Splash!
Hematite blinked her recently repaired eyes as cold water rushed over her, slowly bringing her back to consciousness. 'What the hell happened to me? My entire body hurts... well, except for one of my arms.' Shaking her head wildly to rid herself of the excess water in her hair, she happened to catch a glance at where that particular limb should have been. 'Oh. Right. Car blew up. Plus somebody started stepping on me. And then they hit me with lightning.'
Hematite felt like crying. After all her work to stay out of the line of fire and keep safe, the Senshi had found her! Not only that, but apparently their tactics had become FAR more aggressive as of late. Steering exploding cars at their enemies? Sneak attacks when the youma weren't even draining people? What happened to confronting the opponent and boring them silly with a lecture about what they had done wrong? That's not fair!
Coming out of her depression, she glanced around her to check her status, momentarily ignoring the two figures standing in front of her. Her remaining arm was shackled to a thick gas pipe while her tail was... Hematite's eye twitched. Her tail had been tied onto a piece of railing that was planted in the floor of this place, whatever it was. She couldn't identify the knot - she never had made tenderfoot in the Nega Scouts - but it looked pretty solid, considering it was composed of a major extremity.
"Do not attempt to escape. Resistance is futile."
Wincing, she finally turned toward the two figures in front of her. To her surprise, they weren't Senshi at all.
Or at least, she didn't THINK the female of the two was a Senshi. It was possible, but she seemed just a bit more... mature than she would credit the pictures she had seen. Especially in the chest area. Then again, she'd taken great pains to avoid the Senshi at all costs, so she wouldn't really know.
She couldn't make out any faces, because both individuals were wearing spooky-looking gas masks with beady black lenses where the eyes would be. The man was dressed in military fatigues and body armor, and the woman was dressed in some sort of red Chinese shirt.
A quick glance around revealed no-one else. No Senshi anywhere in sight. Just what was going on here? Have the ignorant cattle finally woken up and taken action? Well, that was just great. Another big ol' wrench right in the Negaverse war machine. Plus she was going to die, probably after a thorough torture session. Swell.
Splash! "Hack! Ptooey! What was that for? I'm already awake!" Hematite spat, shaking her head again.
"You were zoning out for a minute there. My friend asked you a question," said the redhead, tossing the bucket away with a flick of her fingers.
The black-haired man nodded. "We will now begin the question and answer session. If you cannot provide an answer, you will be encouraged to do so. If I believe you're lying, you will be displined. Severely." He took up a pair of thick rubber gloves, the kind people wore when they worked with high-voltage wires, and started to put them on. "Originally I was trained to do interrogation according to the guidelines presented by the Geneva Convention. A quick review of the document, however, reveals that its terms only apply to human prisoners of war. In that respect, I've decided to utilize some new techniques. Please excuse any... slip of the fingers. I am new at this."
Hematite couldn't tell, but somehow she just KNEW the redhead was grinning when she spoke up next. "You freaks're supposed to be weak against energy attacks, so we figured some high-voltage work would do better than a solid beating or something like that. You ready?"
Hematite snarled. "I'll never talk!"
Sousuke turned around with a jumper cable in each hand. He tapped them together. BZRT! Sparks burst from the contact point, briefly lighting up the otherwise gloomy interior.
Hematite squealed. "I'll tell you everything!"
Under her mask, Ranma blinked. "Really? Just like that?"
"Yes! Yes! For the love of Nemesis, just don't hurt me!" She sobbed.
"Please understand that I'm skeptical of your sudden agreeability," Sousuke warned, raising one of the cable clamps and flexing it open and closed, like a beast's maw groping for food.
The youma shuddered. "I'll talk! I can tell you lots of stuff! Names! Locations! Jobs! Abilities! Weaknesses!"
Ranma snorted. "Why would they tell a wimp like you all that?" She may not have been military, but she found it a bit stupid to invest so much knowledge in someone so weak.
"They don't consider the possibility of us youma being captured... or at least, Jaedite doesn't. Sailor Moon's never captured one of us, even when she had the opportunity! The other youma are always bragging about how great their operations are going and how they're up for promotion! Nobody ever thinks about information slipping to the enemy! I mean, technically we're supposed to kill ourselves if we fail and the enemy doesn't finish us off!"
"And why didn't you?" Sousuke asked calmly.
Hematite bristled. "Because I blasted unconscious by a lighting shock, that's why!"
Clunk! The snake-woman winced as Ranma smashed one of the empty buckets down on her head. "Quiet down."
"Yes'm."
Sousuke snorted. "No measures in case of capture. How... unprofessional." Still, he turned around and put the jumper cables back. Then he turned back toward the woman and stepped up to her so that he was staring her down (being stretched between her arm and her tail as she was, her head was about four feet above the floor). "Tell me about this... Jaedite. Then I want to know about the energy harvesting operations closest to your own base." He turned toward the redhead, who sighed and took out a pad of paper and a pen. "Begin."
Hematite gulped. Well, one way or another, she was in it deep, now. "Jaedite is the first of the four Dark Generals, who run the operations here on Earth. He's the one who was working in Juuban district first, so he was the first to run into Sailor Moon, which is why..."
_______________________
"... And Ganzite is selling used cars that constantly drain the driver's energy. That job is a real pain, though, 'cause apparently she has to run out at night and collect all the energy that gets stored in the gas tanks of the cars herself. We didn't really think that one all the way through," Hematite admitted, still squirming while trying to get comfortable in her bound position.
Sousuke nodded. "I see. I think that will do for tonight."
The youma blinked. Dare she hope? "Really? You're not going to shock me or anything?"
"Not tonight, but do not rule out the possibility for the future. We now have three harvesting operations to investigate as well as a minor dossier on each of these 'generals'. If our findings suggest you lied, reprisal is certain."
Hematite snorted, apparently not intimidated anymore.
Splash!
"Cough! Hack! Knock it off!" The youma growled at the redheaded girl who was pocketing her notebook.
Clang! Ranma flattened another bucket on the snake-woman's head. "What was that?"
"I said 'If it'll keep you from hitting me, splash me all you want'," the youma mumbled miserably.
Sousuke snapped his fingers. "We're leaving now. Do not attempt to escape, or the consequences will be severe."
Hematite narrowed her eyes, apparently unconvinced. "Consequences? Like what?" Even if they left a guard behind, a single human or two wouldn't be any big threat with a little more time to regenerate and get loose from her current bindings.
Then again, it wasn't like she really had anywhere to escape to, now that she had failed and then squealed to the enemy. Still, a life on the lam from both her captors and former masters seemed preferable to a cramped position in a torture garage.
Sousuke shook his head and pointed to the ceiling, indicating the building they were in. "There are several explosive charges rigged around this building. I will not tell you where they are located, or what the particular triggers are. I will divulge that as soon as my companion and I leave, I'll arm the traps, and any attempt to move from your current location will trigger them." He crossed his arms over his chest while rubbing his chin. "I would greatly prefer you did not trigger the bombs. Due to your survival of the earlier ten-pound charge, I used substantially more around this structure, and a detonation would cause extensive damage to the surrounding buildings."
Ranma twitched. "Is that stuff... expensive?" Last she had asked Orion, the cat was already dipping into the last of his initial cash windfall, and Ranma hadn't even applied for any jobs yet!
"Indeed. It would be to everyone's benefit if no escape attempt were made."
Ranma turned to the youma, who was already pale and sweating, and scowled in such a way that her expression somehow translated completely through the mask she was wearing. "Don't you DARE move from that spot, you hear me?"
Hematite swallowed nervously. "Y-Yes M-M-Ma'am."
"That's 'Sir' to you, snakey," the redhead snapped, adding confusion to the torrent of emotions currently exerting crushing pressure on Hematite's tiny brain. Then she stormed out, with the black-haired man following a moment later while pausing to disconnect the jumper cables and bring them with him.
Click! Slam! A moment after Sousuke turned out the lights, he closed the door behind him, plunging the garage interior into absolute darkness.
"... Aw, man. I think I would've been better off just being vaporized by the Senshi."
Ah, hindsight.
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(Posted Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:04)
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