareos and handed him one glass. "Or could these be more tests for us?"

"No this is more than psych evaluations for a modern civilization. You saw how strong those kids were. Aegis wants them for something else."

"Like what?" Deunan hated doing detective work, especially now when everything had become so complex with the motives behind the Athena and the ‘7-cpu’. Preservation of the Homo Sapiens seemed to be a major priority for some reason. They even cancelled life extensions for non-bioroids to prevent contamination within the human genome. "They would make good lab rats if that trick they do is at all real. Or maybe they want them to prevent outside nations from discovering new weapons. Those kids out there may be some new type of bioroid."

Briareos had thought of that as well, but the briefing had said they were human and as far as anyone knew there were no bioroids or clones out in Badside. "Whatever they are, I don’t want you taking them on alone."

His sprightly companion gave Bri her best innocent look. "Who me? Why would I want to take them on mano a mano? I leave that to you big strong men." She ended her small bit of lunacy with a sultry smile and snuggled up closer to the cyborg.

"Whatever. I just hope my point man uses her head this time before she decides to get herself in too deep."

The doorbell rang as they settled into the couch, moving in for a kiss.

"You know," Deunan frowned, leaning her head against heavy green nylon bulletproof layering. "We get less privacy with the ‘Invisible Hand’ back in our lives." With a frown, she made her way to the front door and let Hitomi enter the apartment.

"Afternoon, Hitomi." Bri waved from his seat on the couch. "What brings you by?"

The jubilant brunette bounced her way into the living room after greeting Deunan at the door. "They asked me to talk to the both of you since you’ll be the only humans making contact with the targets."

"So you are coming!" Deunan seemed surprised. While Hitomi had retrieved them from Badside, it hadn’t been easy on the girl and she seemed to dislike the idea about ever returning.

"Sure." Hitomi smiled. "I am the best personal human services personnel in Olympus and I’ve got the experience. Why? You think I’m not good enough just because you muscled your way with me before?" She pouted the last part and stared daggers and the pair of humans.

"Well, ye-"

"No, no, of course not!" Briareos cut in to save himself from a two-hour flight of bitch fighting. "So why do you have to talk to us?"

Hitomi was still glaring at Deunan, but dropped the matter as unimportant. "Oh, you know. Make sure the two of you have all the info on the individuals in question. Get your experience in the matter on what we should expect from a group of people living in Badside. Stuff that’ll make it easier for me to understand how to approach them."

"Well, not sneaking up on them in a combat exoskeleton would be a good start, but considering the location, that might be a bad idea." Deunan thought. She is not often very helpful, Hitomi decided.

"You should expect this group to be strong and independent." Bri tried to be helpful. "Living in one of the more dangerous areas during the war, they’ll probably be very reluctant to trust anyone outside of their group. People only ban together to make themselves stronger so expect each member to be set against you. The best way to deal with them is through the leader and in your case it would help if he was male." Most of this was relatively textbook for her, but Hitomi had to cover all of her tracks to be sure. The touchy part of the assignment will be in dealing with any outside variables like booby traps and ambushes. Hopefully this will go much more smoothly than the time she went in for Deunan and Briareos.

* * *

"Tadaima!" Ranma-chan chirped from the front door. It had taken her a few hours to walk back from the where Akane had punted her to. It didn’t hurt at least. That was one thing she could thank the war for, it made her stronger.

"Right on time for dinner, Ranma." Kasumi smiled at the redhead form the table where everyone was sitting. It was weird seeing everyone at the table, the only adult no taller than a foot and a half. It felt like the house was run by a bunch of kids. Kasumi and Akane had begun to smile again since they recovered from the loss of their father, Soun, so long ago. Nabiki had seemed as stoic as ever during the war, not letting the pain and sorrow show on her face. A vision of strength, Nabiki would say. Ranma almost believed her until Nabiki made her way into the guestroom to sleep.

Ranma didn’t get much sleep that night with Nabiki hanging off of him and crying. He’d never seen the mercenary girl cry before, neither did he like it. Ranma forced himself to feel better after his own loss to help the middle Tendou through her guilt. Nabiki had blamed herself for lots of things that she tried to keep quiet and locked away in her head. However it had happened, Nabiki and Ranma had become closer to the point they would sleep with each other every night to feel safe, locked in each others embrace. During the day, things would be as they always were, Nabiki a cold and calculating woman and Ranma . . . Ranma.

"Great, let me get washed up and I’ll be right back, Kasumi." The redhead made her way for the bathroom and returned a man, black hair and lean muscles. "Anything happen while I was gone?" That was a stupid question to ask people living in a wasteland. As expected, no one answered as Ranma sat down next to Nabiki.

"So what took you so long, Ranma-kun?" Nabiki asked. Her hair had grown out a little more and her normal conservative wardrobe had been replaced with a gray jumpsuit for when she goes to work. The smudges on her face and the new hairstyle really made her look kawaii.

Ranma had to blink a few times before he could pull himself away from Nabiki’s gaze. "I . . . uh, I found some of the . . . uh, stuff you wanted, Nab-chan."

"You did?!" She smiled excitedly causing Ranma to completely melt, cutting off most motor controls except a stupid grin and a slight nod.

"What are you building now, Nabiki-neechan?" Akane asked between bites. After their father was lost and the war took away any opportunity to make a profit, Nabiki shifted her focus on to new things. At first it was just computers, but power cut out and they were left with no working machines. So Nabiki started fiddling with electronics and alternate energy sources. Closer to the end of the war, during the quiet times, Ranma would go out and pick up reference materials and other books for the family and Nabiki ended up learning quite a deal about machines. Much of it was trial and error, but she learned fast and fashioned a portable generator out of spare parts from around the city. The idea of creating something that could be used became so infectious for Nabiki, she stayed in the anteroom, which had become her workshop, and worked on new ideas.

"I’m rebuilding my computer’s modem." Nabiki smiled proudly at her sister.

Cologne seemed confused on this part. "How do plan on accomplishing this, child? There are no viable networks in Nerima any longer."

It was true; sometime during the war, the explosions finally severed the last of the useful outside connections to the world. "Well, I think that it’s possible there may be other networks to connect to. I’m hoping that a radiowave will be able to access some of these systems. Before the total information blackout, I heard rumors of a new island under construction. Some sort of technologically advanced society to return peace to the world. Delusions of grandeur most likely, but if it survived and the tech is still available, I may be able to connect and let someone know we are here." Radiowaves are, unfortunately, not likely to be able to connect with any system, but she had to keep up her hopes. If anything else, Nabiki was thinking that she could find airport radar and at least know when someone passes overhead.

Akane and most of the others knew nothing of the problems, but they cheered her on anyway. "Do you need any help after dinner, Nabiki?"

"No, no . . . uhm, that’s all right, Akane. I got most of it finished already." One thing was still unchanged since the war, Akane could not operate a machine without it exploding. "If Ranma found the right parts and they’re in fair condition I should be finished in a little while." The more time she spent with Ranma, the more she started to sound like him. Akane got upset at the way Nabiki tactlessly tried to avoid her, but she wouldn’t go to far since her sister was a non-combatant. Akane steamed for a bit, but forced a smile and returned to her meal. Was it any wonder why Ranma gave up on their abusive relationship and liked Nabiki better?

"So, uhm, how is your training going, Akane?" Ranma asked to relieve the tension between Akane and Nabiki. For whatever reason, Akane has been getting more upset with Nab-chan lately. Martial arts had been a good subject for Akane since Ryouga decided to help her train. Cologne had already taught Ranma and Ryouga all she knew and Akane hated to be left behind. With the easy friendship Ryouga had gained with Akane, teaching seemed to be a good way to pass the time. Of course, a slow pig like Ryouga could only teach Akane to be another slow . . . girl. The body toughening sessions hadn’t gone very well with Akane, but she did get stronger, almost up to Ryouga’s level when he first came to Nerima.

"Not bad, Ranma. With Ryouga’s help, soon you’ll have no choice but to fight back when we spar." She smiled evilly. Ranma could still dodge any of Akane’s attacks with ease so it had become her obsession to land at least one punch, even against a block, in the next few months.

Ranma nodded, but kept silent; he knew better now. "I look forward to it, Akane" Strange, but Akane could hit Ranma with that mallet of hers, except during a sparring match. For whatever reason, Ranma’s speed seemed to be cut in half any time Akane gets mad at him. He almost believed it was a conditioned reflex to take her hit. Sort of an acceptance of the punishment he deserved for teasing her and Ryouga.

"Well, I’m done. Thanks for dinner, Kasumi." Nabiki was too excited to finish her meal. She stood up and got behind Ranma who had begun to inhale her leftover meal. It was so amusing to see Ranma jump when she grabbed the martial artist unaware. With Ranma, mealtime will always leave him unaware to the rest of the world.

"Ack!"

Akane frowned again. "Nabiki, could you not do that at the dinner table? It’s . . . gross."

"Do what?" Nabiki used her innocent tone while her hands roamed across Ranma’s washboard stomach, searching for the little gift he had for her.

Ranma was already blushing a deep red and breathing a bit harder. When Nabiki spoke, her warm breath caressed his neck, sending a tingle through his body.

Her hands came across a small pouch tied onto his belt on his right hip. With practiced fingers, Nabiki removed the knot and pulled the pouch away. "Thanks, Ranma-kun." She left a kiss on his jawbone before heading for her workshop, a slight sway in her hips.

"Ranma-kun, are you feeling all right? You look like you’re running a temperature."

"Fine." Ranma squeaked. "Fine, Kasumi."

The gathered occupants giggled at Ranma’s embarrassment, but continued their meals in silence.

* * *

It was dark out now, somewhere over the Pacific between Midway and Japan. Deunan sat silently watching the moon’s rays dance off the water below. They were travelling in an Olympus police transport helicopter on their way for Tokyo. The inside of the transport was filled at one end with landmates and their pilots. Another section of the space had a cage to hold criminals. Magus and Morton were at the cockpit flying them all at a cruising speed of some two hundred miles per hour.

"I can’t believe we’re going back to Badside. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long ago that we were still living off of scraps and fighting scavengers." She remarked.

Bri nodded in reflection. The experience for either of them hadn’t been that bad considering . . . but the idea of returning to a place that was killing them slowly was not welcome. Before they were picked up by Aegis, Deunan and he had worked out some ideas of becoming cement farmers. "Well, we aren’t staying for long. Nothing to worry about."

"It’s not that."

"What then?"

Deunan remained silent. She couldn’t tell Bri that she sometimes missed the life they had. Olympus was beautiful and they ate better, but there was something special about solitude that brought Briareos closer to her.

"Hey everyone!" Hitomi sang from the front of the hold. "We’ll be there in a little less than an hour. Review the mission plan and get suited up." She picked her way through the crowd of landmates and weapon canisters.

Up in the cockpit, Magus was calling in a mission status to ESWAT central ops. "Roger that, maintain radio silence from here on out until you retrieve the targets."

"Check, central. Over and out."

"You ready to pick up the kids?" Morton joked. They were each a little intimidated by what they saw during the briefing and had resorted to joking about the mission to help relieve the nervousness.

Magus grinned and stuttered out a laugh. "Better make it quick. Their mommies are probably getting worried."

* * *

Static.

Nabiki had finished installing the components and had been running through each of the stations for the last hour for a useful frequency. She had gotten the idea that if the radio could pick up something, then her computer may be able to use the same frequency. So far everything had been static.

"Shit." She was running out of numbers and still nothing. Her radio could just be too weak to pick up some stations. If that were true, her modified modem wouldn’t be that much better. Nabiki was getting very tired of hearing static.

" . . . dogdhdsa . . . dlkjcoi . . ."

"What the hell?" Nabiki started tuning the frequency back to the garbled sounds she had just heard.

"Heading . . . 13 degrees . . . 45 . . . 72 deg . . . 18 min . . ."

There was still a lot of static but those were definitely human voices. Nabiki almost cheered, but held herself in check when she thought of what kinds of radio stations would find such strange dialogue. Four number? What were they for?

"Nautical terms for direction! They use them for aircraft too!" Making some fast scribbles, Nabiki recorded the numbers and tuned her modem to the same frequency. "Ranma!"

A few moments later, Nabiki was receiving encoded signals from the frequency she had been monitoring. Ranma rushed into the workshop, nimbly avoiding the wires and heavy machinery. "What’s up, Nab-chan?"

"Can you get me those maps you picked up from the library? The ones with all the numbers and a protractor if you see one." He nodded and left the room for where they held all the books. Cologne came bounding in the room to see what all the fuss was about.

"What is all of this about, Nabiki?" She handed the middle Tendou a map. "Ranma is still searching for the protractor."

"I picked up some guys over the radio. They were spouting out some nautical directions and I was wondering if they would be crossing by anywhere near us." Nabiki continued to pound on the keyboard, using the decryption programs she had bought before the war. So far there was very little progress. It shouldn’t be unexpected that cryptography had advanced in the last two years.

"Found it!" Ranma landed at Nabiki’s side and handed her a pair of rusty protractors. "Did your modem thing work?"

Nabiki rolled her eyes at Ranma’s lack of tech-no-how. At least other people in the house could give her equipment proper names. "I think so, but it doesn’t have a good range. I think I got a computer on a ship or airplane. They’re the only things that’ll get close enough to us now." Sweeping away some of the clutter on her desk, Nabiki set to work on mapping out the directions she was given after consulting a book on how to do it. "Ha!"

"What? What is it?!"

Nabiki turned to Ranma, a sparkle in her eye. "That’s us!"

"What?" He had missed the first part of Cologne’s discussion.

Cologne understood, however, and started calling everyone into the room. This could be a good thing or something very bad. It was best to err on the side of caution so she treated this as a bad thing. "Everyone come into the workshop quickly!"

"What are you doing?" Ranma was still in the dark, but by the excited expression on Nabiki’s face he took this as being a good thing. Cologne’s tone made him worry, though.

"We will be expecting guests I believe. If you’ll recall, all of our previous guests have been hostile. There is nothing promising this next run-in will be any safer. Thanks to Nabiki, we will have some foresight so we may assess the situation beforehand." Ranma nodded at Cologne’s sage warning. He remembered the last band of scavengers that came through and tried to push the Tendou’s around. They had carried semiautomatic rifles and almost destroyed the dojo.

"What happened?" "Does Nabiki’s radiowave modem work?" "We’re having guests?"

Everyone stopped and big sweated as Kasumi continued to take things too lightly. Dr. Tofu put his hand on her shoulder to keep her from leaving the room to prepare tea for their company. "We should hear out what type of guests we will be receiving first." Kasumi smiled at the doctor and waited patiently in the doorway.

Everyone’s attention returned to Nabiki who had continued to type on her computer. Without turning away from the screen, she spoke to her audience. "I got telemetry for this exact spot in Japan from some outside nation. I think they are sending some sort of transport to us."

"Really? Are they coming to help us?" Ryouga asked from Akane’s side. Nabiki shrugged her shoulders and continued working.

Cologne turned around on her stick to face everyone. "We should take precautions in case these are more scavengers."

"Scavengers? With transport and radio? Seems unlikely, Honor Cologne." Dr. Tofu thought. All of the other scavengers had been on foot or in very crude vehicles. Though, other nations may have gotten away better than Japan.

"Still, it is best if we are prepared for the worst." Everyone agreed with Cologne and an uneasy silence filled the room.

"You want to get prepared, I suggest you do it now. I’ve got ETA at thirty-three minutes and that’s not all." Nabiki studied the unencrypted message. "They don’t look too friendly."

Cologne peered over the girl’s shoulder to inspect the information she had retrieved. "I would agree with you."

"What is it?" Ranma asked, more than a little agitated now.

Nabiki turned in her seat to face everyone in the room with a serious look. "I think we have mercs coming in, and they have targets out on each of us with priority on Ranma and Ryouga."

* * *

"That’s unbelievable. Its gotta be the only green patch of earth in the area." Deunan dropped down to on knee in her Guges next to Briareos. They were a hundred meters out from the Tendou dojo and nothing in between them and the house to hide behind.

"Looks like they cleared the area in case someone tried to sneak up on them. Smart kids."

Fang came in silently, landing in between the two humans. He preferred to go without a landmate because of his extensive training in combat. "Stop focusing on the lights ahead of you. I smell something in the air and it’s a lot closer than that house."

"You sure?" Deunan asked. "I’m not picking up anything on thermals."

Fang snorted and cocked his Gong. Everyone had come in packing stun clips but they had a couple AP rounds just in case. "You shouldn’t depend so much on machines."

"Deunan, take the center." Briareos spoke up, still scanning the area for Fang’s ghosts. "Blackbone and I will strafe you at twenty meters and keep you covered."

The Guges Deunan was sitting in nodded and waited ten counts before heading off at a leisurely pace, staying as low as possible. She made a quick sweep of the area to memorize everyone’s position one more time. Hitomi was being protected by Kotus another fifty meters back. Bri and Fang had already covered their ground and were making beelines to the house on either side.

She was about to reach the crumbling fence surrounding the dojo when a bright flash and a loud kiap were heard. Deunan pivoted on one foot and planted herself against the wall for cover. "Check in. What happened?!"

Silence.

"Bri? Are you out there?" She realized the bright flash came from his direction and started to worry. Those brats could create huge craters using their little light show. Who knows what it could do to a cyborg.

"Hitomi? Kotus?" More silence. Deunan forgot worry and went to distress. "Fang?!" Nothing.

"Boy, you guys sure got dressed up just to be beaten up."

Deunan spun on her heel again to the voice perched on top of the fence behind her. Stupid, she shouldn’t have put her back to the target. Spinning back around, she had no sight on the attack coming at her from behind and tumbled backwards as her weapons were stripped from her Guges hands, rather impressive considering the strength of the landmate.

From her new position on the ground, Deunan could see a young girl with dark hair and a yellow gi looking down on her from on top of the fence. She nodded with a smile to the two men holding the Guges down. They weren’t wearing landmates, how could they have pulled the Guges onto its back. The landmate weighed more than a ton!

"The other four went down pretty easy. Nabiki is going around and making sure they remain immobile. Tofu got the other guy." Spoke the young man on Deunan’s left. She noticed he was one of her primaries. He had a pigtail and wore the same Chinese clothing as in the pictures. The other man on her right, was the young man with the fangs. Great, they fuck up and she gets caught between two of the three strongest youths. Not for long, Deunan snarled to herself.

"What are these things?" Ryouga asked, taking a good look at the large metal robot.

"Got me." Ranma brought up a hand with a ki blast ready to go. "Target practice maybe." This brought a smile to both young men’s faces.

"Fat chance!" The Guges cover popped open and Deunan sat up taking quick aim with her Gong and fired off two stun shots at Ranma at close range. Taking advantage of their stunned state, she leapt out of the Guges, using the open canopy for cover and firing a few more stun shots at the other two targets.

Ryouga and Akane dodged behind the wall to avoid being hit and waited for the woman to continue her attack. "Ranma are you all right?"

From the opposite side of the fence Ranma slowly got back up to his feet, dusting his pants off. "Yeah, took me by surprise is all. They don’t hurt too much."

"What the fuck!?!" Deunan watched the pigtailed man get back on his feet as if he had only slipped. Those shots should have broken a rib and knocked him unconscious, Deunan thought. Taking aim on the man again she decided to try and make him stand still. "Don’t move or I’ll fire again!"

Ranma smirked at the blonde woman. What a weird outfit she’s wearing. Locking his eyes with hers, Ranma took another step closer, waiting for her next shot. As soon as he heard the gunfire, Ranma was around the Guges, capturing Deunan about the wrist and neck to set her against the ground in an easy arm bar. "It’s all safe. You can come out."

"Hey! Someone want to help us move these guys! They must weigh a ton each!"

Ranma looked up from the woman he had pinned to the ground at Nabiki who was standing over the robot Ranma had gotten with a ki blast. "Sure. I’m coming." Looking down to Deunan, Ranma let go of her neck to hit the pressure point and knock her unconscious. She collapsed quickly next to her Guges.

"Don’t you think that was just a little too easy?"

"I don’t know, it hurt hitting those metal casings."

"Yeah, but they should’ve put up more of a fight than that. Except for that stun gun, no one fired a shot and these guys seemed like pros."

"You think they’re a diversion or something?"

"Yeah, maybe. If they were planning on attacking us, this would be a good way to get in."

"Perhaps, son-in-law, or maybe they were ordered not to use deadly force. These suits could simply be protection from scavengers."

"Hey, you were the one who said we should err on the side of caution. Until we know different, they’re enemies. Isn’t that right, little-miss-priss?!"

Deunan felt her thigh being nudged and frowned. She knew she should have taken more acting lessons. Pretending to feint isn’t as easy as it looks. She opened her eyes to see most of the targets she was sent to collect. The only one really missing was a redhead.

Taking in her surroundings, she was seated on a stained couch in the living room of the house. Fang and Hitomi shared the cushions with her, both of whom were easily seen to be unconscious. Fang had a large bump on the side of his head near the temple; Hitomi had no apparent damage. Across a short coffee table stood three youths, the two boys she was sent to extract and the girl who distracted her at the fence. Something that looked like a large prune on a stick was balanced at one end of the table, waiting patiently for something to happen. The other people were hanging around in the background, looking at the landmates and inspecting Kotus and Briareos.

"What did you do to Briareos?!" Deunan snarled at them.

"And which one would that be, dear?" the old prune asked. Deunan blinked and took a better look and saw it was a really old woman. She must be over a hundred years old, she thought.

"He’s the cyborg."

The youths blinked curiously at her. "Cyborg?"

Deunan snorted and tried to get a better look at Bri. "What’s wrong, don’t read mangas?"

Ranma frowned at the woman’s attitude and thought he’d make her sweat a bit. "Well, he’s either the one Ryouga trashed or the one Nabiki’s pulling apart."

"WHAT?!" Deunan struggled futilely against her bonds and continued to snarl at her captors. "You little brats! I’m gonna rip you a new one when I get free! If you hurt Bri there isn’t a place on this earth that can hide you from me!"

Ryouga crossed his arms and looked intimidatingly down at the blonde woman. "You know, that sounds like a challenge. You think, Akane?"

"Oh, give it a rest guys." Akane had been trying to bite her tongue while Ranma and Ryouga gave the woman the third degree, but it was obvious she was upset over the cyborg. They weren’t mean people, and when the woman started yelling and threatening danger for hurting Bri, there was no longer a need to act mean. "Let’s let her tell us what she’s doing here and if you don’t like it then you can punt her into orbit or something."

Ranma and Ryouga deflated under the remonstration. "But Akane, we were getting that down so well. You can’t just tell us to stop! It spoils the mood!" Ryouga protested.

Deunan blinked when the two boys dropped the act. They had been doing a good job. She was about ready to piss herself when she heard how they roughed up Kotus and Briareos. "Uhm, so Bri is all right?"

Ranma turned back around to face the Deunan and rolled his eyes. "Of course he is. We ain’t killers or nothin’. We ain’t so sure about you, though. Want to tell us why you were sneaking up on us?" He took a seat in the sofa chair at the other end of the coffee table and rested his head in one hand.

"How do you know we aren’t a diversion?" Deunan asked. She entirely forgot that she was the captive when the children stopped acting like ruffians.

"Them." Ranma jerked his thumb at a pair of men, bound and gagged seated at a low dinner table. Kasumi was making sure the bruises on their heads were tended to. "We found your transport and there weren’t anything there that made us think you had more than one force. Guess you weren’t expecting . . . resistance."

"Yeah, well, we didn’t know what to expect considering the energy you guys were throwing around during your sparring sessions. How did you do that by the way?"

"Excuse me, young lady." Cologne interrupted, bouncing on to the table in front of Deunan. "But I think it is more important you tell us why you are here."

"Uh, well, you’re why we are here. We were sent in to pull you guys out." Deunan answered.

"Who is we?"

"Well, we’re ESWAT with the Olympus PD. It’s an island project they called Appleseed. Actually, the central management bureau of Aegis sent us to get you." She really wasn’t the person to be talking with these people. Deunan wasn’t sure how truthful to be with them. She still wasn’t sure if they weren’t part of some outside nation’s scheming or if they were even going to let alpha team go.

"Nab-chan!" Ranma called out from his seat. Nabiki walked into the room a minute later wearing her coveralls and grease smudges across her face and hands.

"Huh?"

"You ever hear of Appleseed?"

Nabiki blinked a few times, processing the question. "I imagine you are referring to the island project that got started up before the war. Why?"

Ranma pointed at Deunan, watching them from her place on the couch. "Maybe you should talk to this lady. She says that people from that place sent them to pick us up."

Nabiki smiled at the idea of living in Appleseed. She heard only so much about it while it was being constructed. Most of it was hush-hush, but what she did get made the place sound like paradise. "You’re going to take us to Appleseed? Did they finish the construction as they planned? What’s it like? I heard it was going to be mainly technological and Utopian in the society style."

Deunan would have raised her hands to slow the excited girl down, but the ropes around her wrists took that option away. "Could you untie me now? We aren’t here to hurt you."

Ranma checked with Ryouga and Cologne before removing Deunan’s bonds. "Just don’t try anything funny. We took you guys out once with no problem. The next time we may not stop at just knocking you guys out."

Deunan nodded her head as she rubbed her wrists, pushing some circulation back into her hands. "Uhm, I’m not very good with the explanation bit. That’s what we brought Hitomi for. She supposed to be a sort of liaison from Olympus. She’s got most of the answers. Me and Bri got to Olympus not more than a year ago."

"You’re with Briareos?" Nabiki asked with some suspicion.

"Yeah, why?"

Flippantly gesturing to the back area where Bri was set against the wall, Nabiki had Deunan follow her over to a table with various components laid out. "Ranma took the guy out and I think he fried some of Briareos’ circuitry. There’s no bleeding so he should be fine, but I’ve been trying to repair most of the damage to get him back online."

"Jeez, I wish Yoshi were here." Deunan muttered. Briareos had a good life battery of twelve hours after shut down. After that and . . . "I think we’ve got spare parts in the transport. Can we go get them?" Nabiki nodded and asked for Ranma to escort them. "Also, we should take him along." Deunan pointed at the man named Magus. "He’ll probably know what to look for and where."

With a nod from Ranma, Dr. Tofu hit a pressure point to revive the man Deunan had pointed at. Magus blinked a few times to adjust to the light before giving everything a good look over. Deunan told him the situation was in hand and they needed his help. "What’s wrong?"

"Bri was hurt in the fight and they are trying to fix him up. It looks like we just need to replace of few circuits." Magus gave the problem an experienced eye and then smiled. Closing up the side plate on Briareos’ head, he reached behind the base of the neck to re-power the system.

"Those are really just redundant systems and useless extras. He’ll just reroute some of his optics and be good enough until we get him back to Olympus." There was no sound as Magus finished powering up Bri’s system. He started awake with a jolt and swept the area quickly, expecting an attack at any moment. "Calm down man. Everything is cool now."

Briareos finally settled his gaze on Deunan who was watching him with some worry. "You all right, Deunan?"

"I’m fine." She rushed over to his side and hugged the large green-brown cyborg body. "Are you going to be alright?"

"Uhm." He looked introspective for a moment before returning to reality. "No serious damage and it looked like someone tried to repair one of the optic relays."

"Sorry." Nabiki blushed. "I’ve never seen a system like yours before. I tried to clear away most of the problems."

Bri nodded approvingly at her. "Not a bad job for your first time. Just a small invariance, but you have to use more sensitive equipment to get it perfect." Nabiki smiled at what she took to be a compliment.

"What about the other guy? It doesn’t look like Ryouga treated him with same kid gloves I gave him." Ranma pointed at Kotus. There was a large hole through the robot’s body and the neck had been twisted to an uncomfortable angle.

"Don’t worry about him." Magus sneered. "He’s just a dumb ass robot. Not much good except as a fire protection." It seemed something had suddenly occurred to the man as he stared at Kotus and Briareos where they sat propped up against the wall. "How the hell did you guys carry these two-ton lugs in here anyway?!"

"Wasn’t to hard with me here." Ranma smirked at the dumbfound Olympians.

Ryouga responded as he would, smacking Ranma upside the head. "I carried the other guy in here, Ranma."

"With Akane’s help, P-chan!"

Growling, Ryouga approached Ranma with malicious intent. "Don’t call me P-chan! And I didn’t need Akane’s help to carry that paper weight!"

Ryouga, mad that Ranma would call him weak, didn’t notice the equally upset Akane glaring at him for calling her weak. "So, I’m just in the way am I, Ryouga!?!"

"Finally." Ranma muttered under his breath. "About time, P-chan got what he deserved."

"A-Akane! I-I didn’t mean it . . . it’s not what . . . Ranma, this is all your FAULT!" Ryouga screamed turning back on Ranma and charging with fists cocked.

"Oh really?!" Nabiki rapped Ryouga over the head with her wrench as he passed by. "Why don’t you take responsibility sometime, pork-breath?!" Ryouga fell flat on his face as the gentle rap blinded him from the mallet follow through of Akane's.

"Thanks, Nabiki."

Nabiki nodded to her sister and they had a good laugh at Ryouga’s whining from being smashed into the floorboards. The people not used to seeing others knocked through solid wood boards, stared in shock, especially at the size of the mallet Akane had seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

"So? When do we leave?" Akane asked the Olympians sweetly.

* * *

Hey, that was kind of fun. Some of you may be wondering why I made it seem so easy for Ranma and Co. to take out ESWAT, and I can only answer ‘It was’! Look at it this way, a group of highly skilled martial artist with developed ki attacks and greater strength taking on a bunch of regular humans and bioroids having only a little more speed than normal, the winner is obvious. Sure, it maybe should’ve taken longer, but I didn’t want to draw things out too much.

Oh yeah! And why are Nabiki and Ranma together? Well, I’m becoming a big Nabiki supporter because she’s not as childish or simple as Akane. You want to make an affectionate and understanding Akane then you’re talking about many hours of brainwashing and I just don’t have the time.

What’s next? We follow Ranma and Co. to Appleseed. That ought to be a chapter in itself. Lots of discovery and maybe some pillow talk.

Ja ne.