So things had not gone entirely... according to plan.
ANYBODY'S plan.
Although really, out of all the plans that were being put into motion, Sousuke's had been going the best. Having his explosives, traps, a menangerie of possible improvised explosive devices at his fingertips and the airport closed was Christmas for him. Specifically, he was Santa laying out presents of varying flammability waiting to be unwrapped.
Around noon the next day, the police came to guard the airport. Two dozen men. And not one of them armed with even a handgun. It's like the government was trained to send in just enough force to get in the way of vigilantes doing the real work, but not nearly enough to accomplish the job themselves. No WONDER they needed him to back up their superheroes and protect their schoolgirls from harm!
Within the first half-hour of the men scouring the base, he had been forced to knock three of them out quietly to prevent them from getting themselves killed; these men were clearly not trained to identify traps and bombs, and were stumbling blindly into the trigger areas.
It was only sheer luck that led to one particularly bored officer kicking a beer can into the detection range of a proximity mine before he had walked that path himself. Sousuke was not nearby and would have been unable to save him.
The resulting explosion knocked the man down, but didn't cause him much harm. The East terminal, however, was quickly rocked by secondary explosions and set ablaze. The police officers quickly abandoned the airport, moving twice as quickly once they found three missing members of their group lying outside, bound and unconscious.
Sousuke had just sighed as he looked at the building blaze that had engulfed half of the airport. What a waste of ordnance.
Jaedite had checked out the airport from above first, and was surprised to find a part of it on fire. The Senshi were already here? Frowning, he decided that their apparent tactical foresight warranted calling in the reserves. He teleported into the middle of the airport and immediately opened a youma portal, from which four of his best combat youma emerged, snarling and ready to tear into the enemy. He had originally figured that he could destroy the Senshi himself, without wasting the substantial amount of energy it took to summon the youma to help him, but honestly seeing the airport in flames before the battle even started, not to mention the recent destruction of a few of his minor draining operations, was making him nervous.
It wasn't long before Sousuke heard another proximity mine go off, followed by a yelping cry that had not come from a human throat. He quickly put his plan into action, running for the exits as he slipped the detonator out of his pocket.
Everything past the officers nearly getting killed had gone pretty well. The explosives he detonated precipitated the roof collapsing outward from the center of the airport, spreading the fire more quickly and setting off chains of secondary explosions from proximity mines and canisters of airplane fuel and even booze from the airport bar.
And thus it was the sight of a towering inferno where the airport used to be to which the Sailor Senshi and Orion's team arrived as dusk passed, albeit on opposite sides of said inferno.
_______________________
Ranma groaned as he looked at the firestorm that used to be an airport and wondered how many millions of yen worth of explosives had just literally gone up in flames due to Sousuke's penchant for explosive overkill.
Orion shook his head, unable to believe that they had spent so long looking for the mercenary before Negi had checked the messages on their answering machine (pilfered from Gazite's house). Neither Orion nor Ranma was used to simple 20th century technology, and it showed. After Orion had deciphered the message, as it had been given in code, they had rushed to the airport with all haste, which they would have done anyway considering how close it had been getting to the time of the appointed battle.
Negi squinted his eyes as he held a hand against his forehead, peering into the flames. "Hey... there's someone coming... with a youma!"
Indeed, there was a very angry-looking man in a charred, thoughly neatly pressed gray uniform stalking onto the tarmac from the flaming pile of debris, shouting incoherently. The flames and sparks, for the most part, seemed not to touch him, instead parting over some sort of barrier and bouncing off onto the ground. The youma following him was a completely different story, as it had been severely burned, and was limping. It seemed that at one point the creature had possessed four spider-like legs, but one had been blown off and one was apparently crippled, forcing her to limp.
Orion nodded and backed off as Ranma took a fighting stance and Negi jumped on his staff. "You guys know what to do. I'll find the Senshi and bring them here as soon as possible. Hold your ground!"
As Jaedite stalked up to the jumbo jets that were sitting far enough away from the airport to escape damage, he noticed that there were two youngsters waiting for him with confrontational expressions on their faces. He didn't notice the gray cat dashing away from the area.
He snorted, not in the least impressed that the child of the two was floating in the air on a stick. "So now you mere humans deign to oppose me as well? Your insolence disgusts me." He held up a hand, letting a ball of black lightning coalesce into his palm. Next to him, the only surviving combat youma snarled, snapping its pincer-like hands threateningly.
"Bring it, pretty boy," Ranma mocked, using his best cocky grin as he beckoned the Negaverse soldiers forward with a finger.
Negi didn't waste his words, instead launching himself upward and beginning his incantation. "Sagitta magica series fulguraris!"
From the bushes off the tarmac, Sousuke lowered his binoculars and readied the mortar.
The battle was joined.
_______________________
Whack! "NO, I did NOT set the airport on fire so we wouldn't have to fight!" Sailor Mars yelled, smacking her leader straight on the head.
"Ow! Mars, you're so MEAN!" Sailor Moon said as she slumped to her knees and started to cry.
Luna's eye twitched at the sight. "Girls, can we get back to the issue at hand? Jaedite's waiting for us!"
Bakoom! A fairly distant explosion sounded, but the Senshi couldn't make out the flare of light from the mortar detonation behind the firestorm that was the airport.
"Something's wrong. It looks like someone's already fighting," Mercury said worriedly, scannin the area with her visor. A brief chain of smaller explosions seemed to reinforce her conclusion.
"Eh? Who could be in there fighting Jaedite?" Moon asked, coming out of her crying jag as quickly as she fell into it.
"I think I can answer that!"
The four females all jumped as a rough, male voice came from behind them, and they all whirled around. Sailor Moon, naturally, lost her balance upon attempting a 180 and stumbled to the side into Mars, knocking the both of them to the ground and precipating another argument when they all really had better things to worry about.
"Orion? What're you doing here?" Luna asked uneasily, both irritated to see the military moon cat and a bit relieved that he might be able to help in the upcoming battle against a general.
"I'm here to help you, of course." He glanced over at where Sailors Moon and Mars were pinching and stretching out each other's cheeks as they continued fighting. "You really pulled out all the stops on this recruitment effort, haven't you? Where do you FIND these people?"
Mercury noted Luna bristling at the comment. "Luna, who is this?"
"This is Orion, a military advisor who was sent forward with me. Presumably to help all of you deal with the Negaverse threat better."
The blue-skirted Senshi immediately brightened. Intellectual help? Perfect! Maybe the others would stop expecting HER to pull brilliant strategies out of her ass with an actual military advisor on their side.
"Orion! You're back!" Sailor Moon said happily, disengaging herself from the Senshi of Mars. "It was really scary fighting all those battles! I kept telling Luna that we should try to find you so you can help but she kept saying we didn't need you and Ami would do fine even though she isn't very good at fighting and-"
"That's nice," Orion said negligently, waving a paw at the blonde superheroine as he dismissed her babbling. "Look, you've gotta get to the battlefield. My boys're holding off Jaedite and his lackey as best they can. If you get there quick, you can hit them in the back and we can close this trap.
The Senshi all nodded, determination spreading onto their faces.
In Luna's mind, one could imagine a record player playing a constant soothing hum of old opera music, as if her brain were constantly moving through the motions of some formal noble event like a ball or a play. At that moment, the arm of the player jerked off the record, creating the time of garbled, scratchy sound that had lead off into so many comedy routines.
"Wait a minute! Your 'boys'? What 'boys'?" Luna shouted, suddenly standing straight up on all fours.
Orion raised an eyebrow. "My men. You know, soldiers, warriors, magi... or in this case, one of each. What's that look for?"
Sailor Moon blinked. "Boys? You mean, like, 'boys' boys?" She was going to get to fight alongside guys? This was awesome! "Ooh! Is Tuxedo Kamen one of them?"
"Who?" Orion asked, blinking.
"Masked guy, shows up when we're in a bind, throws roses," Mars said, ticking off Kamen's distinguishing features.
"Oh, HIM. Nah. I found a better sniper." Orion turned around and started to run off, sensing that Luna was about to unload a lecture on him for some reason. "Come on! We don't have much time!"
"Hey! Wait a minute, you-" Luna was cut off as she was nearly trampled by the Senshi of Mars, Mercury and the Moon in their rush to get the battlefield. "Stop! We can't just... I mean... HEY!! Don't leave me behind!"
Grumbling irritably, Luna took off at her best sprint to follow the girls as...
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(Posted Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:01)
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