Welland, just before dawn…
Shinobu sighed as her eyes opened, finding herself in the place she had wanted to be for the last four months yet only got the chance to be only for the last couple of days: in her husband's arms in their bed in one of the bedrooms at the shared residence between herself, Moroboshi Tariko and Fujinami Ryūnosuke. Overlooking the north shore of the Welland River close to the site of Brown's Bridge, an old Indian village that was sighted a kilometre beyond the urban edge of the city, the home was a two-floor affair with basement that had four bedrooms, washrooms on all floors, a dining room, kitchen, living room and basement recreation room along with a garage for the girls' car, a modern Volkswagen Rabbit that had its internal combustion engine exchanged for a fusion motor by maintenance personnel from 10th Service Battalion. Currently, Shinobu's parents were sharing the guest room; Nodoka was sleeping in Ryūnosuke's room while the engineer was sharing a bed with Tariko (who was counting the hours until the tag race was over and Lum could officially move in to be with her).
"I'd be getting up to do some training right now…"
Shinobu smiled. "Want to do some stretching outside?"
Ranma grinned as they shared a warm kiss. "Let's go."
Minutes later, both — now dressed in proper martial arts uniforms — stepped outside…and then stopped on seeing the tent that was now poised at one corner of the property. "What on Earth…?!" Shinobu began before she walked over…just as the tent flap opened and a pretty bushy-haired girl a year younger than she stepped out, dressed in casual clothes. Stopping on seeing her, Shinobu peered at her before she sighed. "Miss Granger, what on Earth are you doing camping on my back lawn?"
Hermione gasped on hearing that question as she whipped around to aim her wand at the stranger asking her that, and then she relaxed on recognizing who she was. "Sorry about that, Commander Miyake," she replied as she holstered her weapon. "Otako Meinyak asked for us to come here to help police the city during the tag race."
"Who is she?" Ranma asked.
"Hermione Granger. A witch from England," Shinobu replied as the tent flap opened to reveal Hermione's four female housemates: Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, Aesup Mun and Brianna Spinks. "She attends the Hogwarts School; that's their main wand-wizard academy up in Scotland. She's also part of a twenty-three girl coven of witches who became Avalonians three years ago after some weird creature got loose in their school and ended up petrifying all of them because of their relationship with Harri Evans."
He hummed. "I remember that name…"
"Harri's like your friend Tariko, Mister Saotome," Lavender stated as the four other girls came up to stand beside Hermione. "When she was a normal Terran in lieu of an Avalonian, she was Harry Potter, the 'Boy Who Lived' who was said to have taken down the Dark Lord Voldemort fifteen years ago during our most recent civil war."
"He was forced to become an Avalonian when his stupid normal relatives allowed him to be attacked by some dumb dog because they couldn't stand that he was a 'freak,'" Aesup — a North Korean native whose family moved to Britain when she was a child — added in her accented English. "She helped us become Avalonians because a younger girl in our house got possessed by that pyŏngshin Riddle's soul-fragment in our second year and we all ended up being frozen stiff for a week before he got us new bodies since no one couldn't cultivate any mandrake roots to go into an anti-petrifaction potion for us."
"Aesup, don't swear," Hermione gently scolded.
The bespectacled black-haired, brown-eyed girl fired an annoyed look at her before she turned to head back to the tent to get supplies for breakfast. "Your headmistress said it'd be alright for us to camp out with you while your husband's dealing with Lum," Parvati added as she gave Shinobu an apologetic look. "We've got every Avalonian in our year with us now; they're camping in house groups with your friends. Once this is all over with and the Urusians go home, we'll head back to Scotland."
Shinobu sighed; she had to talk to Carol Johnson about this so that members of her crew wouldn't take it the wrong way should strangers — even if they were sister Avalonians — come visit her again. "Alright, fair enough. You have enough food to eat?"
"We can get it started now," Brianna said…
…and then everyone blinked on hearing a scooter come down Colbeck Drive. "What on Earth's that?" Pavarti asked as everyone watched the lone rider on the Vespa PX150 turn into the driveway and come to a stop short of the garage door.
Shinobu grinned. "Sakurako…"
And sure enough, it was Sugimoto Sakurako, carrying two brown boxes with the Tim Hortons label on them and a smile on her face. "Good morning, everyone," she said as she came up to them, and then placed the boxes down before she opened up one of them to reveal many large cups of tea. "Some darjeeling for Parvati," she said as she handed it to the gaping Tamil native. "Some insam-ch'a for Aesup," she said as she handed that cup to the blinking Korean girl. "And English breakfast tea for everyone else," she then said as she handed the cups to the other witches from Britain. "Plus some Timbits to give you some extra sugar so that you'll be alert on the streets."
Lavender's jaw dropped. "You're a seer!"
"Oh, no, Lavender! I'm not really magical," Sakurako stated with a smile as she reached down to give the other box to Shinobu. "I do have precognitive powers that do work in the same way as what Professor Trelawney and Luna Lovegood at your school have, but they work more consistently and constantly than their abilities." She then sighed. "A pity Luna's not one of us. I think she would make a lovely bond-mate or a member of your coven. Oh, well, maybe next time. In the meantime, I'll drive over to Tomomi's place to deliver some tea and Timbits to the Slytherins. I do hope Harri's finished making love to all of them; it's SO tempting to just join in and what sort of host would I be doing that? Oh, well, there is tonight. See you at the Academy, ladies."
And with that, she headed off, leaving a gaping chorus of people behind…
By the time seven o'clock rolled around, people were now gathering at the Aqueduct Academy, both locals and people from farther away who came into town to see this incredible moment in history. Fortunately for those who just wanted to stay and watch this event, the Niagara Regional Police that had cordoned off all land approaches to Welland had been augmented with the Ontario Provincial Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Niagara Parks Police and the 10th Military Police Company. The latter group was augmented with people from 8th Company and 20th Company in Toronto, as well as the headquarters company, 30th Company and 31st Support Company of the 2nd Military Police Battalion in Markham (north of Ontario's capital city). Of course, while there were many people pulled over when the Avalonians in that force were quick to sense either directly hostile (people who wanted to kill Lum) or simply harassing (those who wanted to deliver some sort of message without harming the poor Oni girl), nothing drastic happened, which was relayed over CBC Newsworld to other media outlets, demonstrating the classic Canadian desire for "peace, order and good government" that was enshrined in the Dominion's very own Constitution, much like "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" appeared in the American Declaration of Independence.
Ranma was undergoing a rubdown in the Academy gymnasium thanks to Shinohara Izumi with Shinobu seated right beside him, holding his hand as the doors opened to reveal Nodoka and the Miyakes. "How are you, my son?" the martial artist's mother asked as she sat to the other side of her child from his wife and took his other hand.
"A little nervous," he admitted. "Lum come down yet?"
"She'll be down in a half-hour," Kimiki stated. "Is it true?"
"What's true, Okā-chan?" Shinobu asked.
"That Tariko-chan actually married her under her people's laws?"
Everyone who had been on Fort Erie that day laughed. "Kimiki-obasan, let me put it this way," Izumi stated as she winked at Shinobu's mother. "What happened between Tariko-san and Lum-san was the time of the month to BEAT all times of the month!"
More laughter, and then the door opened, revealing Azato Miwa. Like all the crew of Fort Erie, she was now in civilian clothes so as to not make people wonder what were so many Navy personnel doing here alongside the large Army presence in town. Shinobu gazed fondly on her executive officer. "Report, please, Miwa?"
"All sniper teams are in place, Shinobu-san," Miwa stated. "We've staked out all regional roads within a four-square kilometre box of the Main Street Bridge. Police sniper teams and designated marksmen are covering the side streets closest to the regional roads. Miss Evans and her team are camped out under invisibility cloaks on the Main Street and Alexandria Bridges, plus all buildings in close range to either of them. They've set out magical detection runes at strategic locations to give them a further head's up if someone tries to do something and it hasn't been caught by someone empathically. Roving foot patrols from the Lincoln and Welland and 10 CER are out on all streets with weapons visible, but no rounds in the chambers. The Niagara Regional Police has called in all special constables to help out. Troops will only be allowed to fire if permitted to by the nearest peace officer. Tanks from A and B Squadrons of the 2nd/10th are staking out all land approaches to downtown from all directions."
"Anything yet?" Ranma asked.
"Possibly a couple of things, but nothing definitive just yet."
He nodded as he allowed Izumi to finish her work. He wanted to win the tag race, but he didn't want Lum or anyone else from Kashin to get hurt along the way. Much that he had never personally encountered some of the wild crazies that his wife had long known about, he knew they were out there. If there was someone out gunning for Lum's head, they would have one last person to get through to get her.
Him.
"Hey, Ranma?"
He perked on hearing Tariko's voice, and then he looked over to see her walk up to him from a side door. "Hey, Tariko. You okay?" he asked.
A sigh. "I'll be fine."
"You don't look it," Shinobu warned.
Tariko blinked, and then she smirked. "Yeah." She then gazed on Ranma. "Go easy on her, okay? This is pretty hard for her, too."
Ranma smiled. "Don't worry about it," he vowed as we…
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