Ranma and Nabiki were staring at a blank piece of glass that gave off the same sort of chi as pretty much any other electrical light and Nabiki's own, now functionally useless for her, computer.
"You're a bit younger than I expected," a polished and hard British voice came over the speakers.
"We're old enough," Ranma said huffing irritably. A brief flash of chi, unreadable to the others, and Nabiki reminded Ranma to keep his temper in check.
Neither could see Sir Integra arching an eyebrow on the screen.
"I'll be blunt," she said. "We are interested in what you are and in hiring you to deal with various supernatural threats."
"And what would you require of my Master and I?" Nabiki asked, flinching internally at the slip of the tongue.
"You would be expected to complete training and submit to testing," Sir Integra said honestly. "We will have to know what your capabilities are."
"Anything else?" Ranma asked. "You don't seem to be a local group."
"No," Integra admitted. "We are British. Is this a problem?"
****
Elsewhere, nightmares of darkness and storm flittered through Kodachi's mind.
Somehow, she was at the center of the storm, somehow, she'd made it, but she wasn't certain how. A crackling and writhing black whip of energy seemed to twist out of her hand as the rain and lightning surrounded her. Again, her heart was missing and her eyes and mouth were bleeding, and she wore her ruined and bloody school uniform like some sort of undead schoolgirl.
But she was neither dead nor undead, despite the hole in her chest.
In the darkness she was unseen and untouched by the mind or magic, a mere sliver of her wavered like a hologram out of a science-fiction movie or a phantom from a ghost story. Before her, lit by the flash of lightning around her, stood the Sailor Senshi.
Around her was a ruined city, but what she saw of it was far more advanced than anything she'd ever seen. Somehow, Kodachi thought herself the source of the ruin just as she was the source of the storm.
Behind her, a string of corpses stung out into the vastness of the past.
Then the storm started to lift, starting from her and spiraling outward, a calm star-filled night ranged over the place around her, and the ruined city rebuilt itself into a vision of greatness and people moving too and fro on the errands that never seemed to have an end, day or night, for a large city.
About her were all manners of creatures, humans, aliens and...things like her but looking different.
She still stood there in her tattered school-girl clothes, but few seemed to notice her as they passed. Only Sailor Senshi seemed to continue looking at her, and now they did not seem hostile.
Then the storm started to circle out from her and the first scene returned, followed by the calm again.
The two scnees flickered off and on unceasingly through her confused mind until she awoke the next morning.
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(Posted Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:58)
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