[Ranma][Fanfic] Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty - Chapter 14: Training to Die ======================================================================= Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty Chapter 14: Training to Die Ranma 1/2 characters/situations created and copyright by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan/Kitty/Fuji/Viz - Used without permission Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty series created, written, and copyright 2000-2002 by Jim Lazar An ongoing series set after the end of the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime. For maximum enjoyment of this fanfic series, please read my Childhood of Modern Dynasty series before reading Adulthood. E-mail comments and/or criticisms to: jim [at] animeprime.com Make sure to check out my Modern Dynasty website for all released AMD stories, graphics files, and other information: http://www.animeprime.com/ff/md ======================================================================= August 18, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 111) Akane lay on the desert sand and stared up at the full Moon shining down on them from overhead. Its proto-rings were barely discernable within the cloud of debris that orbited the Buyierfeis' punching bag. One of her hands was wrapped around her feminine husband, the other was held tightly by her masculine husband. "It seems more like a skull now instead of the Man in the Moon, doesn't it?" Ranma rubbed Akane's stomach and answered without looking at the Moon. "Only if you imagine it will bring death." Ranko couldn't tear her eyes from the moon. She had been uneasy since they had been told there was a monolith on it and the Moon now had a rotational period that would bring that monolith within the line of sight of the Earth in just over three months. "As Akane said, it's like having death hanging over our heads." Ranma rose on his elbow and glared at his co-husband. Akane squeezed Ranma's hand. "Lay down, Ranma, I know you're trying not to worry me, but I think maybe it's time we started being worried about more than just our family." "I know, but whatever happens I will protect you and our family." Ranma rubbed her stomach again. "Past, present and future." Akane smiled and leaned over and nuzzled Ranma's neck in the way that drove him crazy. "We will do what we can and live for the moment, but also for the future." Ranko laughed. "That sounded corny." "Not to me," Ranma said, tilting his head back. "Yeah, I know. Akane convinced me to do the laundry last week by nibbling on my neck too." The triad laughed and cherished their precious time together. Mostly since they knew it was precious. The war wouldn't wait forever. -A- -M- -D- August 18th, 2009 - Joketsuzoku, China (Black Wars Day 111) Yukiko lay on the hot sand for a split second before rolling to the side to avoid the sharp projectile that threatened to pierce her heart. Flipping backwards, she did a mid-air somersault. She landed on her feet and swung out with her golden sword, the swing met nothing but air. Sliding to the side, she felt something snag her golden robe. "Lewinski..." she spat as she jumped straight up. "Please don't say that name in front of me." Yukiko didn't have time to wonder where the female voice--in English no less--had come from, since she had to dodge the crescent shaped pike that was aimed at her chest. She did, but found herself crashing into a warm body. Tumbling away from her training partner, Yukiko managed to stop herself and scanned the area. That's when she saw the dozen women dressed in black suits, who looked ready to attack her from the looks on their stern faces. "What the..." she mumbled in Mandarin when she saw the high-tech swords strapped to their waists opposite the automatic rifles they had slung over their shoulders. she appraised the situation internally. "Please get off the Vice President," one of the women said in perfect Mandarin. Yukiko looked down at the person she had crashed into and recognized her immediately. "Um... sorry, we've been expecting you," she said in rough, but passable, English. She pulled her knee out of the woman's groin and stood up. "No... no... I'm sorry I got too close to your battle." Yukiko held out a hand. "Just a little sparring session, Ms. Vice President." The Vice President raised an eyebrow and looked at the five large warriors with an assortment of very deadly looking weapons. She looked back at the gold-clad Yukiko. "You are the Amazon's leader?" she asked, as she took the offered hand. Yukiko nodded, effortlessly pulling the larger woman to her feet. "Yes, I am Matriarch of the Amazon tribe." She paused to adjust her golden armor, which had slipped down and revealed her right breast. "Welcome to China, Ms. Vice President. Um... we were told you'd be here a couple weeks ago?" The Vice President sighed. "I'm afraid we had some trouble with Beijing. They weren't too happy that we wanted to talk to you alone. In the end, we managed to reach an agreement that should work for us all, but it wasn't easy." Yukiko nodded. "I can understand that. We've found it harder and harder to deal with them since they reoccupied Taiwan." "You've had dealings with the communist government?" Yukiko wasn't sure how much she should say. "We have our... connections that allow us to remain undisturbed in our valleys here." "I see." The Vice President looked around. "Is there someplace we can talk?" "Yes, how did you know I was out here in the training grounds?" "We have our sources." "Those three men who delivered the letter of introduction a few weeks ago?" "I'm afraid I can't say." Yukiko kind of expected that kind of response. "Let's go back to our village then. Um, do you have any men with you?" "No. We understand you don't like men so I made sure our entire entourage was female." Yukiko laughed. "We have nothing against men, my husband is the love of my life." Yukiko didn't notice the frown that crossed the Vice President's face. "Men and women just play different roles in our society than in the West," Yukiko remarked, knowing it wasn't entirely the truth. She'd been making some progress in removing some of the more extreme Amazon customs, but you can't change a society overnight. The war had also effectively forced the men and women of the Amazon tribe back into their traditional roles: women at the front line and men in the village taking care of the children and providing other support for the warriors at the front. War has a tendency to change the dynamics of any society. This particular war had changed the dynamics of the entire world. And not for the better. -A- -M- -D- August 19, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 112) "Now that you know what we face, we now have to discuss our plan of action and what you can do to help stop the Buyierfei," the general began the day's briefing in the non-damaged meeting room. Ranma smirked. "Don't bother, we know what you want us to do." A puzzled look appeared on the general's face. "You do?" Akane and Ranko were equally surprised. "It's sort of obvious," Ranma said, a smug look covering his face. It was a smug look that Akane usually saw before one of her husbands got into some sort of trouble. Basking in the attention of all those assembled in the meeting room, Ranma explained. "You want us to put together an elite force of martial artists that will fight the Buyierfei wherever and whenever the Buyierfei show themselves." For once, Akane thought one of her husband's testosterone-induced ideas had some merit. "Like a task force of some kind?" Ranma nodded and then looked at the general, waiting for the praise he knew was coming. "No, that's not it at all," the general said calmly. Ranma's ego deflated like a pudding-filled condom thrown into a jet engine, which--coincidentally--was what Mousse was doing at that particular moment on his first day of flight training. Mousse wasn't sure why Captain Tyler showed him that either, but the veteran pilot seemed to think it was important. "But..." Ranma stammered. "With all due respect to you and your family, this is a battle best left to the world's military and the Amazons." "But we are Amazons!" Ranma blurted. "By your own admission, only honorary ones," the general commented. "Vice-president Rodham is negotiating an agreement with the Amazons as we speak. We are offering them the assistance of the United States military and other countries to provide logistics support and back-end assistance to the Amazons so that they can work in close coordination with the armies of the world for our common goal: to defeat the Buyierfei." Although part of her relished the idea of being relieved of the need to flight during the war they found themselves in, Akane didn't think it was truly possible to avoid it. And considering how they had already managed to save the world several times--if only by the slimmest margins--she didn't think it was a wise decision to not use the fighters who have already fought and won many battles with the enemy. "Then what do you want us to do?" "We want you to do what you're best at." Akane frowned. "You want them to put their feet in their mouths?" she asked. "Hey!!" Ranma and Ranko protested. *********************************************************************** >From the personal journal of James Davidson August 25, 2058 "What was that?" I asked. Akane smiled. "You heard me." "But I was sure that this was the beginning of the Task Force based on all the events that followed that are public knowledge." "Things are never as simple or as obvious in real life, James." I scratched my head. "I guess so. But what did they want you in Area Fifty-Two for then?" "Something not quite as grand as forming an elite task force of the world's greatest martial artists..." *********************************************************************** August 19-23, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Days 112-116) General Smart walked down one of the endless corridors--at least Akane and those who came with her had never seen their end--that made up the underground complex. The only thing that set it off from the other corridors was the green stripe running down the center of it. The other corridors that connected to the central hangars were similarly color-coded. Behind the general, Akane, Ranma, and Ranko followed, wondering what the general was going to show them. After walking past dozens of identical gray doors, the general stopped in front of a set of double gray doors. "Here we are." He pressed his watch against the door lock and with a soft beep, the doors unlocked and sung inwards. He gestured inside. Akane and her husbands stepped inside and immediately heard someone shout out, "Ten hut!!" The three of them flinched backwards as hundreds of men and women dressed in desert camouflage gis snapped to attention and lined up in straight rows. "Wha..." Akane gasped as she looked around the large room, which had padding on the floors and walls. Various types of training apparatus could be seen stored along the walls, including punching bags, wooden posts, various bladed weapons, several piles of spare gis, stacks of padded mats, and several life-sized Buyierfei. If they weren't made out of burlap and had cotton sticking out of their seams, Akane and her husbands might have blasted them immediately. The general stepped in behind them. "These are your students." Ranma looked back at the general. "Students?" "You do teach martial arts in Tokyo, don't you?" the general asked. "Yes, but..." The general gestured at the assembled men and women. "These are one thousand of the best soldiers and martial artists that we have gathered from around the world." Akane eyes widened and she looked at the people in front of her, who were clearly of many different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. "One... thousand?" "One thousand and twenty-three, to be exact." That didn't really make any difference in how Akane and her husbands felt. "We really can't train that many people in martial arts," Ranma commented. "We're good, but that's too many." "They are already accomplished martial artists. All we need you to do is to teach them those fireball and tornado attacks." Ranma frowned. "Those techniques are very advanced and take years to work up to. They can't just be learned in a few months." "You have six weeks." Ranko had picked up enough of the conversation to understand what was going on. "Six weeks? It not possible." Akane looked at their host. "General, the Anything Goes style of martial arts is unique and can't just be learned in a few weeks. It took my husbands... err... husband and his sisters many years to learn the fundamentals before they were primed enough to learn the various chi focusing techniques. And I know first hand that it takes very dedicated one on one training to learn even the simplest of the Moko Takabisha forms." "And I'm not training anyone else like that," Ranma whispered to Akane, causing her to blush. "I was told you were the best." The general turned away. "I guess we'll have to find someone else." "We are the best!" Ranko snapped. "Then you'll do it?" the general asked, then added, "We will, of course, reimburse you for your time and provide you with everything you need while you're here on the base." "It's not about money..." Akane started to say, but Ranma interrupted. "Although we don't come cheap." Akane rolled her eyes. "Nabiki," Ranma said simply. The general looked confused. Akane sighed. "What my husband means is that our accountant would not be happy if we turned down new students." She looked at the assembled 'students'. "But this... is not really what we were expecting when we were invited here." "We weren't sure you'd be the right teachers either, but we are confident now that you can be of the most use to the war effort by training these soldiers from around the world in your techniques." Ranma, Ranko, and Akane all looked at each other, their eyes telling the others what their feelings were before they even started discussing the offer in hushed tones. Several minutes passed before a voice interrupted them. "What's the matter, Sensei? I thought you always welcomed a good challenge?" Ranma's eyes went wide at hearing the Japanese voice. As he turned around towards the source of the voice, he knew what he would see. Fifth row to their right, seventeenth person from the front. "Kamajirou." Akane followed his gaze and gasped as she recognized her husbands' former student. He was clearly older and more muscular than when she had last seen him, but she recognized the face. Even if he didn't have the same cocky smile plastered across it as he did the day he walked out of the dojo forever, Akane could never forget that face. And she knew her husbands would never forget it either. Sometimes one's failures in life are the hardest to forget, even if you want to forget them most of all. And that's what Kamajirou represented to Ranma and Ranko. Their only failure as teachers. And no one felt that failure more than Ranma himself. Akane knew why. As did Ranma, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself. "Why are you here, Kamajirou?" Ranko asked in Japanese when it became apparent Ranma wasn't going to say anything. The muscular young man's eyes darted briefly to the side at the general and then he spoke. More like barked. "To fight the Buyierfei, Ma'am!" "And what makes a failure like you think that you could do that?" Ranko asked, an unusually harsh tone in her voice. "Because I was fortunate enough to be trained by the world's greatest martial artists, Ma'am." Ranko flinched. Akane turned and looked at the general. "Where did you find Kamajirou?" she asked in English. The general glanced at a lieutenant who stood to the side of the assembled martial artists, who was the officer that had called the students to attention. "Lieutenant Burns?" "I believe he's been serving in the Japanese Self-Defense Force for the past two years, Ma'am." He started to ruffle through a clipboard full of paper. Akane turned back towards her husbands and was surprised at seeing Ranma glancing back. "Before that he was in a juvenile detention hall and joined the JSDF as a condition of his parole," Lieutenant Burns mentioned after finding the paper with Kamajirou's statistics on it. This latest news shook Ranma out of his silence. "What makes you think we'll accept you back as a student?" he said, locking his eyes on Kamajirou's. "Because the world needs every good fighter, Sir!" "And that applies to you, how?" "You'd be surprised at how much better I am..." Kamajirou said, a slight smirk forming on his face. Almost as an afterthought, the smirk vanished and he barked again. "Sir!!" Ranma just stared at his former student. Ranko turned towards the general. "I'm sorry, we just can't..." she started to say in English before Ranma said something she never thought she'd hear. "If you can beat me, I'll train you to kill those demons." Akane and Ranko both looked at Ranma and then at each other. Then it was Ranma's turn to be surprised when Kamajirou replied. "Sorry, Sensei, I can't possibly beat you." Ranma looked his former student over in a new light. Maybe not that different after all. "Then how about my..." Kamajirou smiled. "Bring your son on... I'm a hundred times better than I was when he beat me." Ranma sighed. "Maybe, but can you beat my pregnant wife?" It was Akane's turn to be surprised. Her hand unconsciously slid over her large stomach. Kamajirou's confidence visibly wavered. "I prefer not to beat up pregnant women, Sensei." "Don't think of her as a pregnant woman, think of her as a evil, disgusting, tentacle monster from hell," Ranma replied. "Gee, thanks," Akane muttered. "So are you going to fight her or leave?" Ranma said, staring Kamajirou in the eyes. Kamajirou smirked. "Sure, but I'm not going to kick her in the stomach or anything." Ranma smiled broadly. "I'd be surprised if you could kick her anywhere." Ranko stepped forward, and whispered to Ranma in Japanese. "Ranma, stop it. Quit trying to beat him down like this." "I'm just trying to gauge his current abilities." "Akane will wipe the floor with him." Ranma smirked, looking just a bit too much like Kamajirou when he did so for Ranko's taste. "There's no way Akane will fight him, this is just to see how far Kamajirou is willing to go to in this chara..." "I'm ready." Ranma turned around and saw Akane walk out from behind the high stack of floor mats. "..rade." She was dressed in one of the largest camouflaged gis that she could find in the stack of extras. If Ranma and Ranko weren't incredibly worried about their wife and unborn child at that moment, they would have been incredibly turned on by how sexy Akane looked in the gi. "Let's go," Akane said, tightening the sash around her large belly. "Make room!" the lieutenant barked, causing the students to all back away from Kamajirou and Akane. "Akane!" Ranma and Ranko both protested when Akane stepped towards Kamajirou. One glance from her told them instantly that she was set on fighting their former student, pregnant or not. "You've got to learn to keep your mouth shut, stupid," Ranko mumbled. "Yeah..." Ranma muttered back, following Akane with his worried eyes. Akane and Kamajirou exchanged bows and then leapt at each other. He, straight forward. Her, straight up and slightly to the right. Everyone except Ranma and Ranko gasped in surprise at seeing a pregnant woman fly gracefully into the air. Except for Kamajirou, that is. Instead of gasping, he grunted as Akane's foot met his chin as she flew by. Spinning around, he lashed out with fist and foot to where she should have been. Should. Akane had grazed the ceiling with her fingertips and altered her trajectory enough to put her out of range of any and all counter attacks Kamajirou could perform after her initial hit. It also allowed her land directly behind him. Kamajirou only found this out when Akane kicked him from head to toe in a wide sweeping of her right leg, ending up doing a handstand at the end and springing straight up to avoid Kamajirou's backward kicks. Well, that's what it looked like at first, but in actuality it was just because he had fallen face first onto the floor with his feet twitching in the air. A cracking sound and pool of blood pretty much confirmed that Kamajirou had just broken his nose. Ranko sighed. "He never did pay attention to our 'how to fall without breaking your nose' lectures, did he?" Ranma shook his head. "Nope, he always claimed he would never be in a situation where he fell on his face." Ranko looked to the left. "Think we should stop this?" Ranma looked to the right. "I don't think Akane would like that after I got her into this." Ranko's head bounced up and down. "She's pretty good for a woman who's six month's pregnant." Ranma tilted his head to the side. "That she is." Ranko looked up at the ceiling and cringed when Kamajirou crashed into it. "Ouch." Ranma cringed when Kamajirou slammed into the floor. "Yeah..." Akane landed in front of them. "That was refreshing." "And informative," Ranma said, handing a towel to Akane. Ranko nodded. "They really should pad the ceiling in here," she commented as several pieces of that wooden ceiling fell down on top of the unconscious Kamajirou. Akane nodded and turned towards the general, who was staring at Akane with his jaw between his feet. "General, I think we may be able to help train these soldiers after all." The general looked at the bruised, battered, and bloodied heap that was Kamajirou. "Um... thanks." "Although, I have no idea how we're going to handle this many students at the dojo." The general frowned with his recently recovered jaw. "We'd rather you taught them here." Ranma shook his head. "We can't possibly be away from our family for so long." Ranko nodded her agreement. "Not with the Buyierfei out there." It would take several hours of discussions to sort out all the details, but they eventually came to an agreement that was acceptable to them all. Except for Kamajirou. He was unconscious for the next day and half. -A- -M- -D- Two days later, the first part of the agreement arrived. In the dim light cast by the sun outlining the mountains to the east, Akane and her husbands waited in front of the main gates to the underground base. Like the general and other officers at their side, they wore tan overcoats meant to keep the strong wind from getting their clothes underneath full of sand. Sand swirled around the seven-ninety-seven as it rolled up to them. As soon as it stopped, the ground crew rolled up the mobile stairs to the front door of the desert colored plane. Each holding one of her hands, Ranma and Ranko could feel their wife's pulse increase as the door swung open. It wasn't long before four small forms appeared in the doorway, the smallest being held in the arms of the tallest. A broad smile appeared on Akane's face. She took one step towards the stairs before her children leapt off the top. The general and officers at his side reacted with horror and rushed forward to where any normal kid would have fallen if they had jumped from the stairs. But these were Tendo kids and had a little more range than 'normal kids'. Akane found herself with their second youngest in her arms, while Ranma caught both their oldest and youngest. That left Ranko to catch their oldest full-time son. It had been less than a week, but to a parent that can seem like an eternity. After the reunited family finished their hugs and kisses, Akane looked up at the general. "General, these are our kids: Daiji, Yohachi, Ayami, and little Rar." "Nice to meet you all," the general said stiffly. Little Ayami gave the general a smart salute. When no one seemed to notice, she repeated her salute. One of the captains noticed and smiled, returning the salute. Ayami smiled and giggled. The general cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. "I'm still a little concerned about you bringing your children here." "I know, but we didn't want to chance leaving them in Nerima if we were all here for an extended stay." "Still, a military base is no place for..." the general felt a tug on his pants. Looking down, he saw Ayami's innocent little eyes looking up at him. There wasn't a person alive that could resist Ayami when she looked that cute. Unfortunately for the rest of the human race, Ayami knew that all too well. "But I guess I already agreed to this, so...." Akane smiled and glanced at the top of the stairs where several more familiar faces appeared. "That would be my sister-in-law, her wife, and their six kids." The general didn't seem to react to the implications of the two women being married with six kids. He reacted when the six kids jumped off the stairs just like Akane's children did. "Maybe we shouldn't have bothered with the stairs." Akane laughed softly. "Well, I'm sure some of my family will use them." She smiled as Sanma and Ukyo--who walked down the stairs--were followed by Nabiki and her two kids, Kasumi and her family, her father, her stepmother, and half-brother, the last two of which were both sucking on lolipops. Inside the plane waited Nodoka and her two children, none of whom were in a hurry to see a desert again after what happened to Genma in the African desert. With them, about two hundred Amazons waited patiently to disembark. Obviously, they shattered the record set by the first flight's group of heaving bosoms. "Who's going to defend the Compound?" Ranma asked when it became obvious that everyone who lived in the Compound--and several others--were on the plane. Akane smiled. "The only thing we need to protect is here," she said and gave her youngest a kiss. "This isn't exactly what I had in mind when you said to come to America for a vacation," Nabiki said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "I said fun in the sun." Akane looked at the eastern horizon, which glowed in anticipation of the rising sun making its appearance. Nabiki laughed. "I kind of pictured a beach on the edge of gently rolling ocean." "Lots of sand, Mommy!" little Nijiko said and gathered up some of the sand that had drifted onto the camouflaged tarmac. Nabiki and Akane both laughed. Kasumi and her family reached the bottom. "Akane, I appreciate you wanting to protect us all, but I'm really needed back at my hospital. The fighting might have died down, but there still a lot of reconstructive sur..." She went silent when her husband put his finger to her lips. "Kasumi, you promised," Doctor Tofu said softly. "Alright..." Kasumi looked at Akane. "I just hope this place is as safe as the Compound." Akane tensed. "In three months it will probably be the safest place on the planet." "Huh?" Before Akane could say anything, the general cleared his throat. "Sorry, I can't really talk about it right now." Akane looked around. "And not outside." She looked up at the sky and saw the Moon setting in the western sky. -A- -M- -D- The next day after discussing the Buyierfei with the general and helping out with her husband's training sessions, Akane walked down one of the endless metal corridors in the base. Spotting a private walking by, she spoke. "Excuse me?" The private snapped to attention and saluted. "Yes, Ma'am!" Akane looked very uncomfortable with the solider standing at attention in front of her. "Um... someone told me my sister, Nabiki Tendo, was up here with my kids?" "She's probably in the Oasis, Ma'am!" "Oasis?" The private pointed down the yellow-stripped hallway at a nearby intersection. "Down the blue hall, fourth door on the left. It's marked, Ma'am!" "Um... thank you," Akane said and started to walk in the direction indicated. "No, problem, Ma'am!" "At ease, soldier," Akane said, not wanting to leave the soldier stuck in that position. she thought as she made her way through the blue corridor to the fourth door on the left. As promised, it was marked with a simple room number and the name 'Oasis'. she thought as she put the ID card she and her family members had been given against the door's lock and pushed the door open after it unlocked with a click. A second later, her jaw dropped open. She silently scanned the room in front of her, unable to believe what it contained. Although 'room' was not really the proper word for the vast chamber the door opened into. Unlike all the other rooms that she had seen in the military base with their simple walls and utilitarian furniture--which included the horrible beds that she and her husbands had to somehow combine to sleep in the position they were accustomed to--that being together--this chamber looked like it was hewn out of the very rock of the mountain above them. Mostly since it was. While the corner of the room with the door on it was of the same construction as the rest of the base's walls, the rest of the circular chamber's walls were made out of rock. And that was only the beginning. Above, large circular lamps mimicked the sun and sky that most people took for granted. Below, a series of gravel paths snaked their way through a garden full of trees, plants, flowers, and grass lawns. At the end of one of the paths, Akane found Nabiki and their kids. "You're in my sun," Nabiki said as the shadow crossed over her face. "I can't believe they've had all this here and I never knew it." Nabiki opened her eyes and smiled at Akane. "Hi, Sis, pull up a chair and get some sun..." She lowered her sunglasses and looked up at the lighting above her. "Or as close as they get down here." Akane reached over and pulled a nearby lounge chair next to her sister's and sat down. As she scanned the area around her sister, she noticed something very unusual. "I can't remember the last time I saw you without your cell phone within reach." Nabiki chuckled. "Funny thing about ultra-secret military hideouts built under some unnamed mountain in some God-forsaken desert... my cellular company doesn't have an antenna here and not even their roaming satellite service reaches down here." "Ah..." Akane looked up and felt the warm lights on her face. "Leave it to you to find paradise in the middle of a war," Akane said, eyeing Nabiki's extremely revealing two-piece bikini that she was barely wearing. Nabiki adjusted the strap on her bikini and smiled. "Well, you just have to know who and how to ask to get the best accommodations." Akane nodded and scanned the area. Nabiki and her kids were playing in the sand as the waves from the large pool of water gently lapped at the artificial shore. It was obviously not real, but still a very different environment from the rest of the base. "So did the kids enjoy the water?" "How did you know they were swimming before?" Akane nodded towards her oldest. "Daiji's a boy." Nabiki looked at her charges and laughed. "Oh, yeah..." She lowered her sunglasses again and laid back in the lounge chair. "After I asked to take the kids outside for some fresh air, they showed us to this room. Apparently, there are several others in this complex to help keep the soldiers from going stir crazy buried beneath the mountain." "Well, I know I've been feeling pretty cooped up over the last week." "A lot of questions, huh?" "Yeah, but very few answers for us." Akane sighed. "And I really don't know if Ranma and Ranko can train a thousand soldiers as fast as the general wants, even with Sanma and Dad helping." She looked around. "Where has Mousse been hiding himself?" "Oh, he said something about doing a little flying." Akane looked up into the fake sky. "I guess he can get out of the base... lucky duck." Nabiki laughed. "Well, since we're land bound why don't you get into a bikini and relax for now." She pointed at a little tent setup down the 'beach'. "There's some spare suits in there." Akane looked down at her pregnant belly. "I don't think I'm bikini material at the moment." Nabiki laughed. "Akane, you're the best looking pregnant woman I've ever known. Your martial arts training really helps you stay in peak shape. It took me quite some time after having Kamosu to look this great again." She ran her hands down her slim body. "Well..." -A- -M- -D- Ranma and Ranko's eyes were weary after their long training session ended for the day. When they saw their wife lounging in front of a tropical shore in the tiniest bikini possible without being called 'naked', their eyes shot open and the weariness left their bodies. "Akane..." Ranma gasped, hoping there weren't any soldiers looking or cameras around. "Um... is it safe to look that beautiful with all these soldiers around?" Ranko asked, bending down and kissing her wife. Akane smiled at her husbands. "Go get changed and let's relax for the rest of the afternoon." Ranma frowned. "It's almost eight." Akane fumbled for her watch that was lying on top of the small table by her side. "Oh my... guess I lost track of time in here." Ranko grinned. "It looks like it would be easy to." Akane looked over at Nabiki. "Shall we get dinner?" "Just have one of the boys serve me here." Nabiki said casually. Akane knew there would be more than enough volunteers for that duty out of the male population of the base. "I'll just send Mousse by too." Nabiki peered out from under her sunglasses at Akane. "You're no fun." -A- -M- -D- August 22-24, 2009 - Joketsuzoku, China (Black Wars Day 115-117) Yukiko let out a long sigh as her husband's magic fingers worked their way into her stiff back. "Ahhhhhhh... lower, Honey." Shinuma smiled. "Already headed that way." From his position on their bed behind her, he started to work his way down Yukiko's naked back. Yukiko purred without the aid of cold water. Shinuma's eyebrow raised in surprise. He'd heard her purr many times--even without cold water--but never this fast. And that usually meant... "Are the negotiations going that badly?" Yukiko nodded. "I don't know what it is... they want to give us help and assistance to fight the Buyierfei, but there's something in how they want to do it that just doesn't sound right to me." "Like what?" Yukiko's purr turned into a sigh. "I don't know... it's just a feeling I get." "What does that feeling tell you?" "That there're some strings attached to their offers that they aren't telling us about." Shinuma smiled. "Well, what would a cat do to strings?" Yukiko laughed softly. "Play with them until they unravel." Shinuma smiled. "Maybe that's what you should do then," he said as he reached a particular spot. Yukiko started to purr again and all thoughts of the war and negotiations with the Americans vanished from her mind. -A- -M- -D- "But why do you want to have an solider in every squad of Amazons?" Yukiko asked during the negotiations the next day. In the Circle's meeting hut, Yukiko sat in her golden chair with the Elders of the Circle all spread out on either side of her. Powder to her left and Calluse to her far right. As far right as possible. Across from the oak table between them and the Amazons, Vice President Rodham sat with her advisors, all women. All Amazon guards and Secret Service agents were spread out around the outside of the hut, that in itself had taken almost a day of negotiations to work out, since the Secret Service was not happy about not being inside with the Vice President. But Amazon tradition finally won out when Yukiko explained that only those of high status could be present during Circle meetings involving negotiations with outsiders. "We just feel that's the best way to coordinate our troops with yours,' the Vice President repeated for the umpteenth time. "Our warriors work better with those that they have trained with. Having someone they are unfamiliar with in the same squad could disrupt their ability to battle the enemy. It would be better to have your 'advisors' work in conjunction with our group leaders." A young woman leaded over to the Vice President and whispered something. The Vice President nodded. "Matriarch, I'm afraid that wouldn't work well for us." "Why?" "It's not how we're used to working with other armies. We've had situations where miscommunication has caused some friendly fire casualties. Having a U.S. solider within each platoon has usually avoided problems of that nature." "But it would lead to a problem for my warriors... I assume they would be men?" "Mostly, but there are some women in the U.S. Army that could serve as liaisons as well. I know your warriors have a problem with men..." the Vice President rolled her eyes. "Heaven knows I've had some of my own, but..." "My warriors could fight alongside men without problems... mostly. It's the matter of having one in their squad would become a problem for warriors trained to react to their squad-mates' actions as if they were their own." The Vice President frowned. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the military processes, but my advisors assure me that any well trained squad can accept a new member after a brief period to become familiar with them." "Yes, if they are trained as warriors in similar ways." Yukiko looked directly at the Vice President. "Unfortunately, I think you'll find that the Amazons are trained quite differently than your military trains your soldiers." The Vice President nodded. "I understand that, but..." Yukiko suddenly stood up. "Maybe a demonstration would be in order." -A- -M- -D- Six Amazons jumped at six other Amazons, all twelve pairs of breasts bouncing as they collided in mid air. Their blunt swords clanged together and punches and kicks were exchanged. The two groups touched down on opposite sides of the practice ring in the center of the Amazon village. Half of the Amazons emitted a series of clicks from their throats and circled to the right. The other half just sneezed and then leapt straight up into the air to avoid the daggers thrown at them from the other group. From where they watched, Yukiko leaned over and spoke to the Vice President. "Each group has their own ways of communicating amongst themselves so they can act as a single entity in battle." She held up her hands. "Watch." Startling the Vice President, she sent several hot chi balls into the practice ring. Several Amazons saw the onrushing chi balls and emitted a series of sneezes or clicks, depending on which group they were with. Without hesitation, the fighting Amazons all sprung away from the chi balls. The sneezers went straight up and the clickers summersaulted to the left. "You see? Each team works as one and can exchange information about dangers and changes in the battle with just a few sounds." Yukiko looked at the Vice President as the warriors continued fighting. "Normally, they'd also attack the new danger since the information exchanged included the source of the danger, me. But they know better than to attack their Matriarch." She grinned and then pointed at the holes she had made in the sand in the practice ring. "The soldiers you want to put into our squads might not react fast enough and end up on the wrong side of a chi ball in battle... which are many times stronger than those low-power ones I shot off." "I'm sure we could find some soldiers to learn your battle language." Yukiko shook her head "Doubtful. The base forms have been passed down for over four thousand years, but once the base forms are learned as children, the unique battle language of each group can be learned in a short time by any new amazons joining that group." "But surely our people could be taught those forms too?" the Vice President asked as her eyes continued watching the 'fight' in front of her, which looked more like a ballet. Of course these dancers were in full armor instead of pink tutus. It was still several months to the annual 'Fall Pink Tutu Festival' where all the Amazons dress in pink tutus and dance around the village. It wasn't exactly one of Shinuma's favorite times of they year since he doesn't like how he looks in pink. "The base forms are very hard for the adult vocal cords to reproduce unless they've been trained from early childhood." Yukiko touched her own throat. "It took me a while to relearn the techniques." "Relearn?" "Well, a while back I had an accident and lost my memory of my childhood and life as an Amazon." "Oh my, that must have been rough." "It was the best time of my life... I met my husband because of it." The Vice President sighed. "Yeah... I have the same trouble remembering how I met my ex-husband. But I think it was the seventies that caused that memory loss." Despite herself, she giggled. "Oh, I remember my time with my husband vividly, it's the stuff before I met him that's a bit fuzzy." "There's a part of me that thinks my life began when I met my..." The Vice President shook her head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be boring you with this." "Not at all... I prefer this person to the diplomat, Ms Vice President." "Maybe we have gotten off to a bad start, Matriarch." "Well, why don't we start over." Yukiko extended her hand. "I'm Yukiko, nice to meet you." The Vice President hesitated, but then smiled and shook the offered hand. "Hi, I'm Hillary." -A- -M- -D- Yukiko walked through the streets of the village with her husband and kids, holding hands with the former and trying to calm the later down. "Kids, please be on your best behavior." Her middle son, Shave, stopped picking his younger brother's nose and looked at Yukiko. "We are, Mommy!" Yukiko sighed and knelt down to extract Shave's finger from Razor's nose, then proceeded to wipe her youngest's nose off. "Please behave yourself today, alright?" she asked, looking at all her kids. "I'll make sure they behave, Mommy," Shashiki said, slugging her oldest brother's shoulder. In turn, Lather punched Shave, who tried to hit Razor. But Razor was a quick little bastard and ducked the punch, ending up knocking over Shave when he tumbled forward. "Thanks, Pu," Shinuma said, smiling at his daughter. Shashiki smiled broadly. "Honestly, you really have to be more assertive with the kids," Yukiko whispered to her husband. Shinuma smiled. "Sorry." He looked at the kids. "Come on kids, time to meet the next in line to lead the world's most powerful nation." Yukiko rolled her eyes. "PLEASE don't call her that to her face, Honey." -A- -M- -D- "This is my husband, Shinuma," Yukiko said in English. Ever the politician, the Vice President bowed even as Shinuma extended his hand. The culture clash was resolved when Shinuma bowed as the Vice President took his hand and shook it. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Vice President," he said in stilted English. "Likewise, your wife has spoken highly of you." Shinuma smiled at his wife. Yukiko gestured at her children. "And these are my pride and joys. Shashiki is my oldest." Shashiki smiled and curtsied. "What an adorable little girl," the Vice President said as she knelt down and hugged Shashiki. "And our three boys: Lather, Shave, and Razor." The Vice President visibly flinched as each name was read off, but the diplomat in her refused to comment on the odd names. "My, quite a family you have here," she said as she hugged the boys. "They're why I want to win this war so badly." The Vice President nodded. "I can understand that. I only have my one daughter-" She looked over at her press secretary. "-but I worry about her and her young son in these troubling times." Yukiko followed her gaze to the Vice President's press secretary, a young woman with curly hair. "It must be rough for her to be away from her husband and child... I know it was when I was fighting in Africa." The Vice President blinked three times. "You... you fought in Africa?" Yukiko nodded. "One does not lead the Amazons from afar. The Matriarch is expected to lead her warriors into battle." The Vice President looked up from the mud pie little Razor had presented to her as a gift. "I'm impressed. I know I couldn't do that." "It's an Ancient Amazon tradition intended to keep the peace." The Vice President frowned. "How?" "Although the Amazons are very dedicated to being the best warriors, we have no love of war. If the leader of the Amazons has to fight any war the Amazons are in, that's all the more reason for the Matriarch to avoid unnecessary wars." The Vice President tried to keep Lather from picking her nose while she responded to Yukiko. "I imagine that keeps down the number of wars you get into. I know my ex-husband always hated the idea of sending men to their deaths, but I could see the added incentive to avoid a war if he had to lead the troops." She sighed. "He wasn't much of a fighter." "More of a lover, huh?" Shinuma said, putting his foot in his mouth in the process. Yukiko glared at her husband. "I'm sorry, Ms. Vice..." The Vice President waved her hands in front of her. "No... no... I am more than aware of his... problems in that area." She sighed again. "I always was, but there was something..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling." "That's okay, I understand." Yukiko smiled. "Why don't we all have dinner tonight and forget about these negotiations for a bit." The Vice President smiled. "I'd be delighted." She looked at her press secretary. "Cancel my satellite conferences for the rest of the day and join us for dinner." "Ms. Vice President, we can't..." "Join your mother for dinner, young lady," Hillary Rodham scolded. "Mom, I hate it when you talk to me like a child!" Chelsea Clinton-Baldwin replied. -A- -M- -D- September 12, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 136) Akane and Ukyo strolled down a corridor with a green stripe running along the floor. Their assorted kids--along with Kasumi and Nabiki's--were also running down the corridor, but nowhere near as straight as the green line was. "Kids... kids..." Ukyo pleaded, knowing it wouldn't calm her Six-Pack down. They had gotten pretty well behaved--in comparison to how wild they were in their first few years of walking--but spending almost a month underground would tend to make even the most calm and well-behaved kid hyper. Imagine the Tendo and Saotome kids with all their excess of energy and you can see why all the mothers had lines under their eyes. "Ten hut!!" Akane snapped, causing her kids to stop in their tracks. The other kids seemed to be a bit confused, but continued running down the hall. Ukyo looked at Akane. "How'd you do that?" Akane smiled. "I've heard it often enough since I've been here. I just barked it from the bottom of my diaphragm." Ukyo smiled and then barked, "Ten hut!!" Her six kids didn't even pause. Ukyo sighed. "Well... work at it a bit longer." Akane chuckled. Ukyo looked at the door the kids had just run past. "I guess I have to do this the old fashioned way." She raised her voice. "Seto... you and your brothers and sisters are going to miss all the fun!" That caused Ukyo's kids to stop and turn around, followed by the other kids who hadn't heeded Akane's shout. "Anything Goes Parenting..." Akane said as the kids started to eagerly collect around the door. Ukyo smiled and nodded. Being the closest to the door, Ukyo put her ID card against the door lock. With Akane's help, she pushed the two double doors open and allowed the kids to swarm inside. Inside the large training room--now with a padded ceiling--around four hundred students kicked four hundred other students, who retaliated with a series of punches and kicks. The symmetry of the movements amazed even Akane. "Wow..." "Stop!!" Ranma shouted, causing the students to all stop and fall into neat rows. He looked at Akane and smiled. "We've made some progress." Akane nodded. "I can see that. But how..." Her answer was answered when Ranko spoke to the students. "Okay, twenty-nine more like that and I'll take off my shirt." Akane's jaw dropped and she stared at her feminine husband, who's gi top was open a bit further than she'd have liked. Well, she liked it herself, but wasn't willing to share. Ranko smiled at Akane. "Anything Goes Incentive Training." She winked. Ukyo looked beyond Ranko and Ranma where Sanma and Mr. Tendo were standing and confirmed that her husband was clothed. "That's some enticement for training-" She looked at the students. "-but how does that encourage the female students?" Ranko looked at Ranma. "Ranma's shirt also comes off as well once they hit one hundred perfect repetitions." "Anything Goes is equal opportunity training, of course," Ranma said, winking. Then Akane knew. "Next!!" -A- -M- -D- By the eighty-first repetition, the kids were getting restless and had joined the exercises. Well, most of them. Little Rar, Kasumi's twin girls, and Nabiki's son and daughter were not in training like the others, so they started a tea party on top of the stacked up training mats. Anything Goes Tea Parties are great distractions for kids. Daiji, Yohachi, and Sanma's boys picked up the sequences the fastest and had no trouble. Ayami and Moyashi were together as usual, slowly learning the moves. To be more exact, Ayami was teaching Moyashi the moves that she already knew by heart. And Sanma's girls? They were trying to beat their brothers up. Remarkably, the three Kuonji boys were deflecting their attacks while keeping time with the others' training exercises. Their mother and/or father--depending on who and when you asked--was boiling over with pride. Akane looked from Sanma's smiling face and saw the concerned face on Ukyo's. "Is this how your kids always train?" Ukyo nodded. "Yes. Except for the times when they sit in on your husbands' classes, we've found that they get hurt too much if they go all out at each other. So..." Akane finished Ukyo's statement. "So you have one defend while the other attacks. I can see how that helps minimize bumps and bruises while still giving them a good workout." "Yup." Ukyo pointed at the students going through their routine. "Sanma must have suggested this training routine. It's very similar to the one we started using with our kids to teach them discipline." "I've noticed that your kids are less... umm...." Ukyo laughed. "Wild. It's okay, we're very aware that the Six-Pack fed off each other's energy and were almost completely uncontrollable when they were younger." -A- -M- -D- As the students entered their ninety-ninth repetition, someone cried out in pain after the student behind him missed a step and ended up punching the student in front of him in the head. Ranko sighed as she closed her gi's top and tightened the sash on it. "And you were all so close this time." A great deal of grumbling and disappointed murmurs flowed across the room. Akane slid next to Ranko and whispered to her husband. "That was a bit mean." Ranko smiled. "You'd rather I show off my assets?" "No, but are you sure this is a good way to motivate your students?" "Anything goes... remember?" "Just don't promise them something that I'll regret, okay?" Akane said. "Of course not," Ranko replied, leaning in for a kiss. Akane cleared her throat and glanced at the students. Ranko sighed. "Next time we're buried beneath a mountain, can we be lesbians and make Ranma lead a life of celibacy?" she whispered back. Akane chuckled, knowing their nights were anything but celibate. "Sure thing, Honey." Ranma cleared his throat and then address his students. "Okay, I need two volunteers for our last exercise for today." The weary eyes of the students didn't reveal any eagerness to volunteer. Two hands went up. But not from their students. At least not from their current students. "Yohachi and Daiji, the soldiers need our attention right now. Maybe lat..." Ranko said before Ranma interrupted. "Actually, I think they are perfect for this." Ranma looked at the soldiers. "Pay attention to my son and daughter, students. THIS is your goal." He looked at his two oldest. "Anything Goes Ultimate Sparring... Type C, begin!' Even before the students had finished backing away from Daiji and Yohachi to give them room to spar, the two nine-year-olds leapt at each other. They traded kicks and punches as they dodged around the other's attacks, although it was more of a dance to those watching. "Notice how they anticipate the other's moments to keep from being hit," Ranma pointed out to his students. Yohachi dodged a punch from Daiji, rolling forward to avoid the follow up kick from his sister. "Against a human opponent kicks and punches can be deflected with your arms and legs, but against a Buyierfei you have to learn to avoid their tentacles." Ranko nodded. "The tentacles can be flexed into sharp tips or edges." "When in doubt, avoid contact with them," Ranma added. Yohachi kicked Daiji on her chest and then spun around on his other foot. He reached out with his hands, hoping to trip Daiji with his arms while she was distracted with his kick. But she wasn't. She jumped up and forward, doing a graceful summersault over him. "The glowing variety of Buyierfei are even worse... if they get a good hit on you, you're dead," Ranma remarked. "Remember that all Buyierfei have more than four limbs to attack you with." "And the Buyierfei have a variable number of tentacles," Sanma remarked. "I fought one with twenty-one tentacles once." Ranma smirked. "You should have seen the one with twenty-three I blasted apart in the Buyierfei realm this last time." "Heck, that time I tied two Buyierfei together they technically had over thirty!" Ranko added to the testosterone-fest, despite her and Sanma's limited supply of that hormone. While the Ranmas traded war stories, Daiji and Yohachi continued sparring. Having heard many of their teachers' stories several times already, the students watched the two children fight each other. As the fight went on, they grew more and more in awe of the skill demonstrated by the two pre-teens. Except for one student, that is. Kamajirou studied the movements of the two kids with the same amount of intensity of the other students, but he wasn't in awe of the children. He was committing every muscle movement to memory. -A- -M- -D- As Akane and husbands walked back to their rooms after dinner in the mess hall, the general approached them. "You'll be pleased to know that the Vice President has come to an agreement with the Amazon leader... Yoko or something." Akane snickered. "Yu-ki-ko." "You know her?" "Yeah, I had to fight her for Ranma's heart." "Amazons always fight over men?" Ranma smiled. "Only the good ones like me." "Like us," Ranko added. The general frowned. "The Amazon leader is bisexual and was after you both?" Ranko opened her mouth, but Akane answered first. "No... no... it's just Amazon tradition that you have to defeat the sister of the man you want as a sperm bank." "Oh... I see," the general said, without really understanding. That's not an uncommon reaction to most Amazon laws, even the real ones. He also didn't understand the term 'sperm bank'. At least how it would apply in this conversation. Akane smiled as her made up Amazon law seemed to have deflected a messy conversation about why Yukiko would have been after both her husbands. "So what is the agreement?" "Mutual aid, mostly." The general scratched his chin. "I haven't seen the formal agreement yet, but from what I understand the Amazons will be given full support to get to any and all battlefields where the Buyierfei appear. An airbase will be built near their village to assist in the rapid deployment of troops." Akane gasped. "I'm surprised that the Chinese government would allow that." "They wouldn't. The Chinese government will build the airbase and handle all operations within most of Asia and the southern pacific. The United States and other western countries will supply troop transport and support services everywhere else." The general rubbed his hair. "Even that much was a hard sell for the Vice President." "How about coordinating our attacks?" Ranma asked. "They will be given a seat on the newly established United Nations war council in order to coordinate the war efforts, plus each Amazon company... which I believe they call a Corset..." "No, Corset is just the leader of the first Amazon company," Ranma corrected the general. "Ah... well, each company will have a U.S. advisor, along with various support staff to help coordinate battles with other armed forces fighting in a particular area and world-wide." "I'm surprised the Chinese didn't want an advisor in each company too," Akane remarked. "They did, but the Amazons wouldn't agree to that." The general rubbed his weary eyes. "There's some sort of animosity between Beijing and the Amazons... the airfield was only agreed to after reminding them how long it took the Amazons to get to Africa from their village. Over a week... a week that could change the course of the war with the Buyierfei." Akane nodded. "Yeah... it takes us a while to get to the Amazon village even when we fly to the nearest airport." "But enough about the Amazons, how is your training going?" Akane smiled, sensing that was what the general really wanted to talk about from the beginning. "I'm sure your junior officers have reported to you already." The general hesitated, but recovered his composure. "Well... yes. I'm a little worried that with only two weeks left in the six-week training period that you haven't even started on those fireball things." Ranma sighed at the impatience he saw in the general's words and body language. "The Moko Takabisha isn't learned overnight, General. We're going as fast as we can given the circumstances." "And yet your children can do them," the general said. Ranma sighed. "After a lifetime of training... yes. We've only had a month with these students... you can't expect miracles." "I don't expect miracles..." the general looked away. "I need them." Ranma opened his mouth to speak again, but Akane put her hand on his shoulder and stepped forward. "General, we are happy with the progress they've made so far, but you can't just start on the Moko Takabisha and expect to see results. You'd just end up with a hospital full of burn patients. Trust me, I know that from first hand experience." "Don't you mean first foot experience?" Ranma commented wryly, referring to where Akane was burned during her first attempts at generating chi balls. Akane looked over her shoulder at him, giving him a look that he hadn't seen in quite some time. Ranma gulped. Ignoring the interruption by Ranma, the general addressed Akane. "With over two hundred of the students already in the hospital, how is this different?" "The training is rough, we know, but better a few broken bones now than to take it easy on them only to have them be unprepared to fight the Buyierfei." "And end up dead...." Ranma added. "Which is why I'm concerned you aren't teaching them your most deadly attacks," the general said, sounding like a broken record to Akane and her husbands. Akane snapped her fingers and a chi ball formed on the tip of her fingers and slowly rotated there without wavering in size or intensity. "It looks easy, General, but it isn't. One distracted thought or mistimed movement and..." She let the chi ball fall to the ground. Right between the general's shoes. "BANG!" The general yelped and jumped back. "Don't worry, that was a very low powered chi ball. That too takes years of training to properly focus the right amount of energy into it for the situation." Ranma nodded and chanced commenting again. "Yes, most students' first chi balls are higher powered than needed since it takes time to learn how to finely control the energies used with the Moko Takabisha and its variants." The general examined his singed shoes and decided he'd have to polish them again. "But when will you start teaching your students that control?" Ranma smirked. "We already have." The general frowned. "But the reports say..." "They say that we haven't taught them any of the chi attacks." Ranma nodded. "That's true. But we HAVE been teaching them to control their energy and focus it." Akane put a hand on the general's shoulders. "General, that's the first step. If they can't focus their energy internally, they won't be able to focus it outside their bodies either." "When you started, I requested that your training be done within six weeks." "We know, but there are no shortcuts in this training." "Then when?" "When they're ready," Ranma said firmly. "In a week?" the general prompted. "When they're ready." -A- -M- -D- September 14, 2009 - Air Force Two (Black Wars Day 138) Vice President Hillary Rodham sighed and sank into the large oversized reclining seat in her private office on Air Force Two. "I thought we'd never get an agreement." She closed her eyes. "I just hope the House and the Senate will go along with this." "They will, Ms. Vice President," a voice said and put down a glass in the table next to the Vice President. Hearing the tinkling of the ice cubes, the Vice President opened her eyes. "Chelsea, call me Mom, okay?" "But I'm still on the job..." "No... we've got the rest of this flight off... then the shit will hit the fan when we have to face the General after failing to get the agreement he wanted." She took a sip of the bourbon on the rocks. Chelsea sat down gracefully into the chair next to her. "It'll have to do." "The General was stupid to believe that sending a team of women would get him what he wanted." She took a bigger sip. "What did he want?" Hillary looked at her daughter. "I can't tell you that, Dear, you know that." Yet another sip was taken, more of a gulp in this case. Chelsea nodded. "The Amazons weren't what I expected," she said, trying to change the subject. "No, they weren't." Hillary looked at her half-filled glass. After contemplating the golden liquid for a few moments and the memories it brought back, she downed the rest in one large gulp. "Remind me to..." She took a deep breath. "Remind me to call your father when we get back to Washington." "Dad?" "Yes. Life's too short to worry about public opinion." -A- -M- -D- November 3, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 188) The F-35 spun around the smaller F-33 three times before shooting straight up and away from the desert floor below. Several flares dropped from its tail towards the F-33 below. The F-33 pilot spun his single seat jet around in a circle to avoid the flares, but ended up getting hit by one. Inside the F-35, its pilot grinned. His gunner in the rear seat laughed. "Perfect... couldn't have done it better myself, Mousse." "I call that move my swoop and poop move," Mousse said, flipping up his visor even as he leveled off his jet. Captain Tyler laughed from the back seat where he was overseeing Mousse's training. "I could see a bird doing that move, but never figured a jet--even an advanced one like my Buyierfei Killer--could do it." Mousse slid the F-35 in next to the F-33 they were training with. "I could have never done it without your great teaching, Justin." "I can't take all the credit.... you're a natural. Why don't you..." Captain Tyler's eyes widened. "Left bank and down!!" Mousse responded to the shouted warning instinctively and put the jet into a tight left turn with a steep downward pitch. Mousse gritted his teeth as the flares from the F-33 slid past the F-35's canopy. "Dammit... we were done with the exercise." "Charlie has a bad sense of... urk... urk... blargggggg..." Captain Tyler lost his lunch as Mousse executed a S-turn that should have ripped the jet apart. Only the jet's advanced structural design and Mousse's carefully honed flying skills allowed him to pull off the maneuver that put him directly behind the F-33. One flare up one of the F-33's twin afterburners later, Mousse did a victory roll to the side. "Can't goose this duck." -A- -M- -D- "Man, the way you fly this thing I sometimes think you should have feathers," Captain Tyler said as he climbed down the ladder from the rear cockpit. Mousse chuckled as he pulled off his helmet and started to climb out of the forward cockpit. "With a little cold water, I do." Captain Tyler shrugged off the odd comment like all the other comments he had dismissed as part of the cultural differences between himself and his pupil. It's not like humans could sprout wings and soar into the sky under their own power, after all. As Mousse hopped off the bottom of the ladder, he saw something that terrified him. "No!! Don't touch that!!" Captain Tyler looked at where Mousse was staring wide-eyed and saw one of the visiting children. "Oh, don't worry... he couldn't possibly hurt anything." Mousse shook he head and started to run across the hanger. "No, you don't understand how strong..." He skidded to a halt and ducked down as a crash echoed across the hanger. "Oh no... Kenage..." -A- -M- -D- "He broke a what?" Nodoka asked from the chair from which she was watching the kids play by the oasis' artificial shore. "A stealth fighter," Mousse said softly. Nodoka's jaw dropped. "Oh my... That must cost a lot." Mousse nodded sadly. "About two-hundred million dollars when they were built, but they're older models and aren't worth as much anymore." "Only a hundred million, huh? So that'll just take me a few hundred more lifetimes to repay. I hope that general is understanding." Nodoka stood up. "Where is Kenage?" "Back in your room." Nodoka looked down at her daughter and then at the other kids that she had been taking care of for the day, which were most of the younger kids who hadn't joined in Ranma and Ranko's training sessions. "Maybe I should have let him train with the soldiers too." "Maybe..." "He been pretty wild since his father passed away... I just wish I knew what to do." Nodoka sighed heavily. Mousse put a hand on the older woman's shoulder. "Go be with him, I'll take care of the kids for the rest of the day." "Thank you, Mousse." Nodoka checked her young daughter in the stroller next to her chair and then walked down the path to the exit door, leaving Mousse to care for her charges. Mousse scanned the kids, which included Kasumi's twin girls who were being tied up by Ukyo's three boys. "Seto, don't tie up your cousins," he called out, knowing that Seto was the ringleader of he Six-Pack. He looked over to where Ukyo's three girls were playing with his own daughter and son, without the use of ropes. Instead, they were building a sandcastle. Next to them, a couple of the Amazon kids were building an anti-Buyierfei fence around the castle. Memories of his own childhood flashed into his mind. "Daddy!!" little Nijiko called out and smiled at her father. "Hi, Precious... nice castle." Little Nijiko giggled and smiled at the praise bestowed upon her by her father. "I made moat." She pointed at the deep hole dug around the inner wall. That being the non-Buyierfei fortified wall. Mousse walked over and ruffled his daughter's hair. "That's a great hole, Precious." "I got wawa for the moot!" Mousse's son Kamosu said as he shuffled across the sand with a bucket of water in his unsteady hands. The number one rule of cursed people is this: Where there's water, it'll find you eventually. Mousse shook his feathers off and quacked at his son. "Sorry, Dada," Kamosu said, looking down at the empty bucket and then at the dry moat. Forgetting about the accident, he rushed back to the artificial seashore to refill the bucket. "Uncle Ducky!!" Seto shouted and started to run towards Mousse with a net. Mousse thought and waddled away as fast as his flippers could carry him. He'd been caught by Seto and the Six-Pack before and wasn't in a hurry to repeat the experience. Just as he remembered that he could fly without the help of a multi-million dollar airplane, the net descended on him. -A- -M- -D- "Go!" Ranma shouted and jumped behind the stack of padded floor mats with Ranko, Sanma, and his father-in-law. Seconds latter, small chi balls flew over the top of the mats and created small holes in the wall behind them. Others hit the floor mats and sent the stuffing billowing into the air. Several screams rang out in the large training room. Sanma sighed. "They just don't have the proper focus to do this." Ranko nodded her agreement. "Tell me about it... but the general has been insisting on some progress ever since his six-week timeframe came and passed." "We told him from the start that that timeframe was unreasonable." "True, but he doesn't seem the kind of person used to not getting exactly what he wants." Ranma sighed and nodded. After the blasts died down, he poked his head up to check how many of their students had hurt themselves this time. He ducked when another chi ball rushed at him and singed his pigtail before it blew another chunk out of the wall. "Dammit..." he muttered as he patted his smoking pigtail to extinguish it. The three younger teachers all looked at each other and silently dared the others to be the next to check out their students. Before any of them could be shamed into being the next to check if the coast was clear, Soun stood up. "Very good, students." Following Soun's lead, the other three poked their heads up and were amazed to find six students standing with faint yellow chi balls between their outstretched hands. Ranma wasn't the only one surprised to see that Kamajirou was one of them. It was right about then that Kamajirou's concentration faltered and he dropped his chi ball on his foot. "Ouch!!" he yelled as he hopped around on his unhurt foot. Ranko closed her gi top that had opened slightly and showed a bit too much cleavage, thus causing Kamajirou and a couple of the other students to be distracted. "Ahem... it's important to not get distracted," she said using her steadily improving English. Sanma looked at the students who had let their concentration falter at the sight of her sister's cleavage. "Kamajirou, Brent, John, Ahib, and Nancy... a hundred concentration pushups before you leave." The five students grumbled, but dropped down and started doing pushups. The 'concentration' part began when the students alternately called out 'left' or 'right' and shifted into one-handed pushups using the called out hand and raising the opposite foot. It didn't help their concentration when Sanma threw in a random left or right. But then that was the point of the exercise. Ranma looked at the only student to keep her chi ball stable despite Ranko's accidental distraction. "Very good, Li-Wen." He scanned the other students, some of which were tending to their burned hands and feet. "Okay, that's enough for today. Those who are injured can go to medical. Tomorrow we'll see if we can get some more of you to keep the chi balls steady." One of the student's hands went up. "Yes, John?" "Will Ms. Tendo be distracting us again tomorrow?" "That was an accident!" Ranma nodded. "Right, so don't get your hopes up." Ranko glared at Ranma. "You have to learn not to let anything distract you or you'll end up blowing your hands off in real battle." -A- -M- -D- November 11, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 196) Ranma and Ranko shambled back to the suite of rooms they and their family were staying in. "Fifty-four..." "Out of over a thousand..." "I'm amazed that even that many have managed to keep their chi stable enough to actually hit targets other than themselves." "Yeah... I hope the others aren't permanently injured or maimed." "Kasumi says they'll be okay after some recuperation." "You think she started helping out in the hospital here to keep busy? Akane says that Nabiki is going stir crazy cut off from the day to day business of her company." "Probably... but we have sent most of our students to the hospital in the past few months, so they did need her and Doctor Tofu's help." "Yeah... Having reached the door to their suite, Ranma put his ID card to the door's lock, only to have the door flung open. A half-naked Akane crashed into him. Normally, he wouldn't have minded this, if not for what she said when she looked up at him. "The general just called... the Buyierfei are attacking Las Vegas." "Wha...." Ranma managed to gasp as he helped Akane finish buttoning her blouse. Ranko gritted her teeth. "Shit... I knew our good luck had lasted too long." Akane nodded. "He wants us to come to the meeting room near the training room." The three of them turned and raced down the yellow hall towards the nearest junction. -A- -M- -D- Minutes later, they burst into the meeting room and saw a news report on the monitors hanging overhead. Already in the room watching the monitors were the general, his primary aides, and several of the Amazons. They glanced at the newcomers, but didn't say anything before returning their eyes to the monitors. On the monitor, a young man with way to perfect hair stood in front of the Eiffel Tower. "The first sighting was near the twin Stratosphere towers where a horse pulling a carriage was attacked by unseen..." "I thought they were attacking Las Vegas...." Ranma pointed at the screen. "That's Paris." The general shook his head. "It's just a replica of the Eiffel Tower..." "Oh... that explains the Great Wall of China behind it," Ranko said, remembering the times she and he father spent training on it. Her chest tightened as the happy memory was quickly replaced by the thought that her father was gone forever from her life. The reporter on the screen continued. "People are fleeing the area-" The scene on the monitors panned away from the reporter and towards the Strip. An endless stream of people could be seen running down the street between crashed cars. "-by foot, as the Strip has already become snarled with crashed cars after their drivers panicked when an avian flew over the Strip firing some kind of black fireballs." "When..." Akane asked no one in particular. "A little over a half hour ago," the general answered before she could finish the question. The reporter again appeared on the monitors. "We've had reports of numerous Buyierfei sightings all up and down the Strip ever since the first sighting. The reports from the scene put the number of Buyierfei anywhere between a dozen to over five..." "Mute!" the general called out and then turned towards his aides and the rest of the assembled people. "We have a situation here." An understatement, to say the least. "What's the nearest military unit?" the general asked one of his aides. "Nellis has already dispatched fighters and three strike teams, but they aren't equipped for a ground battle." "Nearest ground units?" "Between four and five hours away, but they're mostly training facilities so they don't have combat-ready troops." "That's too long for untested troops." The general walked across to a flat panel display and keyboard. After scanning the data displayed in several windows and entering several commands with the keyboard, he hit the enter key. "I'm activating this base." He looked at his aides. " Lieutenant Piece, notify Control and THE General of our ready status and then assemble the senior officers." "Yes, Sir!" one of the lieutenants shouted and rushed out of the room. "Major Gref, scramble Zebra Battalion. I want them in the air in ten minutes and on the ground in Vegas within the hour. Burn the jets' engines out if you have to, they're expendable." "Yes, Sir!" the short captain near the door said and hurried out. "Captain Tyler, get yourself and your wingman in the air and escort them in. Provide cover from any airborne attackers and assist the grown troops as needed. Further flights will follow, but I need you in there when Zebra Battalion is inserted." "Aye, Sir." Captain Tyler rushed out of the room and towards the main hanger. "Lieutenant Burns..." "Yes, Sir?" "Activate the able members of Inferno Company and get them to Vegas within thirty minutes of Zebra Battalion. I don't care how." "Yes, Sir!" Lieutenant Burns saluted and rushed off. Ranko frowned and watched him go. Before she could say anything, Ranma stepped forward and addressed the general. "We've got to get to Las Vegas." "I'm afraid I can't allow civilians into the battlefield." "But..." "Now is the time to see the results of your training." Recognition dawned on Ranma's face as he realized what the general meant. "You can't be serious..." "I am," the general said without taking his eyes away from the data scrolling over the display in front of him. "Inferno Company is composed of your students." "General, there's no way they're ready!!" Ranma shouted. "They'll be killed!" Ranko added. "Not if you did your job." The general turned away from the display. "Your students are the best choice to send in under the circumstances." Akane gasped and looked between her two husbands. She could see that they were trembling with rage. "General, the best choice is to send Ran..." "Enough!" the general snapped, not used to getting his orders questioned. "Even without your special attacks, they're the most highly trained soldiers in range to do any good." "We're here!" Ranko insisted. "This is a job for real soldiers." Ranma gritted his teeth. "I'm telling you that they're not ready..." "They'll have to be." Ranma turned his back on the general. "We didn't train them just so you could get them killed by sending them into battle before they're ready. We didn't train them to die!" "No, you trained them to fight the Buyierfei." Ranma started to wonder if there was any difference between that and training them to die. [End - Chapter 14] Coming soon: Chapter 15: The Black Wars "Viva Las Vegas" ======================================================================= The real author's (Jim Lazar) notes/ramblings: I'd like to thank my pre-readers Michael A. Chase, Thomas C. Kinnen, and Micki Hibiki for helping me find and fix problems with this story. Of course in the end, any mistakes and botched characters are my fault. Revision 0.0 - Rough draft began (July 21, 2001) Revision 0.1 - Rough draft finished (September 22, 2001) Revision 0.3 - Pre-reader draft (October 31, 2001) Revision 1.0 - Final version (December 11, 2001) Revision 1.1 - First RAAC posting (January 16, 2002)