Dain Bramage
By Libby Thomas
Tenchi Muyo! Copyright Pioneer and AIC.
This fic came out of an idea I heard on the FFML, namely could Mihoshi’s
well…Mihoshiness be the result of some sort of trauma? I thought I’d take a shot at it,
and I hope I pull it off. I’m working with my favorite character here, on a premise that is
very different from what I envision her.
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Present:
“Oh, Kiyone,” Mihoshi said, her voice vapid as always, accompanied in that burst of
stupidity that seemed to be her element, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were washing
your uniform when I tried to redye my sweatshirt.”
Kiyone looked at what was at one time her favorite GP uniform. Now, it was ruined, a
solid color of chiffon pink. As always, the anger built up within her. *“Mi-
hoshiiiiiii….”*
Without thinking, the blonde deftly swiped it from her friend’s hand, heading back to
the washing machine. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it for you. Now, where did I put that bottle
of bleach?”
As Mihoshi left the room, Kiyone sighed as her anger deflated. It was not Mihoshi’s
fault that Kiyone got so mad at her for everything. It was not Mihoshi’s fault that she
practically had the mind of a child in that body of an adult. It wasn’t Mihoshi’s fault at
all.
No, if anyone was to blame, it was Kiyone. Mihoshi was the way she was because of
Kiyone’s error. Kiyone never admitted it to anyone, but the reason that she “tolerated”
Mihoshi was not just because she was her partner…
…but because she was her best friend. Her only friend, and a truer friend she’d never
known. Yes, she’d complained enough about how Mihoshi was ruining her life. Yes,
she’d said that she’d like to get rid of her at the first chance she had. But she’d had
millions of opportunities, and she never once took them. People were beginning to
realize that maybe Kiyone didn’t want Mihoshi gone after all.
The Japanese woman sat down on the couch, dropping into a headache-wracked mess.
She was tired of the lies, and the deceit. She’d told everyone what she thought of
Mihoshi, and everyone at the Masaki household agreed. If she changed her tale now, no
one would believe her…not even if it was the truth.
There had been a time, when none of this, none of what Mihoshi and Kiyone dealt with
on a daily basis, existed. But that had been years ago. That had been a different Mihoshi
and Kiyone ago.
*** *** ***
Past:
“Officer Makabe Kiyone?” the Captain of the watch asked, looking at the rookie cop.
Kiyone merely nodded. She was here, on planet Mononoke, in the GP’s newest district
base the officers jokingly referred to as “Mo-town”. Her first assignment! She was a
little nervous, but time to keep cool, time to keep calm. The least thing she needed to do
was to look like the green-as-grass 20-year-old she was.
“Officer Makabe, I understand this is your first assignment here--okay, your first
assignment *ever*, but don’t let that get you down. We here at Mo-town Precinct take
care of one another, and as a result, we’ll be assigning you to one of our top Sergeants.
The Sergeant you’ll be working with is--”
The whine of laserfire raced through the room, cutting through the Sergeant’s speech.
On instinct, Kiyone hit the floor, watching as a white bolt of light ruptured the air where
her head had been a split-second earlier. As her hand went to her service pistol, she
noticed that one of the local street toughs had grabbed a hold of some hardware after
breaking free of his captors—the broken restraint bands were a clear signal of that.
Furthermore, it was clear that this was not going to be an easy person to take down.
For starters, the person in question was a Yoni, the race of three eyed humanoids that
were indigenous to this planet. About 7 feet tall and with tough, leathery skin, when they
were upstanding members of the community, they were docile and pleasant; and when
they were not, well…you ended up with Frankenstein here.
Secondly, freakshow here had apparently killed his captors, as evidenced by the blood
on his hands. He’d also liberated one very big (for humans, anyway) Proton Rifle and
was pointing it at the head of his (her? You could never tell with this species) captive, an
office orderly who had the misfortune to step out of the admin office at the wrong time.
There was fear in the woman’s eyes, a fear of dying at the hands of this thing. Kiyone
felt sympathy in that fear; the girl couldn’t be any older than herself.
The punk spoke, a gutteral rasp. “Listen up, GPs. You get me a transport outta here,
and I’ll let your papergirl here out at the next stop.”
Kiyone’s gun, like so many others, were all pointing at the Yoni. To her side, she
heard another officer say, “We got you dead to rights. You’re not walking away. Make it
easy on yourself and drop the gun.”
The Yoni laughed. “Get bent, cop. As long as I got this blaster pointed at your pal’s
head here, we’re at stalemate. You try shooting me, and my reflexes are fast enough to
pull the trigger, anyway. You may get me, but I’ll get her and you’ll lose.”
Kiyone snarled, “Give it up! You don’t stand a chance.”
The Yoni stared at Kiyone, his three eyes boring into her two. “Who’s gonna stop me?
You? Or maybe your pal to your right? Or the big guy with the rifle? I don’t think so.
There’s not a single one of you who can stop me.”
“Then it’s a good thing I got off patrol early, hmm?” a new voice commented, its tones
somewhere between cute and venomous.
Behind Kiyone, a cop commented, “Kuso.... It’s Kuramitsu. What the hell’s she up to
now?”
As the perpetrator turned to deal with the new threat, Kiyone noticed her as well. She
was about Kiyone’s height, with deep blue eyes, great tan, and long blonde hair in a style
that was nowhere near regulation. The tan of her skin looked too good to be the result of
time on the beach or at a salon; it had to be her natural tone. She was dressed in a T-shirt
and jeans; the GP badge on her shirt, though polished to a high gleam, was still outshone
by the woman’s beauty. In fact, she’d defintely qualify to most men as the cute and
cuddly type, if it wasn’t for the look in her eyes.
Those twin pools of blue radiated a sharp, cunning, intimidating intellect. After staring
into those eyes for a few seconds, Kiyone got the jist of the message contrained in those
eyes: dangerous, on a primal level. Danger, pure, plain and simple.
The Yoni, also sensing the new threat, tensed up a litle more. “Who the hell do you
think you are?”
“Nevermind who I *am*,” the woman said, her voice dripping with menace. “If I were
you, I’d be more worried about what I’m going to *do*.” She reached from behind her
and pulled out what was clearly *NOT* a service-issue pistol. This one was larger, and
had the black coloring of a military-issue weapon. Furthermore, the gun was huge, much
larger than the pistols GPs usually used. This weapon was easily described in two words:
hand cannon.
“This,” the woman said, “is a Desert Eagle .33 hex barrel, modified for both projectile
and energy weapon use. The slugs I carry for it are HEAP rounds, and the laser core
inside it is a *very nasty* x-ray laser.” She trained it on the spot in the center of tbe
suspect’s triumverate of eyes, adding, “I’m not sure of which one is loaded in at the
moment; the HEAP rounds override the laser core.
“Now, as I was saying, we have two ways of proceeding with this. One is that you
give up now, and we can be relatively nice about things; or you can stay like that and I
can be...relatively not so nice. Take your pick.”
The gunman must have misread her threat as he replied, “And do you honestly think a
chick like you’s gonna stop me? Get real.”
The next few seconds went by so quickly, Kiyone wasn’t really sure it happened the
way she saw it.
The blonde flicked her wrist and fired her gun, and a thin blue beam of energy lashed
out, hitting the center of the rifle, burning into the build-up chamber and slagged it,
rendering the rifle useless. As the beam hit home, she dashed forward, shoved the clerk
out of the way, then threw a vicious uppercut at the Yoni. The Yoni was barely moved
back, but enough so that the woman quickly spun and executed a roundhouse kick that
whacked the left side of the Yoni’s head...
...which happened to be the equivalent of the solar plexus on a human body. The Yoni’s
eyes bulged and he fell back, hitting the floor with a thump.
Not giving the Yoni a chance to breathe, she sat down on the Yoni’s chest, with her
gun pointed right between his eyes, cooing, “Hey, scumbag, a word of advice: don’t
*ever* call me a ‘chick’, got that?” As four men moved to her side, she got off her
quarry, smirking as she said, “All yours,boys. This time, *keep* him under wraps?” She
then walked over to the side of the office clerk. “Hey, you okay, Kimiko?”
“Mmmm, daijobu. Arigato,” came the shaken reply from the startled girl as the blonde
gave her a helping hand up.
“Well, now that I’ve had to clean up another mess, I think I’ll go home for the day.”
She turned right around, heading for the transport bays.
The Captain on duty turned to her and said, “But what about the--”
The blonde spun on her heel and smiled sweetly, patting the Captain’s face in a
flirtatious yet condescending manner, “John, dear, I’ll do the paperwork at home. I’m
going to go hit the furo and take a soak.” Playing with his glasses and tweaking his
mustache, she added, “Be a dear and transmit the forms to my home address, ne?”
The Captain, whose first name was obviously John, grinned as a slight blush came to
his face. “Do you *ever* follow GP procedures?”
She looked at him sincerely, saying, “No. That’s why I’m so successful.” She then
turned around again and made a beeline for the transport bay. A second later, she was
gone, the sliding door shutting as she walked of into the distant cooridors of the bay.
Kiyone turned to Lambson, another one of the cops around here. “Hey Lambson,
who’s that?”
Senior Officer Lambson grunted a hint of disgust as he said, “Makabe, trust me. You
don’t want *anything* to do with her. Hope to hell that you get partnered up with
Sergeant Barba or Senior Officer Toronaga. You *don’t* want that bitch as your
partner.” He then turned and went back to his desk.
Kiyone then turned to the other two officers on the scene, but Officer Bonamico was
waving his hands in a “don’t-for-the-love-of-kamisama-ask-*me*” flurry. She sighed
and turned to the other female officer in the area, but Senior Officer Angel was also gone.
She looked at the Captain the blonde was flirting with. “Um, Captain--” she paused to
read his badge ID, “--Shearen, who was that?”
Captain Shearen’s face went dark as he realized he’d been had...in front of the newest
officer no less. In a gruff tone he replied, “That’s your new partner. The most
successful--and considerably most dangerous--GP member on the force. She’s only been
on the force a year longer than you, and she made Sergeant in record time. She’s caught
more criminals than anyone in the GP history, and she’s a shoo-in to make Detective
Third Class this upcoming promotion period.
“Her only problems are that she’s a litle bit of a loose cannon and, well...she’s a royal
bitch. But she’s one of the best, and she’ll teach you what you need to know.
“Her name’s Sergeant Kuramitsu Mihoshi.”
