No subject

she would become an Elder on the Council. No other child her age had
anything near her level of skill. None could match her intuitive
understanding of the Art. By eleven, she had learned all her mother's
techniques. By thirteen, she had nearly completed her tutelage under her
grandmother. Now, at the age of eighteen, she was a living hero of the
Taiping War, with an ever greater mastery of the martial arts. The only
thing she lacked was land, but her personal wealth could be expanded in
time as she built up a network of supporters. She was already stronger
than her mother and older sister; perhaps the time was ripe for her to
press her inheritance claims more strongly and demand a better share of
her grandmother's holdings?

She waited by the pillars, speaking briefly to each of the older women
she had served with as they entered the village. She knew all their
names, and thanked them in turn for their service. For those who had
stood out in battle, she briefly reminded them that their exploits would
be recorded and remembered. Their Company would be disbanded, but they
would always be a band of sisters. Cologne knew she could count on their
material and spiritual support in the years to come. When the last one
bowed and entered the village, Cologne sighed softly and did the same.

Knowing she had taken a little more time than was expected, she hastily
made her way to the Council Chambers. The building itself had remained
much the same for many centuries, only slightly redesigned after being
leveled in an earthquake some two centuries previous: it was a
cloistered rectangular structure with an ancient colonnade around it,
directly adjacent to the Speaking Forum. Surrounding the forum and
flanking the Chambers were statues of great heroines of the tribe, most
from ancient times. No new statue had been erected in four hundred
years. As ambitious as she was, even Cologne didn't expect she would
ever have one of her made.

There were no guards.

The Elders, of course, had no need of lesser warriors to defend them or
carry out their wills. The Five maintained a monopoly on the most
powerful Amazon techniques, and especially sealing and binding
techniques. They could bind a door better than any guard and control the
village through sheer force of will. Cologne paused at the wooden inner
doors that led to the Sanctum of the Elders, and a moment later they
opened of their own accord. This was a circular room within the
rectangular super structure, with an elevated ring. On the elevated ring
sat the five Elders. A faint light from small oil lamps lit the chamber
in a faint glow, just enough for Cologne to see the murals on the domed
ceiling.

Her nose twitched; she could smell some of the tobacco smoke that had
become popular among village Elders. She subtly scanned the upper ring,
looking for the Persian ghalyun or Indian huqqa responsible. She was not
personally keen on such western or "near eastern" indulgences. Her time
in East China had driven home the sort of debauchery caused by
intoxication of that sort. The water pipe eluded her, however, and she
quickly dismissed its non-appearance. The Elders had probably hidden it
away somewhere. She focused instead on the five old women looking down
at her.

Cologne carefully got on her knees and kowtowed deeply. "How may I
serve, honored Council?"

"You may serve," one of the Elders hissed. "By telling us what
concessions we have won from that Manchu whore."

"The Western Empress Dowager has agreed to all our demands," Cologne
replied, not yet raising her head far from the floor. "Furthermore, she
has expressed gratitude and admiration for all the assistance we have
extended to her and to the Chinese people..."

There were more than a few derisive laughs at that comment. While none
of the Elders present could exactly claim any sort of kinship with the
previous Ming Dynasty, the Qing were still roundly despised. Or at least
the fact was that those who disliked the Qing were more vocal about it.
Still, the ailing Manchus had been willing to make some interesting
concessions and payments in return for Amazon aid that, normally, would
never have been forthcoming.

Cologne went on to describe some of the baggage the First Companions had
brought with them: payment from the Empress for the Council of Elders.
She then described the land concessions that the Elders could expect,
and she listened as The Five discussed how to divvy up the spoils.
Cologne spoke up only to speak for her former Companions, and to press
their own claims to some of the new land.

"You have done well, granddaughter," the Matriarch slowly warbled, as
the meeting droned on towards a mundane finish. "We are happy to see you
return in triumph."

Cologne, by this point standing, still kept he head respectfully bowed.
"I look forward to seeing my mother and sister, grandmother."

"I am sorry to tell you this..." Salon went on to tell her anyway. "Your
mother has passed away."

"What?" Cologne gasped, looking up at her ancient maternal grandmother.
"How?!"

"A sleeping sickness came upon her suddenly," Salon explained. "This was
two years ago, Khu Lon."

Cologne slowly shook her head. "I... I can't believe she's..." Then she
realized something. "And my sister?"

"She has taken your mother's place in our community," Salon said, with
little emotion. "The two of you have much to speak of..."

Cologne's eyes narrowed. Her older sister, Salon the Younger, named
after her Matriarch grandmother, had taken her mother's place? That
meant she had already claimed the family inheritance. Cologne had always
been her mother's favorite. Had she lived...

"However," Salon the Elder added. "I would ask that you settle your
affairs in the village quickly. Once you are healed, we have another
task for you... our most capable young Amazon."

"Another task?" Cologne blurted out, surprised. She had just come back
home after four years of fighting for the village! In the upper ring,
one of the other elders cackled at her reaction.

"Yes..." Salon hissed. "You see, this is a task for which you are
uniquely prepared. We wish you to find your father."

Still reeling from hearing that her mother had died, she could only ask,
"What? My father? ...Why?"

Amid the smoke, Salon's withered face creased up in a cunning smile.

-----

<Cologne.>

Slowly, Cologne opened her eyes. <Doctor?>

<It is time. Come to me.>

<Give me a moment.>

She sat alone amid a tangle of alien plants, naked and less than pleased
with her progress. Since coming to the base, she had adopted the gardens
as a place to focus her mind. Most of the underground alien facility was
mile after mile of stark metal walls and technology. It created an
unwelcome mental dissonance being surrounded by a material that did not
properly conform to that she had trained with. She was a master of the
five elemental sympathies: earth, metal, fire, wood and water. The alien
metal, however, was something of an anomaly. It threw off her balance.

The alien gardens were far more accommodating. The life forms there were
different, but similar enough that she could feel her ki extending into
them and her awareness expanding. It would take longer to feel as
comfortable among the sterile and unsympathetic exotic alloys the aliens
to loved to use. None of her new companions seemed to have the same
problem. Tofu's martial arts were entirely internalized, so he didn't
seek elemental sympathy in any of its forms. Rouge's power was also
internal, and Ayabe's martial arts were exotic and mostly self
contained.

Standing up, Cologne draped the titian cloak she had procured over her
shoulders. It, and her mental power, marked her as an Ethereal in all
but genes. Inside her head, she could feel the ever present sensation of
the Mind: like a second set of ears and eyes. Occasionally, it could be
incessant, taking the form of an all consuming Voice, but that voice was
an illusion. It was merely the collective will of individual aliens,
filtered and magnified through The Mind. The Mind itself was a quiet
thing, waiting at the periphery of thought, there to offer necessary
information and insight. It was a helper not a commander, and it was
patient and comforting. It linked them all together and made many into
one.

As she walked, bare footed, out of the neatly arranged and immaculately
maintained alien garden, she passed by her alien brothers and sisters:
Sectoids and Mutons, mostly, though there were a few Snakemen and
Floaters still on the base. They silently acknowledged her superiority
as they crossed paths. The Ethereals were less keen to do so, and she'd
been hit with more SUBMIT compulsions over the last 24 hours than she'd
ever imagined. She just brushed them off. It left her exact position in
the hierarchy somewhat vague, which was fine by her. She wasn't planning
on ordering anyone around, and she didn't want to pick a spot that would
provoke challenges.

She would be leaving for Mars in a month or so anyway, so there was
little point to getting into squabbles. Before that, though, she had
some important business to attend to. First and foremost was her work
with the Doctor, work that her benefactor, Hollow Eyes, expected to see
bear fruit. Then, of course, there were her boys... ah, but that was for
later. Work came before pleasure, after all.

A pair of seamless doors slid open before her, the metal melting into
the walls. Beyond was a large vault lit up by the glow of a hundred
cylindrical tubes, lining the walls on two levels. A light grey Sectoid
brushed past her as he left, but Cologne could see several of them near
a figure in robes much like her own. Turning at her entrance, Tofu
stared at her with atrophied eyes and motioned her over.

<Come,> he thought to her. <Today should be interesting.>

<That's one way of putting it,> Cologne thought back.

<Something wrong? Is it about that special request you made?>

<No. Not that. It's... just that it's been a while since I had to
lecture to neophytes,> she replied, one hand on her hips as she watched
Sectoids start to open some of the maturation chambers. <I do hope you
boys grew me some quick learners.>

<No need to treat them gently, Cologne...> Tofu smiled; pale white teeth
behind bloodless lips. <Even if this batch isn't up to the task, I'm
sure we'll have the process down by the third or fourth iteration....>

-----

McCarran International Airport
Las Vegas, Nevada

Shampoo and Mousse entered the non-descript white van. They had been
ushered from landing through customs with the utmost speed, a good thing
given their time table. It had not been easy convincing Lieutenant
Command Yasuda to sign off on the trip. There was still a lot of work to
do in the Far East theatre, not the least of which was the planned
assault on Alien Base 019. A new Avenger fighter-interceptor had just
arrived at Seiran from the manufacturing facility in Fry Canyon, and
while delayed, UNETCO was still committed to wiping out the alien
presence on Earth before Christmas.

So there was a bit of a rush to their mission here in the States.

In the van, they met their contact: a dark haired man from the FBI. He
was told that they were from Homeland Security, but once in the car, he
strongly implied that he knew who they really reported to. There wasn't
much UFO activity in the States anymore, not since the Big Push of 2003,
but the Western U.S. used to be a real hotbed. Working as one of
UNETCO's FBI contacts, he had probably seen his share of otherworldly
stuff.

"Thing's have been pretty quiet around here lately," he said, his
English twanged by a slightly colloquial California accent. "I hope this
isn't anything too serious like that mess out East."

"What mess out East?" Mousse slyly asked.

The FBI man chuckled. "Forget I asked."

He'd already taken care of pretty much everything they'd asked before
they flew over. There were wire taps, some initial surveillance, and a
background search. It was quick and thorough work given so little
advance notice. In fact, there was more information, especially
regarding personal contacts, phone calls, and credit history, than
either of the two Amazons had expected.

Mousse examined a satellite photo, squinting behind his glasses.

"Are you sure this is her?" he asked.

"Quite sure," the FBI man confidently replied.

"This..." Shampoo spoke up, speaking slowly. "I can't believe this is
her."

"How do you want to handle this?" Mousse asked, putting the photo down
on his lap. "Maybe we should watch and wait a little longer...?"

"No," Shampoo said, cutting him off. She pointed to the building in the
satellite photograph. "Take us here or drop us off nearby. We're here to
talk to her, not play 'Bond James Bond.'"

Their FBI contact spared her a disbelieving look. 'Bond James Bond?'

Stealthily, Mousse leaned over and whispered in Shampoo's ear.

"What?!" She grabbed him by his shirt, eyes wide. "Really?" The girl
then hid her face in her hands. "No wonder that spatula freak laughed
when I said it!"

"Yes, well..." Mousse quickly straightened out his shirt and tie.

Special Agent Penbar felt an uncharacteristic sweat drop roll down his
forehead. 'Ok: definitely not the kind of people I thought I'd meet on
this op... Just what do these two 'Specialists' specialize in, anyway?'

-----

Mousse and Shampoo left the van behind some distance from the house
itself, making their way there on foot. It was a bright, brisk
afternoon, and by all appearances the two Amazons were well dressed
foreigners visiting the US for one of the many business or professional
conventions held at Las Vegas hotels and casinos. The neighborhood
around them was mundane, but quite nice in a stereotypical American
suburban way. Large two-story houses in slightly different styles ran
along the road, all with generous and well irrigated front lawns and
well manicured trees and hedgerows.

"Are you sure she knows we are coming?" Shampoo asked in Mandarin,
breaking the silence they had maintained since leaving the FBI van.

"Pretty sure," Mousse replied, pushing up his glasses and watching as a
child on a bike rode by on the opposite side of the street. He turned
back to Shampoo. "As I said, I never met her or even spoke to her in
person before."

"Exactly why we needed to make sure she didn't attempt to flee..."
Shampoo referred to the work of their FBI friend. They had requested the
agency keep an eye on this person in case she tried to leave or
otherwise attempt something suspicious, as well as to confirm that she
was who the two Amazons believed her to be.

"Would you blame her if she did?" Mousse asked, "Especially after what
happened back at the village."

Shampoo frowned, but didn't argue. She had always thought of Perfume as
a traitor, and an enemy of the Amazons. She had broken village laws that
even a rebellious male like Mousse would not have dared to flout. It was
no surprise that she had suffered for it. Shampoo still found it hard to
sympathize, the Law being the Law, after all, but it was hardly
surprising that Mousse felt just the opposite: that Perfume had been
wronged by the village, by the Elders, and unjustly exiled.

Mousse himself would probably have been exiled, had he been female. As
it was, there was no real precedent for a male facing exile just for
learning to fight. Mousse had never once spoken out against the Council,
never once turned against the women of the tribe, and never made an
effort to be anything worse than an amorous nuisance. Still, he had ran
in bad circles in the past. He consorted with the Exiled. Apparently
they had helped him when he first left the village.

Shampoo glanced at her companion, silently contemplating just how he had
convinced those exiles to help him. It was possible they had helped the
male out of a desire to spite the village itself, or maybe they had
retained their sympathies for the male gender despite being punished...
Mousse had explained only some of it, keeping most of the details in
confidence. He had explained that Perfume, the most notorious exile of
the last half century, had assumed something of a ring leader status
among the outcast community. The thought of meeting with her still stung
Shampoo's Amazon pride, and her long engrained training to follow,
respect, and adhere to the village Laws.

"This is it," Mousse said, as they approached a dark green mailbox with
the numbers 104 decaled on the side. The house in question was of a
colonial style, flanked by trees sporting bright red and orange leaves.
Here on the ground, it looked quite different than the stale top down
photographs taken by satellite. It looked like someone's home. Shampoo
and Mousse took a moment to check to make sure it was the right address
before walking up the slight slope of the driveway.

Mousse caught a falling leaf in his hand, and looked down at it while
they walked. "Strange, isn't it?"

"What is?" Shampoo asked, knowing he couldn't mean the leaf, though it
was a bright red unseen in their part of rural China during the fall
season.

"Someone like her, ending up in a place like this..." He dropped the
leaf. "Even with her true powers sealed, Perfume is still around Elder
level in ability: she is still a master martial artist almost without
equal. Where would one of us be, if what had happened to her happened to
us?"

Shampoo sighed; unhappy being presented with that sort of question.
"Perfume was always taken by western ways... she should never have been
allowed to leave the village. Then she never would have strayed or
broken the law."

"The law should never have tried to keep her from leaving," Mousse
replied.

"Let's not have this argument again..." She glared at him. "You never
used to be this... assertive before. It's annoying."

"Yeah, well, I'm getting used to not being hit when I speak my mind," he
countered, voice calm, even mirthful. Shampoo stared at him, still
surprised by his newfound brazenness. She knew the cause: Mousse's new
male Japanese peers, all of which were typically arrogant outsider
males. She had noticed it on missions, too. Mousse wasn't the strongest
of the males, but he was growing far too comfortable mingling with them.
He was becoming an outsider himself; even moreso than before. It didn't
help that Shampoo's great grandmother wasn't around to keep him in line,
and that he seemed to care less and less exactly what Shampoo herself
thought of him.

It was exactly why she had chosen him to be an equal, and an Elder, in
the new Amazon village she intended to rebuild. The exiles would never
accept her dominating a three person council through a cat's paw. Mousse
had grown annoyingly outspoken and confident enough that she could count
on him to stand up for both his principles and her interests, so long as
they did not conflict.

A young woman answered the door: she was Asian American, mixed Caucasian
and Chinese, but with pale violet colored eyes. The unusual coloration
was a dead giveaway of her parentage. The young woman stared at the two
Amazons for a few seconds, as if searching her memory to try and
remember if these were people she had met before. She must not have
known many men and women a few years her senior, as she quickly realized
they weren't here to see her. From behind the house, a dog began to
bark.

"You here about my mom or my brother?" she asked, curtly.

"Your mother, please," Mousse replied, switching back to perfect
English. The girl smiled at him ('a little too amiably,' Shampoo
mentally noted) and motioned them inside.

"She's out back," the young woman said, holding open the door.

"Shoes?" Mousse then asked, as he entered.

"Are they dirty?"

"I don't think so."

"Then leave 'em on. No big."

Shampoo watched the back and forth quietly, observing the girl's
mannerisms. Her clothes were... American. A white top with some sort of
logo on it, and jeans - nothing amazon-like at all - even her hair was
cut short, an unheard of taboo for anyone but the lowest ranked Amazon.
There was nothing in the girl's poise or posture that could lead anyone
to assume that she had any more skill in the Art than the average action
movie fan. She was naturally pretty, as most Amazons tended to be, but
that was all. Shampoo had expected one or both of Perfume's children to
be trained in the Art, at least to Perfume's old level. It was commonly
believed that the Exile's children were trained to avenge their parents
and that true Amazons had to be on their toes to overcome their vengeful
cousins.

"You two must be from the village, right?"

The question came as a shock.

"W... what?" Shampoo blurted out. "How do you know...?"

"You look the type," the girl said with a shrug. "Though you're much
younger than the others. And I've never seen a guy from the village
before."

"How much do you know about your mother's village?" Mousse carefully
asked as the girl led them through the house. It was nice on the inside,
with tile floors and richly furnished rooms and paintings and pictures
on the walls. An unusual rug hung on a wall, and Mousse stared at the
patterns in it.

"Only a little," she replied, unfazed by the question. "That's a Navaho
rug, by the way. Nice, huh?"

"Quite."

"I'm Amy, by the way," she introduced herself, looking at them over her
shoulder. "I guess you two have weird names, like Conditioner or Shower
or something?"

"Shan Pu," Shampoo said, mustering her pride.

"Mu Tzu," Mousse said with a bit of a flourish. "But I'm named after the
dessert, not the hair product."

Amy laughed at that, and so did Mousse, though Shampoo couldn't quite
see how making fun of Amazon names was anything but insulting. Their
names weren't any stranger than "Mint" or "Saffron." It was all just a
coincidence that they ended up meaning strange things in English. A very
strange coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless.

"You shouldn't give the wrong idea," Shampoo whispered to Mousse in
Chinese.

"I'm not," he replied in English.

Amy glanced at them again, but didn't interrupt. Soon they were at the
back door leading to the porch, led there through a large family room
with an impressive television. The source of the barking could be seen
behind the door: a large Labrador retriever, tail wagging excitedly. Amy
slipped through the door to restrain the dog, and behind her, Mousse and
Shampoo could see someone ascending the porch steps from the back yard.
She was an older woman in pale yellow and white clothes, with a lap top
computer in one hand. Like the girl, Amy, she had pale violet eyes and
blue-black hair.

She was also quite clearly pregnant.

"You must be Mousse," she said, eyes quickly appraising her new guests.
"You've certainly grown up... but who's your friend? Ah! That aura...
you're one of Cologne's girls."

'She can read that without Fighting Intent?' Shampoo thought in
amazement, feeling excitement well up within her. Normally a battle aura
needed to manifest for it to be observed from a distance in any
meaningful fashion. Next to her, Mousse bowed his head respectfully.

"Perfume," he said, respectfully.

"I am Shan Pu, student and great grand daughter of the former Matriarch
Khu Lon," Shampoo replied, and saw the interest in Perfume's eyes.

"Former Matriarch?" the older woman asked, and gracefully put her laptop
down on a nearby glass patio table. "Aright... let's talk."

-----

"Teach me!"

"..."

Cologne seethed, mentally vacillating between simply getting angrier or
debasing herself by trying to be more diplomatic. The latter had not
been exactly her specialty over the years, and the former didn't seem to
be getting anywhere. It had not been a terribly long or difficult task,
finding her father, but it had been a diversion that further weakened
her position in the village. She had no doubt now that the Elders had
sent her away to blunt her popularity, and it left her older and weaker
sister free to continue owning the land Cologne had hoped to inherit.
Now, to pile trouble upon trouble, she was met with unyielding
intransigence.

"Why won't you just tell me what I need to know?" She asked, tempering
her hot head and biting her tongue. "Then I can leave and you'll have
peace and quiet again."

"..."

Her father, as he always had before in every attempt she had made with
him, said nothing. Instead he sat, mute, facing the temple's great
bronze Buddha. He wore the clothes of a common monk, but they were a
deep black and worn from years of wear and damage. He was a fallen
priest worshipping alone in an abandoned shrine in the middle of the
wilderness. He was also a massive human being, well over six feet tall
from his bare feet to his shaved head - his chest was as broad as most
men's shoulders, and his heavily muscled arms were probably heavier than
her legs.

He sat with his back to her, unconcerned by her words, her pleas, or her
threats of Amazon retribution. She was in half a mind to still try and
beat the information out of him, but she couldn't tell, couldn't read
from his aura or posture, whether he would simply sit there and take the
abuse, or whether he would strike back. The Elders had confirmed her
mother's description of him: he was a heretical monk, devoted to
developing forbidden techniques in the pursuit of his faith.

After a while, just like all the times before, she grew tired of trying
to talk to him and instead she fell against one of the walls and waited.
Which was pretty much all she had been doing since she came to the
weathered temple, almost a month ago. It had been only two months since
she had returned to the village, and now she was committed to probably
wasting another year or more sitting around and waiting for her cursed
father to divulge the secrets demanded by the Amazon Council.

Vexingly, this man before her seemed to spend days at a time in a
meditative position, though it was usually outside, and not in the one-
room temple shrine. Often when he was in doors, he would bring an object
with him, and he would contemplate it for hours on end. One time, he had
studied an autumn flower in his hand, from the moment he picked it, to
when it completely withered and crumpled, two days later. In all that
time, he had not moved an inch.

He was, Cologne had determined, the exact opposite of her mother, who
she remembered as hyperactive and always trying to busy herself in some
affair or another. Of the five elements, her mother had been sensitive
to fire and wind; her father was obviously earth or metal sensitive. It
was probably the former, since she had been sent to retrieve forbidden
techniques and not forbidden artifacts. There was very limited
information, however, in exactly what the Council expected her to return
with.

So she watched him, hoping to learn.

Calming down over the next few minutes, she lowered herself into a
meditative pose of her own - an Amazon one - as she tried to feel out
his aura and what he was doing. As always, she learned nothing from it,
or from more casual observation. Hours passed, and she began to wonder
if he would pull another "insider" or not when she felt a rumble...
Opening her eyes, she saw her father slowly standing back up. Without
saying a word, he craned his neck back and forth, right and left,
working the kinks out of it. Turning around, she saw his face: plain and
unremarkable, save for the shadows around his eyes and the jet black of
his pupils.

Walking slowly past her, he stepped outside into the snow.

"Where are you going now?" she asked, suspecting he would give her a
rare answer to this question at least. "To the waterfall again?"

Instead he nodded, denying her even that small human contact. She
sighed. Whatever faith he clung to, it demanded a rigor and self
depreciation that even the Amazons would consider half mad. He would
spend the night, and perhaps all of the next day, sitting under a
waterfall. At least he was heated by some small local hot springs, but
otherwise it was still only fifty-fifty whether he would eat over the
next 24 hours, and under the conditions outside getting wet would mean
hypothermia... for most people.

But there was some hope: she knew from experience that after he spent
time under the waterfall, he would eat, and then he would do what she
considered light practice of some sort. That happened about once a week,
and it was her best bet for at least learning what sorts of forbidden
techniques he had that the Elders wanted. They had even talked a little
at those times, though never about his techniques, a point of discussion
that always ended any ongoing discussions.

It was during one of those talks that she had learned his name: "Ho."

Or so he said.

Stretching, she considered following him, but instead decided on a dip
in the hot springs herself, after a workout of her own. She had seen
some of the younger generation of Amazons back at the village, and there
was little overly impressive to be seen in them. She was still the
"great genius" of the Amazon village, the girl who had surpassed her
already well respected mother at the age of twelve, and who had mastered
her strong element by the age of thirteen. During the war, she had
learned much from her sisters, and by now she could guess that she knew
virtually every Amazon technique save those reserved for the Council
itself, and those held as secrets within family lines. She truly was a
genius, and she would still be one when she returned. And one day, she
would not only be on the Council, but she would claim the title of
Matriarch itself.

It was fate.

"Patience, Khu Lon. Patience..." she reminded herself, having taken to
thinking aloud to fill the long days of silence. The thoughts of rising
to glory, well deserved and well earned glory, filled her head as she
practiced in the thinly falling snow. The hot springs here were small;
most of the water in the area ended up swallowed by streams and babbling
brooks, but they were quite beautiful, especially in the growing
starkness of early winter. She practiced her forms beside the largest
pool, and then took a short while to refresh her familiarity of the five
elements. She was especially proud of that: even Elders never bothered
to learn all five; instead they did as all great martial artists tended
to, and specialized in one.

That specialization was both their greatest power and their greatest
weakness. It was generally expected that Cologne would forsake the other
four elements and concentrate on water, since it was her natural
affinity. As she became more and more the master in that element, she
would then be able to develop or refine the special techniques related
to it. A generalist, on the other hand, would theoretically have a
harder time developing new techniques. Cologne hoped to prove that old
theory wrong.

As always, the water forms came easily, and her aura adapted to them
effortlessly. Metal and Wood also came fairly easily, though they were
generally considered the least practical of the five in battle. She
mostly thought of Wood as useful only for its ability to heal the self
and others, and Metal as useful only for the knowledge of artifacts and
ancient treasures she had developed. Fire and Earth were harder to
synchronize with; her natural affinity, water, destroyed Fire, and was
in turn destroyed by Earth. These two powerful elements were problems
she was determined to overcome, at least in time.

Finally satisfied that she was still at par with before she had been
injured, Cologne relaxed her body, stripped down, and slipped into the
hot waters that had so enticed her during her little work out. They were
steaming hot, but very tranquil, and not bubbly at all. It was, perhaps,
the one bright spot to the entire assignment.

Despite this, though, her thoughts drifted back to that same task, and
to her father. Against her willingness to admit it, she had been
somewhat exited by the chance to finally see him. Like many strong
Amazon women, her father had been an outsider male who had been married
into the Tribe thanks to the hard work of her mother. Cologne's father,
however, had been a somewhat unique case, and he had been given special
permission to leave the village again, supposedly with the promise that
he would pass on any forbidden techniques he developed in his religious
solitude.

Special techniques aside, Cologne had sort of hoped to find some kinship
in the man. He was a strong outsider after all and not some pitiful
Amazon male, so there was no shame in expecting something from him. By
default he was strong enough to beat an Amazon in combat. Yet when
Cologne had mentioned that her mother had passed away, her father hadn't
even blinked. Instead, he had just nodded, slowly, and said, "I see."

Rotten, unsympathetic, uncooperative monk!

A rustle in the bushes nearby distracted her from her thoughts, and
Cologne's eyes darted towards the disturbance. There were still a few
animals in the area, and it wasn't unexpected that one or two would
cautiously approach the hot spring, even if it was occupied at the
moment. Besides, it if were a person, surely she'd have felt their
aura... But despite the fact that her finely honed martial arts senses
were telling her no one was around, her woman's intuition seemed to be
unconvinced.

"Is someone there?" Covering herself with her arm she stood up to try
and get a better look. Breaking off the tip of a small half frozen
branch nearby, she narrowed her eyes at the offending and somewhat
suspicious bush. Flicking her fingers, she let the twig fly - if it was
a small animal, then it would add a little meat to her dinner over the
next day or two. Stepping on the surface of the water and jumping off
it, she landed just behind the bush intending to catch her wounded prey.

Instead, she saw the twig imbedded in a small log.

"What the...?" Carefully picking up the piece of firewood, she took
another tentative look around. Maybe it had rolled down hill or
something?

Drying off and returning to the shrine, she waited there until the next
day, when her addled Buddhist heretic father returned from his waterfall
meditations. To Cologne's surprise, another man followed close behind
him. He was like her father's exact opposite: small, literally
diminutive in size, with hardly any obvious muscle. Despite sounding
quite young, his head of hair was already balding on the top, and he had
a faint hint of a whisker like moustache on his upper lip.

"Father! Who is this?" She had inquired at the time, looking at the
stranger with confusion. "He looks too small to deliver rice..."

To her surprise, the little troll man had looked up at her and winked.

"I'm no delivery boy, doll," he announced, and in rather bad Chinese no
less. "The name's Happosai! But you can call me Happy."

-----


Alien blood ran in rivulets around Cologne's feet. Stepping carefully
around the gore, the alien-human hybrid once known as Doctor Tofu shook
his head as the wastefulness of it all.

<I did say you wouldn't have to hold back,> he admitted. <But did you
have to kill all of them?>

Standing amid the death in an otherwise stark, empty, and featureless
room, Cologne shrugged under her titian cloak. <None of these creatures
had much potential, anyway.>

<Oh?> Tofu asked. Behind him followed two Sectoids; the aliens mutely
examined the carnage. One stared down at a thickly muscled but severed
arm.

<Well, then: why don't you tell us,> he continued. <What was the
problem? How can we correct it?>

It was one of their reasons for being Trenchards, after all. The aliens
had tried introducing "physical enhancements thorough psionic
indoctrination" before, using both Mutons and Floaters. The results were
unpredictable, and a lack of predictability was not desirable. For the
changes to be accepted on a broader scale the end product needed to be
reliable and reproducible; the resulting aliens needed to be as mentally
stable as they were physically formidable.

They had accelerated the growth of five of the next batch of Mutons as a
test run. Cologne had spent the better part of the day with them,
teaching them to use the martial arts knowledge that had been flash
imprinted onto their brains. Their mental instability had been
immediately apparent. Mutons were normally passive creatures, the brawn
to the Ethereals' brains, but these versions were aggressive and
unbalanced. They fought amongst each other. Earlier reports had
indicated that a few committed suicide... which was virtually unheard of
among the alien community.

Something was clearly wrong.

<How to put this...?> Cologne began. <Tell me, Doctor, do you like art?
Or poetry?>

<I know little about either,> Tofu admitted. <Why?>

<Wait, please. I didn't ask if you knew anything about art or poetry,>
she thought to him, and then repeated from before. <I asked if you liked
it.>

He stared at her for a moment before answering, <I suppose I don't. Or
never did.>

Cologne nodded her head. <Good. Good. I don't either, really. But if you
were forced to go to some institute of higher learning and learn all the
different types of art and poetry... do you think you would gain an
appreciation for it? Do you think it would make you an artist or a
poet?>

He considered the question, but only for a moment.

<No,> he replied, with finality. <It is very unlikely.>

<You see what I mean, though,> Cologne quickly noted. <Your problem,
Doctor, is that you are both a martial artist and a man of science. You
have always tried to find some middle ground between these two aspects
of yourself. But martial arts... is art. At least on the level we're
talking about here. It isn't enough to be bred to use it, to be taught
it, you must love it... embrace it... be willing to sacrifice for it!>

She stooped down and picked up one of the Muton students' severed heads.

<Look at this sad creature. You crammed so much knowledge into its head
that it couldn't decide when to attack and when to defend, much less how
to attack and how to defend. To begin with, true martial Arts skill is
rarely hereditary. The finest perigee can still produce only failure...
true skill is the product of personality, and personality is not wholly
genetic. These creatures fail, and will always fail, so long as they
have the knowledge, but lack the experience, the control, and the
personal sacrifice necessary to succeed. At best, perhaps one out of
twenty of these drones may prove worth while.>

Tofu didn't dispute her conclusion; not only was she the most
experienced of all the Trenchards (and aliens) when it came to physical
enhancement through psionic augmentation (or "martial arts"), but his
own research into the problem had produced a similar line of thought.
Sadly, a solution to the problem was less obvious. Cologne, meanwhile,
tossed the severed head to the side and set to work fixing her hair. In
his time with her, he had learned that she often acted overly casual
when she was one step ahead of her counterpart in a conversation (or a
fight).

<Go on,> he prompted, knowing she would want one.

<I suspected this would be a problem some time ago, when I first learned
of these experiments,> Cologne elaborated as she finished straightening
out her long dark hair. <The solution is in those girls I arranged to
pick up back at the village.>

<Those girls...?> Tofu asked. He knew about them, of course: Cologne had
sent letters to the village, not only telling them to not cooperate with
UNETCO, but also to a number of less influential individuals. She had
told them to meet her outside the village during the night of the
attack. Of the twelve who had received letters, only four had escaped
the fate of the village and survived their rampaging sisters. Those four
had then been picked up by Zraz's soldiers.

<Ah...> he began to see what she meant. <You theorize that we may be
able to use these four Amazons as templates?>

Cologne nodded slowly. <Yes. It shouldn't be very difficult, and once
you... we... have isolated the parts that are useful, we can just cut
out and replace all the rest.>

<Or we could just use your brain instead...> Tofu began, though the
seemingly sinister thoughts were delivered in an emotionless and wholly
professional tone.

<You could,> Cologne admitted, unfazed. <But I think you need me alive
for the next few days.>

He frowned. <You know what I mean.>

Cologne rephrased herself. <Then let me put it this way, Doctor: would
you put the engine of a sports car into a pickup truck?>

Tofu's drawn back face creased into a mockery of a smile.

<All right...> he thought, after a few long seconds. <Then I'll see you
tomorrow. Oh, and...> he pointed to what had once been his lower lip.

"What...?" she asked, and reached up to her own mouth. Looking down at
her hand, she could see a bit of blood on the tip of her middle finger.
Slowly, she turned her head to one of the fallen Mutons: a green skinned
goliath of a humanoid, still in one piece but lying face down in a pool
of orange-red blood.

"Interesting," Cologne finally said with a serene smile on her lips as
she turned back to the Doctor. <See if you can put that one's guts back
in him, would you?>

Tofu nodded. <And the others?>

Cologne rolled her slender shoulders and shrugged as she headed towards
the exit behind him.

<Recycle them for parts; turn them into soup. It doesn't matter to me.>

-----

"You'll excuse me for saying this... but your story stretches the
imagination."

Shampoo and Mousse sat comfortably in Perfume's living room, the three
of them having just finished discussing the situation that brought the
two younger Amazons to America. With Perfume's daughter out of the house
(she had been given the car and had left some time ago), they had been
free to speak, though Perfume had not been privy to much more than a
fraction of the truth about UNETCO and the alien war. They had also
carefully not mentioned that the FBI had been watching the house and had
bugged the phones.

For her part, Perfume had told the two of them her story, from her point
of view. Her actual Exile had occurred when they were just children, and
so they had no real memory of it beyond hearsay and rumor. Perfume's
version of the story went much the same as the rumors had indicated,
though with an understandably more sympathetic leaning.

Perfume had been the first (and only) Amazon ever to study abroad in the
West. A promising student and highly skilled martial artist, there had
been high hopes for her as a leader of the next generation of Amazons.
Her natural elemental paradigm had been the Wood element, and she had
developed a deep interest in medicine. She had gone to a regional
college, and from there, applied to several overseas institutions. The
Council had, at first, been quite interested in the benefits of sending
an Amazon abroad to study. They had given her five years' leave from the
village, the maximum allowed under Amazon Law, to pursue a medical
degree in the States.

In that time, Perfume had written home repeatedly. She was a student
during the seventies, and her perspective of the outside world had made
her letters very popular topics of discussion in the village. As
expected, after five years away from the tribe Perfume had earned her
medical degree and duly returned at the behest of the Elders. For a
time, things looked well...

Except that Perfume herself had changed. She was not the obedient Amazon
the Council expected. She continued writing about how the village could
learn from the West, in particular how it could "become more liberal and
progressive." At one point she maintained she could statistically prove
that more than half of all Amazon women were unhappy with the status
quo, and in particular the draconian Amazon marriage laws and the
decades long rule of ancient Elders that monopolized the Council. She
quickly became even more popular among a fringe population ('that vocal
minority of the majority,' Perfume called it) that called for reforms
within the village.

It was around one event in particular that the story diverged from its
traditional telling. Shampoo had been taught that Perfume had attempted
a coup, and that she had tried to assassinate the Elders. As she told
the story, Perfume had gathered her friends and like minded individuals
to stage the unheard of: a protest. They had marched on the Council
Chambers, and once there the Elders had met them and ordered them to
disperse. Ultimately, most had done so.

The next day, all save a few had been exiled or publicly punished for
their act of insurrection and treason. Under interrogation, it was
revealed that Perfume had a personal stake in changing the marriage
laws. She had already gotten married while attending school. Incensed at
the rabble rouser, she had been told to prove evidence that the male in
question defeated her in combat. She had none. She had then been told to
renounce the marriage and not leave the village - demands she had
refused. The Council then stripped her of her family titles, sealed her
techniques, and exiled her from the village.

She eventually returned to the States.

"I don't blame you for being skeptical," Mousse replied, sitting on the
couch next to Shampoo. "All we have to show for ourselves is Sin Ke's
letter. But everything we've told you is true."

"You have our word as Amazons," Shampoo said, stressing the 'our.'
Perfume took note of this, as she looked from her to Mousse.

"Let's suppose, hypothetically, that I believe you two..." She leaned
back in another chair off to the right side of the living room TV. "What
do you want from me?"

"I, we, need your help," Shampoo pleaded. "Your experience! You can help
us create a new Amazon village!"

Perfume tilted her head slightly. "And what makes you think I want to
help make a new Amazon village? In case you haven't noticed, I have a
home of my own... a family. My oldest son is a doctor; something he'd
never have had the chance to be had he been born in the Amazon village.
You've met my daughter: she doesn't care about martial arts, and I
accept that about her. In fact I'm glad she doesn't want to be an
Amazon. I'm an American citizen now, and I have no intention of going
back to some mist shrouded village in the mountains of China."

"But... how can..." Shampoo momentarily struggled with how to say it in
English. "How can you turn your back on... on three thousand years of
Amazon history?! I can unseal you! You can be an Amazon again!"

"Shampoo..." Mousse began.

"You don't seem to grasp that not everyone wants to be an Amazon,"
Perfume said with a touch of sadness. "At least not the kind of Amazon
you're thinking of. What's more important to you, Shan Pu: the Amazon
village or the Amazon people?"

Shampoo glared at her. "The two are indivisible."

"Maybe," Perfume admitted. "But maybe not. Did you know that the Amazon
village has shrunk over the last two hundred years, instead of expanded?
This despite never being attacked, never being in any serious fighting,
and never being in any danger. Did you know that more than three fifths
of the land in and around the village was owned by the five members of
the Council of Elders? For most of our history, our people were nomadic
- why should we become so attached to a tiny village in an infertile
valley?"

"But..." Shampoo started to argue, but Mousse cut her off.

"Are you suggesting the Amazons should be nomads again?" he asked, voice
mellow and calm compared to Shampoo's rising ire. The girl wasn't used
to being argued with.

"I'm not suggesting anything," Perfume answered. "I just want you both
to remember that these exiles like myself... we aren't poor wretches who
will jump at the chance to go back home. We've made lives for ourselves.
Why not think about what we want? Why not think about what is important
to us?"

Shampoo took a deep breath and nodded in weary agreement. "You're right,
of course."

"On the other hand," Perfume offered. "The idea does have merit, and I
will let the two of you know how to contact the other exiles and their
families..."

"Do you still want the counter seal?" Shampoo then asked.

"Are you offering it because you want someone to be able to teach the
Amazon techniques you don't know?" the older woman asked, obviously
still wary. "Because I have no intention of taking on pupils."

"I'll admit that there is that to it," Shampoo replied, trying to sound
sympathetic. "But really, I think it's just the right thing to do under
these circumstances."

Perfume didn't respond at first. Instead, she just sat silently,
examining Shampoo and her words. Finally, she closed her eyes and rested
her hand on her midsection.

"Tempting... but I can't accept the offer at the moment. Sealing
techniques disrupt the body's metabolism, and I'm in no condition for
it. Which means I wouldn't much help fighting someone like Khu Lon,
either. Then again, even in my prime, I wasn't able to beat her."

"However," Perfume opened her eyes, and their strange violet color
shimmered in the light. "I can tell you how to fight her."

"You can?" Mousse asked, incredulous. "You know a trick to beating
her?!"

"No trick to it," Perfume replied ruefully. "But like all martial
artists, she has strengths and weaknesses. Counter the strengths,
exploit the weaknesses, and she can be beaten."

"You learned this from fighting her just once?" Shampoo asked, still
impressed that the woman could read battle auras despite being branded
with the Demon Seal.

"Not from fighting her, no." Perfume smiled at the irony. "You see,
early on in my life my elemental affinity began to be reflected in my
body. I may not look it, but I'm rather hard to kill..."

She continued, "My body interested the Matriarch, because thirty years
ago she learned she was dying of cancer. I was her student for three
years. In that time I helped her develop the body manipulation
techniques that kept her alive. Those same techniques, applied decades
ago, keep me looking and feeling younger than I actually am, even with
the Demon Seal locking away my ki."

"You were her student..." Mousse whispered.

"That's how you could tell who I was," Shampoo guessed.

Perfume nodded. "That's right. I saw a bit of her in you right away. But
I'm surprised you don't see the resemblance in me... after all, you are
my niece."

-----

"Let me make this clear..."

Cologne's father was, at the moment, being unusually talkative.

"The bonds of kinship between us mean nothing to me."

But at least he was being honest.

"Fate has smiled upon you, however. As I am duty bound to assist this
child with his education, you, too, may experience Enlightenment through
my fists."

Cologne inclined her head in silent thanks, ignoring the jab to her
heart about the irrelevance of family ties. Kinship was very important
among the Amazons, even if they did not usually acknowledge the male
contribution to the extended family. Across from her in the small
enclosed shrine sat her father and the tiny midget-man named Happosai.
She had him to thank for this reversal of fortune. From what the young
man had said, he was an orphan who had been raised by one of Ho's
contemporaries in the East.

Cologne's father let out a long, deep breath that seemed to warm the
whole room.

After a few seconds, he continued in a deep rumbling voice, "To progress
to even that point, you must gain understanding. Only from gaining
understanding can we then achieve Enlightenment. Tell me, daughter: why
do you fight? Pride? Honor? Status?"

"I am an Amazon warrior!" Cologne announced proudly. "I fight for my
people! I have the scars to prove it."

"Then your reasons for fighting are as empty and pointless as your
bravado." Ho's shaded eyes narrowed. Even for her, a veteran of many
life or death battles with terrible foes, he was an intimidating man.
"In time, your village will die. You will die. Your monuments and
records will crumble or be swallowed up by the Earth. There is but one
goal to be had in this world: Enlightenment. All efforts should be
directed towards transcending the limitations of the human form and
human existence."

"I will begin by teaching you this. The child here already has an
understanding of what is required of him." Her father let out another
rumbling breath. "You will learn that it is possible to reach total
Enlightenment without death and that you can control your reincarnation
through what your mother called martial arts."

"But..." Cologne interrupted, bowing her head in apology. "What is
Enlightenment? It... well, it sounds very vague to me."

"That is an easy question to answer, daughter." For the first time, she
saw her father smile. It was hardly a friendly smile, however; it
promised hard work and pain. "Enlightenment is control of the cycle of
death and rebirth. It is control over the human form. It is the
awakening of the mind and the joining of a greater universal
consciousness. As I said: you will feel Enlightenment through my fists.
Compassion and love... these are not the means by which my sect seek
Enlightenment."

Next to her father, she could hear Happosai softly chuckle.

'This little man... does he really belong here... in our company?' she
couldn't help but think. He looked so weak and pathetic. 'Who is he?'

"I will do what is necessary," she said, determined not only to learn
what she could from her father, but prove her own indisputable worth in
the process.

What followed was, on later reflection, the worst two months of her
life.

Her father had proved to be a grueling and thoroughly ruthless
taskmaster, even by esoteric martial artist standards. He deprived his
two students of food and water; he worked them to the bone and gave them
impossible tasks to accomplish. Then he began to reshape their battle
auras. It was, he believed, the essential first step towards pushing the
body and spirit into an Enlightened state. Cologne had learned some
limited control of her aura as part of her advanced Amazon training, but
nothing as ambitious as her father attempted.

To her disgust and frustration, Happosai proved far more malleable in
that respect than she did. By the end of the first month, he had already
learned to draw sustenance from outside sources: to use his aura to
literally take the residual life energy of things around him. He was
still an ugly little dwarf of a man (and a pervert, too, she had quickly
learned), but he was getting stronger. All this, while she, the genius
of the village, struggled with hunger and thirst as her aura failed to
adapt to survive.

"Impossible!" she had called it once, in yet another argument (if you
could call her yelling at him and him saying nothing an argument).

He had then said, simply, "Observe."

He had walked out to the waterfall where he meditated, and sat down
among the rocks and gravel. He then lay down so that his entire body was
submerged. Curious and confused, she had waited for him to get out of
the water and explain himself. An hour later, she was still waiting. In
fact, she had grown tired of waiting for him to give up or die. After
only three hours she had lifted his head out of the water and told him
that she got the point.

"Good," he had said.

And promptly went back to meditating under the waterfall.

-----

Sitting among the purple vines and blood red moss, Cologne winced at the
memory.

-----

"Still havin' problems, huh?"

Cologne's wince became an angry scowl at the slurred Chinese Happosai
used when he'd been drinking. He seemed to be using it as training,
since the amount of alcohol he imbibed in one night would more than kill
a normal man or woman. And if it wasn't some weird form of body
training, then it meant he was a habitual drunk... just one more in a
long line of faults the little dwarf-man had.

Opening her eyes she saw him looking like a homeless beggar, an
oversized bottle of clear liquid in one hand almost as large as his
body. It was half empty. While she had been spending her time meditating
in the rock garden outside the temple shrine, he had obviously gone to
the nearby town and gotten plastered.

"I think most of my problems would evaporate if I wasn't constantly
being molested and peeked on by you, Happy," she growled, still not sure
why she used his stupid foreign-sounding nickname. She tossed a rock at
his head for good measure. "Shrivel up and die!"

He leaned back, casually avoiding the three hundred kilometer per hour
rock.

"No need ta' get so snippy with me, doll-face," he slurred, seemingly
barely able to stand on both feet. She threw another rock; he moved his
head just to the side and avoided it, apparently without trying. Just
her luck he was a Master of one of the Drunken Fist styles.

"Ya see: I was..." he continued, oblivious to the physical attacks on
his person. "Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, I was, you know, practicin'...
and I wondered, hey: Happosai old man, why don't ya invite that cutie
Cologne to practice with ya? So I rushed right over. Hooch's only half
empty, too!"

"I have no intention of coming within groping distance of you, you
little pervert!" She'd soon learned that Happosai's idea of 'joint
training exercises' was the two of them wrestling in mud. 'Naked' he had
said, 'like the Greeks!'

"Besides," she added. "You know I don't drink. Alcohol is disgusting
vice."

"You're so cute when you're prudish..." He casually dodged another rock.
"Come on, doll..." And another. "Don't be like that..."

Really, all she seemed to be accomplish by it was ruining the layout of
the garden. Happosai took another long drink from the massive bottle
(dodging another rock then, too), and hiccupped. After a few seconds of
melancholy at her rejection, he turned to leave, but paused before
actually going.

"What's tha problem yer havin' anyway?" He looked over his shoulder at
her, eyes half lidded. "Ya hungry?"

As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. Yeah: she was hungry.

"No!" She insisted.

A look almost akin to guilt crossed his drunken red features, and he
spun around before planting himself onto the ground. He stared at her
seriously.

"You don't believe in this stuff, do'ya, doll?"

Rather than answer, she asked him the same. "Do you?"

"Hmm..." He thought about it, probably longer than their mutual mentor
would have liked, before answering. "I guess I do. Kinda."

"Kinda?" she asked. She still wanted him to hurry up, say his spiel, and
then leave... but a part of her was curious.

"Well..." he scratched his chin in stereotypical contemplation. "The way
I see it, Enlightenment's great 'till ya actually get there. Like when
yer fallin' and think yer flyin' instead. I dunno about you, doll, but I
kinda like life's pleasures. So I figure it's a better bet to try and
live life as long as ya can, and enjoy those pleasures. Rather than
countin' on being happy despite givin' 'em up. How's that go...? Better
one egg in the hand than two in the bush?"

He took another drink.

"Yep. That's about what I think."

She could see what he meant. Still: it just meant his life's goal was to
be a drunken, debauched lecher. He just wanted to be able to live as
long and hedonistic a life as possible. Still, he believed more about
what her father preached than she did.

"The problem yer havin' ..." he went on to say, still thoroughly
inebriated. "Is that yer still thinkin' about this as being one of those
element things. It ain't. Not really. Just like I mostly believe in this
Buddhist stuff, that's what you believe in. That's why you're having so
much trouble."

"I can't exactly change what I believe," she replied, any trace of anger
gone. She didn't mind martial arts critique so much. In fact, on the
occasions where he talked seriously, she had discovered the little troll
man to be a surprising font of wisdom.

"Well... maybe ya should just think about things differen'ly." He poked
five holes in the ground. "Let's say these 'ere are yer five elements.
Ya got yer, ah, Earth. And yer Fire that's here. And I think Metal and
Wood and Water, which is yer type."

"Now," he said, and poked a hole in the middle of the pentagon. "Imagine
ya got something in the middle 'ere. What would that element be like?"

"Something in the middle?" she asked, and considered it. "Something that
was all of the elements, and none of them? A sixth element like Void?"

"Yep. That's about what yer lookin' fer. Once ya got that down, then yer
all set ta go!" He stood back up, almost fell over, and took another
long drink. Slowly, he started to waddle away.

"Happy..." she spoke up, still staring at the marks poked into the
ground. "What you said... is that really all you aspire to?"

"There was one other thing..." he drawled. He smirked at her over his
shoulder. "You just happen ta be lookin' at the Founder and Grandmaster
of Anything Goes Martial Arts! The strongest martial arts school ever!"

She favored him with an incredulous stare. "If you're the Founder...
then isn't the Grand Master title redundant?"

"Nope," he wagged a finger at her for missing the point. "No it isn't.
Because it makes me sound doubly great!"

"I... see..." Though she really didn't.

"Good! Now..." he asked, with his usual lecherous grin. "Are ya sure ya
don't wanna have a drink with me?"

She quickly went back to staring at the pentagon he'd drawn and the
point in the middle of it.

"No thank you, Happy." She looked up only briefly to see his retreating
form. "Thanks for the offer, though."

"Yer loss. You change yer mind, I'll be waitin'" And then he disappeared
back around the side of the shrine.

Watching him go, she wondered for the first time if someone in the
village wouldn't 'take one for the team' and put the little freak to
some use. He was strong, and extraordinarily talented, after all.
Conditioner was still single, wasn't she?

-----

Mousse had been listening to the television in his room and gradually
drifting off to when the door bell rang. There was, of course, only one
person it could be.

"Ukyou? What the hell are you...?"

A fist to the face kept him from finishing his sentence.

"Put your glasses on, would you?"

With a flourish of his fingers, a pair of glasses appeared in his
previously empty hand. Putting them on, he saw Shampoo and sighed in
relief.

"Ah, Shampoo! So this isn't another weird dream..."

"Do I even want to know why you would have weird dreams about that
spatula freak coming to your room?" Shampoo asked, deadpan.

"Because I'm a guy?" Mousse answered, and Shampoo knocked him upside the
head. A gesture that also sent his glasses flying.

"It was a rhetorical question!"

Mousse made an identical flourish with his other hand, and put on the
other pair of glasses that appeared there. He got a good look at the
girl he'd loved for most of his life (hell - all of it, except like the
first five years). She'd come over wearing just a shirt and pants, and
he knew from experience that Shampoo was that particular breed of Amazon
who preferred to wear as little extra clothing as possible. She had
always been loveably catty, even long before she got her Jyusenkyou
curse. Then again, like a cat, she had little problem lashing out at
anything that happened to be nearby when she was in a bad mood.

He knew why she was here. Why she had come to him.

"Got any other rhetorical questions?" he asked, walking around the room
to sit on the bed. She did the same, though she sat at the other end.

Shampoo smiled; glad for once that he knew her so well. "I've been
thinking about what Perfume said."

"About Cologne or about the village?"

"Both, I guess."

"I can understand that..."

Shampoo looked up at him, grief on her face. "Mousse.... do you think,
even if we tried, that we could recreate the village?"

He sighed and crossed his arms. He hadn't been looking forward to
answering this question in particular.

"I dunno," he used the English vernacular he'd picked up over the last
couple weeks. "Maybe. But it would never be like it was, Shampoo. If
nothing else, think about this: there are no more Amazon men. There are
a few who, like me, ran away... but they won't want to go back to being
in a village that treats them like trash. I doubt you'll find outsider
men who are keen to give up their lives, either..."

"I guess what I'm saying is that the old village, the old Amazon ways,
aren't going to be seen as very acceptable anymore. No matter how
beautiful their wives are, men aren't going to become chattel. And as
long as I'm around..." he took the opportunity to look at her, his
expression totally serious. "I won't let it happen either. I swear I'm
the last Amazon male to be treated like a second class citizen. Like
less than a human being."

"Was..." Shampoo leaned slightly towards him. "Was it really that bad,
Mousse?"

His stare turned into a glare; something she had never really been on
the receiving end of from him. Drawing back a bit, she looked away, a
little shameful.

"I didn't quite mean it like that," she said, trying to talk about the
situation reasonably. "But look at it this way: you men didn't have to
go out and fight and die or anything. All you really had to do was work
that you'd have done anyway... planting rice and all that."

"The issue isn't the work we had to do," Mousse replied, voice still
serious. "It wasn't even the conditions we lived under. The problem
wasn't that at all. You're talking about human dignity. About not
treating men like property. About not having laws that say breaking a
horse's leg is worse than breaking a boy's."

For a moment, just a moment, Shampoo wondered if Mousse had been that
boy in Sin Ke's store house. Even if he hadn't, he had to have heard
about it. The men talked among themselves, after all. She hadn't been
the one to hurt the boy, but she couldn't help but feel guilty about it
now in a way she hadn't considered before.

"As if men don't treat women the same way..." she began to argue.

"And that justifies what? Doing the same thing you condemn men for?"
Mousse shook his head at the hypocrisy. "I'm not here to whine about the
past. I'm just saying it won't happen again. Not if I can do anything
about it."

For a few seconds, they sat in silence.

"You sure you still want me on your Council of Elders?"

"I already said I did," she replied with finality. "Don't make me repeat
myself."

"Heh," he made a single short laugh. "Sorry."

"So..." Shampoo said, trying to sound upbeat. "I guess the only thing to
do is make up some kind of new Amazon village. Or community. Or what,
exactly?"

"Just that," he replied. "A community. Of martial artists. Strong ones.
You already know some of the best on the planet. Between the Two Squads,
we could've probably taken the whole village on by ourselves."

"But husband... but Ranma... isn't an Amazon."

"He's a girl half the time," Mousse quipped. "That's better then none!"

"Terrible!" Shampoo yelled, though she did so through a smile. "He's an
outsider, anyway. Even if there was a village, he'd never really be an
Amazon."

"But he knows Amazon techniques," Mousse countered. "He's mastered the
Ascending Dragon more than anyone I know of. Maybe more than Cologne
herself. Ryouga's Breaking Point overcame an Elder's whole repertoire of
Earth based techniques. And techniques aside, they all have a love of
the Art... a desire to know it, to teach it, to protect its secrets.
That's how the first Amazon village started. Maybe that's how the next
one should, too."

"You think so...?" Shampoo asked.

"Was that question rhetorical?" he asked right back.

She thought about his words, and smiled. "Maybe..."

"There's also the matter of Cologne, though," Mousse reminded her, and
her smile deflated somewhat. "You heard what Perfume said. Do you think
you can do it yourself? We'd all help you train for it. You know that."

Shampoo leaned forward and to the side, letting her long perse colored
hair obscure her face.

"No..." she said, and he could see her shaking her head slightly. "I
don't know if I could... even if I was strong enough. And I'm not. At
least not yet. What we learned... it's something everyone needs to know.
I don't want a monopoly on revenge. It'll be enough for me that someone
brings her to justice. It doesn't have to be me."

"You sure?" he asked, just to be absolutely clear.

"Yeah. I'm sure." She looked up at him, and in that moment he wanted to
try and embrace her, no matter the risk of physical rejection (and
injury). Instead, he held out his hand... and to his surprise felt her
take it in one of her own. She gave him a rough squeeze, and he returned
the strong grip.

It felt good - her hand, her grip; her friendship.

-----

Cologne sat in the garden, the snow falling all around her. She hadn't
eaten in days, but she didn't feel hungry. She hadn't had a drop of
water to drink in over thirty hours, but she wasn't thirsty. In the open
palm of her right hand, she held a small rock. In the left, a piece of
dry wood, slightly dampening in the falling snow. Eyes closed, she could
feel the concentration and the intent rippling through her body, through
her mind... and through her invisible battle aura.

In one hand, the stone exploded into a thousand pieces.

In the other, the wood burst into flame.

-----

ATTEND

Cologne entered the lift, and felt herself drawn upwards and into the
nerve center of the base. Inside, despite the darkness, she saw her
patron: Hollow Eyes. He floated near the two other highest ranked
Ethereals that were his counterparts: Wink and Scarred Face. By her
understanding, he was the third most influential and powerful in their
little Triumvirate. The base's Sectoid Commander was also present,
though far less of a mental and physical presence than his Ethereal
peers. There was no sign of the base's Muton or Snakeman Commander. She
knew the Floaters present were too small in number to warrant anything
more than a two squad leaders.

DESIRE YOUR THOUGHTS DESIRE THEM

<How may I assist?> Cologne thought back, her own mental projection
easily overshadowed by Hollow Eye's psionic roar. There was a vast gulf
between him and the many Ethereal soldiers on the base - one that she
had almost forgotten. It was as vast a gulf in power and skill as
existed between her and the rank and file Amazon warriors of her now
vanished village.

THIS

A flood of information washed over her mind. She had to fight to slow it
down to a manageable pace. She was still unpracticed in the sort of
mental oversight that the Ethereal masters took for granted. She quickly
sorted through it, and realized what it was: sensory data, uploaded
through the Mind, regarding the undercover Sectoids with Jyusenkyou
curses. It was human sensory data, too, which was why she had been
brought in to help analyze and interpret it.

Most alien infiltrators were still basically alien in their thought
processes and their perception of the world. A Sectoid infiltrator, or
even a human clone, typically saw the world in ways an alien could
quickly understand or translate. These Sectoids on the other hand, were
turned into humans, lock, stock and barrel. For an Ethereal, it had to
be like a human looking at the world with compound eyes. Or maybe like a
dragonfly having its vision cut down from a thousand facets to just one.

RECOGNIZE ANY OF THESE HUMANS

<No. I don't... but I don't know every Phoenix tribesman or local
villager.>

Hollow Eyes turned to one of the other Ethereals. This was the one she
called Wink. When it thought, she could feel the difference in it, like
how two people saying the same thing still sound different.

USELESS

<I resent that!> Cologne boldly thought back.

The three glared at her.

<Besides...> she quickly added. <There does seem to be something unusual
about what you sent me. That radio. Why did it play the same thing over
and over? Why were all the guards wearing masks, even at night?>

CONJECTURE THESE PERCEPTIONS ARE GENUINE

<Are you sure?>

WE HAVE CHECKED WE ARE SURE YOU DO NOT KNOW YOUR PLACE

<I did not mean to challenge your interpretation of these events. I was
told to attend. I was told to share my thoughts.>

THIS IS CORRECT

This last thought belonged to Hollow Eyes, and she was thankful for it.
It deflected some of the attention of the other two. For a while, they
simmered in their own personal thoughts.

<Who is going to lead the attack on the humans in this place?> She
asked, trying to sound the part of the innocent and curious little
human.

WE SHOULD BE SURE BEFORE WE ATTACK

IF YOU WILL NOT ACT THEN I WILL I WILL HARVEST THEM

WE SHOULD NOT DELAY MUCH LONGER

Cologne slinked back a few feet, and listened. She quickly confirmed
that Wink was eager to 'harvest' the humans at the Sanctuary District
they had uncovered. He was quite eager to take the fight to the humans
that opposed them, and he was obviously quite the fan of terror sites
and other means of brutish intimidation. Her benefactor, on the other
hand, was far less interested in confrontation, preferring instead to
use guile and subterfuge and human agents. Wink was the one more
interested in enhancing the current crop of aliens, while Hollow Eyes
seemed more inclined to create more Trenchards.

Scarred Face seemed to be the Ethereal equivalent of a bureaucrat.

In fact, she strongly suspected that the Sanctuary District was some
sort of trap. The memories and sensations were genuine, but she knew
there were ways to fake "genuine" memories. Just because you saw a
magician pull a rabbit out of a hat, doesn't mean that he actually did.
She had not said as much, but then again, she had said that she had
suspicions.

In the end, Wink convinced Scarred Face to let him lead the attack,
since Hollow Eyes preferred to wait. He wanted to exact retribution on
the humans and personally wring the information out of their women and
children. The Mind was always gladdened by a blow to the morale of those
opposing their work. Hence, Wink wanted the Mind's approval, and he was
quite confident that his Sectoids could not be fooled.

Cologne rather suspected he would never be seen again.

She smiled at the thought.

-----

China, 1882

It had been almost twenty years since Cologne had seen her father.
Walking the weathered path to the temple shrine, she saw how overgrown
things had become. Passing by the hot springs, at least, she could see
that things had not changed a great deal. Testing the water, she found
it icy cold, but most everything else was the same. She saw the old tree
where she had first caught Happosai peeking on her, and the stump of
another tree she had destroyed while trying to kill the little troll. A
curious mix of nostalgia and anger flowed through her at the thought of
him, and the time they had spent together.

Then she cursed him out loud for the ruin he had brought to the village.

At the shrine itself, she found the building in only a slight state of
disrepair. The compassionate bronze Buddha still sat, hands in a gesture
of prayer, and face serene and contemplative. The statue had not been
polished, however, and she could see a fine layer of dust about it. Out
back, the rock garden was overgrown with weeds.

"I suppose he died, then..." she had mused, after seeing the garden
itself. She considered turning back; she had come to tell her father,
her only living relative now that her grandmother was also among the
deceased, that she had become a member of the Council of Amazon Elders.
Soon, she would become Matriarch. Truthfully, she wasn't entirely sure
what she would say to him beyond that fact, but she was getting older,
and she felt that he had to at least know of her success... and his
grandchild.

Picking her way through the woods, along a now forgotten trail she would
never forget, she same upon the waterfall he so loved. The sun was
setting, but despite the impending darkness, she could see and hear it
just up ahead. Standing at the edge, she could see a silent figure
sitting in the middle, parting the flow of water. The broad shoulders,
the great and giant body, the stern and uncompromising face... it was
undoubtedly him.

Carefully, Cologne reached out and touched the statue. It was hard, like
obsidian, but not. There was no warmth to it. The likeness in the stone
was too true to life, too accurate, to be the product of human
sculpture. A chill ran down her spine at the realization of it: that her
father, mad to the end, had finally gotten his wish. Cold water pooled
around the statue's crossed legs, and she realized: he had been the hot
springs.

"Is this your idea of Enlightenment?" she quietly asked.

As expected, Cologne's father answered only with silence.