******
The waitress turned at the sound of the chopsticks hitting the floor. She raised an eyebrow at the pale foreign woman sitting by the slightly underfed-looking university student and shrugged indifferently. The man, however, looked genuinely concerned at the distracted and slightly frightened look on his companion’s face and took a milk-pale hand in his own.
#Ifurita? # Mizuhara Makoto ‘sent’ over his link to the millennia-old war machine he had married, #What’s wrong, is everything all right? #
#There’s another one, another Demon God.# Ifurita replied, her shock and fear quite apparent, #She just _appeared_, there was no sign of inter-dimensional transport or atmospheric approach... #
#Another tomb, # Makoto reasoned, #it has to have gotten here before you did and created a chamber sealed against your scanners. Still, with Galus dead the Phantom Tribe on Earth broken what are the odds of one of _them_ awakening her instead of somebody stumbling across her on accident? #
#It isn’t... isn’t _just_ that Makoto.# Ifurita explained, #The power levels I sense... #
#She’s stronger than you? #
#Stronger than Kalia, from what the old files and your memories tell me. # she clarified, #There is no way to tell how many abilities she has learned at this point, but even with the best case scenario, if it is compelled to use violence to obey or defend the master of her staff... #
Makoto paled at the implications. No Demon-God had any inbuilt compulsion to avoid collateral damage, and even if she or whoever commanded her wished to hold back enough to avoid widespread destruction (not a given considering the madness of Jinnai and Kalia) it was foolish to think any would give a second thought to maintaining a low profile.
#At best, # Ifurita observed grimly, #she’d cause a panic throughout Tokyo. #
#And at worst, # Makoto realized, #she’d reduce it to a smoking crater. Can you find her? #
#I already have. # Ifurita ‘said’, her worried expression fading to the look of dispassionate focus Makoto recognized as her ‘game face’, #However, I require my staff to confront her. #
“Ifurita...” Makoto breathed aloud.
“I will do my best to talk to her.” Ifurita reassured him as she released his hand and began to rise, “I do not want a fight any more than you do... but she may not give me a choice.”
With that she turned and ran though the alleys and side streets to their apartment.
At ~130 k.p.h.
******
DANGER: IFURITA-CLASS DEMON-GOD APPROACHING
THREAT LEVEL OMEGA
"AAHH!" Tendo Nabiki gasped as her perceptions went mad. She felt something approaching Nerima, a devastating source of power she could not ignore if she tried.
A source of power the voices in her head knew well.
One that they told her would level the city without blinking an eye if such a thing were useful to its goals... and Ranma along with it.
"Nabiki?" Ranma asked, startled by her shift from sarcastic irritation to shocked pain, "What’s goin' on?"
Then the presence... dispersed. It did not vanish, pinpointing it became an impossibility as it’s approach slowed and proximity grew.
“Something’s coming.” Nabiki said as her mind refocused on (ha) the real world, “something built for war and destruction... something like me....”
“So?” Ranma said with practiced nonchalance, “It starts something, I’ll handle it.”
Both Nabiki’s true mind and the Guardian subroutines newly embedded therein shared a response.
“Are you _stupid_, Saotome?!?” Nabiki snapped as she pointed through the holes leading from her room to the pile of rubble a certain Lost Boy happened to be under, “I had to hold back to keep from _killing_ Ryoga just now, and I’m not going to bet my ‘cousin’ is coming over for tea!”
“Ranma!” Akane cried as she came through the door, “Don’t tell me you and Ryoga are fighting in the house a-*gasp*!”
Nabiki wheeled, realizing that her baby sister just got a good look at the keyhole in her lower back. “Akane,” she began, “look, it’s... shit, we don’t have time for this. Trouble is coming _now_!”
“And what are _you_ gonna do about it Nabiki?” Ranma snorted mockingly, somewhat nettled by her dismissal of his fighting ability (and the possibility that she was right).
Nabiki paused to think. Gaining control over whatever auto-pilot that Ranma’s stupid wish installed in her head may not have been the unalloyed benefit she had assumed.
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(Posted Mon, 22 Dec 2003 14:23)
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