"But if you get on that AS, it will take you over!" Tessa shouted out.

"That's exactly the point," Seina said. "Once we release Behemoth, no one can stop it."

"And you'll have your revenge on this city for the death of Seji Takechi," Kalinin reasoned.

"Exactly right, old man," Seina said with a smirk as she heard Takuma climbing up into the cockpit.

And then the gunfire started as two figures in AS crash-suits stormed in on a walkway across the hold, guns at the ready as her last two comrades besides Takuma fell.

Grimacing she turned to see the old man and the girl with him making a run for it, and, in her extremity of emotion, she fired wildly, doing nothing but encouraging them to move faster.

Seina was reloading and calming herself down when a green-haired figure leaped across the hold and landed lightly on the railing next to her.

In half a breath's time, her pistol was falling to the hold below and her arm was shattered. Death was following up quickly behind the demi-goddess's hands, but interrupted when the whole ship shook and Seina's would be killer had hop away and recover her footing before resuming an attack.

And, as the Behemoth moved, Naiki and the others had more to worry about than Seina.

****

"Is that an AS?" Kurz demanded in shock as he tracked off his target and saw what was causing the ship to twist about like it was sitting on top of the San Andreas for the big one.

"Sousuke, get the Captain out of here!" Kalinin commanded as the boat rocked.

"Right, Satomi, move yourself clear!" Sousuke yelled as he took charge of Tessa's safety and moved back into the boat making for their "borrowed" truck.

Naiki grimaced as she watched the young woman she'd been about to take care of trying to stand.

"Go," the old soldier in the bandages told her. "I've got her."

The grimace Naiki gave as she glared at her previous target was almost a snarl, but she did leap up into the air and catch the edge of hold's upper port above. Then she was on the top of the cargo ship and scanning about for a good position overlooking the harbor.

The ship shook out from under her again and she leaped away, landing atop the control tower of a crane overlooking the ship.

Back on a relatively solid surface she looked about at the water around her and started to gather herself up.

"Not those spells," a familiar voice said.

Naiki turned around to see Geisthexe-san leaning casually against one of the cables on the structure of the crane.

****

Sousuke had hung back just long enough to see Naiki leaving the boat by jumping out of it and, certain that she was able to get out on her own, he raced ahead with the Captain and Kurz.

They could feel the ship sinking under the weight of the massive AS in the hold as it's carefully balanced bulk shifted and displaced badly.

They were reaching the first bay where they had left the truck, the motion of the ship suddenly reversed and they were nearly thrown off their feet as the boat rose up in the water as if many tons of mass were suddenly removed from its burden.

"Go, go, go!" Kurz yelled as he opened the door for the Captain and piled into the truck with her, Sousuke moving to the driver's seat.

They were speeding out of the hold as a massive hand burst out of the ship to grab Mao's M9. Below them, the cop cars passed under the flying truck until it landed on the other side of the small barricade.

As soon as the truck landed, the occupants poured out to look at the ship as the Behemoth started to rise out of it.

Tessa felt a slight tug, a shadow of righteous rage, and glanced to the side and up, catching sight of Naiki standing above the rising Behemoth. And standing next to her was a figure that keeping out of a clear line of sight.

"Who's that?" she wondered.

"What the hell is going on here!?" Mao's voice yelled out, drawing Tessa's attention.

****

"Heaven still doesn't know you exist," Mara said. "And you're not strong enough to make a difference against that if you try to force your way into their network."

"But the only spells I know are white," Naiki protested. "Except..."

"Yeah, the Wild Hunt is a bad spell to use too," Mara said. "The guy who powers it...is not nice."

Naiki winced as the demoness referred to another demon as "not nice".

Below her, the Behemoth's hand burst out of the ship to grab the M9 that Mao had been piloting.

"Okay, repeat after me and focus on the power," Mara said quickly, moving to Naiki's side and crouching beside her, using the teen to block her profile from anybody below that might look upward. "You've got a very little time before that thing kills your mercenary friend in the robot."

"Hai, Geisthexe-san," Naiki said.

"Monster of the Norse Deeps," Mara whispered.

"Monster of the Norse Deeps," Naiki followed.

"Who brooks no rival in his domain,"

"Who brooks no rival in his domain,"

"Give me your arms and your strength,"

"Give me your arms and your strength,"

"To visit wrath on this beast of metal," they spoke together. "Kraken grip!"

As they spoke, a red energy formed in Naiki and Mara's hands as both felt the anger and rage growing in the back of their minds. For Naiki it was less than Mara, but she still felt it.

This red Behemoth was set to harm her friends.

To attack this city!

This abomination!

Had to be destroyed.

As the spell was completed, Mara let Naiki take the reins, sitting back passively and ready to take control should her student lose herself. At the same time, taking advantage of her position as one of the casters, she took the favor on herself, besides Kraken owed her own or two already.

Massive lashing arms of water that seemed to solidify into the limbs of a massive octopus whipped up out of the water and grabbed onto the gigantic red AS, pulling it backwards.

From where she stood, eyes glowing red with demonic power was she reached out with her fingers like a puppet master controlling the massive water tentacles.

****

Ranma's aura of casual and calm patience was easily discernible to Urd as a facade. All the woman's energies were primed to act even though her mind was forcing her to stay still and wait at least for the one child coming to her.

The woman was almost constantly on edge around the goddesses. Given her experiences with other dieties, Urd could hardly blame her.

Of course, given the brief fight against Morrigan, the fact that Miss Satomi was on edge had Urd on edge, even if the woman was human and unlikely to just suddenly come after her.

It was an uncomfortable silence as they waited. In fact, Ranma had stopped talking much as soon as she learned there was trouble going on with her kids.

Another train rolled in and Ranma stood up, her senses reacting to the familiar chi within.

The doors opened and out among the small crowd of people came two teenagers and another woman, this one wearing a maritime uniform and carrying some modest luggage with her.

"Okaasan!" Eija called out, waving as the crowd parted ahead of her.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief and walked forward to meet her daughter, hugging her tightly and kissing Eija on the forehead despite the flush of embarassment on Eija's face.

For the two people watching that had some idea of what was happening, they could almost see Ranma checking one name off of her list and shifting worry towards the other two.

"There's going to be some discussion of what went wrong," Ranma whispered.

"Hai, Okaasan," Eija said.

"Thanks for bringing her back, Akane," Ranma said, muscles still tight under the skin and getting ready to spring.

"It's the least I could do," the maritime officer said, glancing toward the white-haired woman standing a little bit behind Ranma.

"And you and Sousuke too," Ranma said, turning to Kaname. "It seems you two are firmly determined to keep my little girl safe."

"Oh it's nothing Miss Satomi," Kaname said with a laugh.

Urd quietly looked over Eija and Kaname, picking out Eija by the conversation and descriptions as Ranma's daughter. As subtly as possible, she opened a many keyboard in her hands, similar to the cell phones and blackberries seen around nowadays.

She was already half-way through making the appropriate connections when the conversation turned toward her.

"Too bad you had to cut your...meeting short," Akane said, with a trace of mild disapproval.

"Oh, don't mind me," Urd said. "Miss Satomi is clearing up some past business with members of our organization and since I'm on sabbatical out this way, I'm being asked to help out with things."

Akane looked notably embarassed in response to Urd's explanation. Ranma smirked a little as he could see the gears turning and Akane silently lecturing herself for jumping to conclusions again.

"Oh, I see," Akane said, she stepped forward and whispered toward Ranma where Eija could here. "This one's guessed you've known us from a ways back, so I'm going to tell right up it was Kuno."

"Kuno?!" Ranma said in something like disbelief.

She turned a look on Eija that was half disappointment and half sudden worry.

"He was on the road injured and I went to see if he needed help," Eija said by way of explanation.

It wasn't an excuse, she should have been able to watch for a person playing possum, or even a hurt person reacting out of reflex.

"And the pervert jumped up and whacked her with a bokken before carrying her off," Kaname said angrily.

Ranma glanced back at Urd, to make sure she wasn't eavesdropping before turning back to the quiet conversation.

However, her coming words were interrupted by a...sensation she felt. A ripple in the chi of the world as the Behemoth's powerful lambda driver was activated.

"What is that?" Urd asked herself as she looked back towards the docks.

It felt like Human chi, just so much more focused and powerful than any single chi adept she'd ever met was capable of.

"So much chi..." Akane started as she looked over to where Ranma and the other woman were both looking.

Eija and Kaname, their own senses not quite as astute as that of of the adults around them were left with senses of foreboding.

Then came the echoing sounds of rending metal in the distance, perhaps two or three miles away into the docks.

Like so many other people at the train station, Ranma moved toward the edge of the platform and looked out toward the docks to see something that most people in area had thought was something that would only happen in a Godzilla movie.

A giant robot stood up and loomed over the dock area. Even this far away, Ranma and the others could make out its form raising over the low buildings near the water.

"What the hell is that?" Akane asked shocked. "An AS that large is physically impossible!"

Urd stared herself in that direction, especially as she felt a rise in demonic power from the same area moving to try and confront whatever that thing was.

"Mara," Urd whispered. "Why are you always biting off more than you can chew."

"So huge," Kaname whispered moving up to the railing.

"You don't think..." Eija asked.

"Sousuke," both whispered quietly.

"Naiki," Ranma said squeezing the bar under her hand and both.

"I've gotta get to base!" Akane declared, hefting her bag over her shoulder and leaping out toward the nearest roof and then continued onward.

"The hell?" Kaname said, "She's another one of you?"

"Stay here," Ranma snapped before sending a look at Urd and had a bit of surprise.

"I need to get a closer look at this," Urd yelled. "Eija's file is all taken care of."

With that, the woman walked to one of the TVs showing the news footage and leaped into it, vanishing in a blink.

Kaname felt a familiar flicker as the woman did that and shook her head clear of the sensation.

"Okay," Ranma said. "I'm heading over there, you two stay here!"

"Like hell!" Kaname snapped as Eija had started to nod in unhappy acceptance.

Ranma turned to face the girl.

"Listen girl, that's a monster on the level of the Orochi," Ranma said. "Maybe worse, so don't think you're going to convince me to let you come."

"Miss Satomi, I don't care what it is!" Kaname shouted. "That military nut is over there right now, I know it, and he's doing something crazy. And I heard say Naiki's name, and she's a...sort of friend. Well she's Eija's sister and that's enough."

Eija looked on at Kaname in surprise as the other girl dictated to her mother what was happening.

"And what are you going to do when we get over there?" Ranma asked, falsely casual.

"I don't know," Kaname said. "But you know that I've got the inside track on these sci-fi bizarros, because I know Eija told you everything."

"Umm, well," Eija tried to protest.

When it was up to her to decide to help someone, on her own or with her friends, she was one of the first to stand up and go with it. However, when mother said don't do anything, or stay here...

Eija hadn't ever thought to protest before.

"But I need to be close enough to get a feel for it and I need Eija," at this Kaname grabbed the smaller girl around the shoulder and pulled her close. "To keep whoever else is in that stuff off my back while I look for answers."

Ranma stared firmly into Kaname's determined eyes for a long second.

"We're going," Kaname added firmly.

Next to Kaname Eija looked nervous as Ranma's eyes turned toward her, but then nodded firmly.

"We have to help Naiki and Sousuke," Eija confirmed.

Ranma took a deep breath and sighed.

"If you keep insisting on stuff like this," Ranma said threateningly. "You'll be convincing me to insist on you getting some training."

"Alright! We're going," Kaname shouted.

"Stay away from it, and I mean as far away from it as you can be and still do your schtick," Ranma insisted as she held out a hand for Kaname to take it.

"That's fine, I think Eija-chan can carry me," Kaname said.

****

Takuma stared in supreme shock at the tentacles dragging the Behemoth forward.

Where had this monster come from and why did it suddenly decide to start attacking Behemoth.

Blasts from the cannons on the head exploded tentacles but they just reformed and reached out again, exorably dragging the Behemoth further into the harbor away from the land.

Irritably, Takuma tossed aside the pitiful AS in one of Behemoth's hands. Almost instantly, three of the tentacles lashed out at the AS, and the consistency of the remaining five slackened only briefly.

****

"Don't lose the anger!" Mara snapped as she watched five of the tentacles start to lose cohesion. "That monster just tossed a friend into the air and made you waste your time and effort saving them. Use that! The moment you stop being angry you lose the spell!"

"I got it! I got it!" Naiki responded as she caught the M9 and set aside to a reasonably safe landing.

Mara winced as she watched the M9 take a painful looking roll.

"Okay, building anger isn't your problem I guess," she said. "But control is."

"Look anger is a big part of Yamasenken," Naiki said, whirling about to face Mara. "I can control my anger!"

Coincidentally, at about that point, the tentacles out in the harbor whipped the Behemoth around and dragged it into the harbor, spilling AS's and police cars all over the place.

****

Kurz grabbed Tessa up before her legendary clumsiness caught up to her amidst the way the impact with the huge red AS turned basically solid ground into a boiling mass of wood, concrete and metal.

"The hell is going on here?" Kurz demanded as he vaulted over some debris to more stable ground. "Where did those tentacles come from."

"I think they're from Miss Satomi," Tessa said as she set her feet down on the ground and seperated from Mr. Weber.

The world had that same twisting, inside out quality she felt before, only it had been much more extreme to start, just before the tentacles appeared. In addition, the spiral was spinning towards two points instead of one.

Both points were up over a crane to the side of the battle.

Now, the feeling was sustained but somewhat muted. It was background to the normal world, sort of a strange overlay of things.

Sousuke glanced over the debris ahead to watch the situation.

"That's not good," Sousuke said. "Eija mentioned a 'curse' on her family involving magic."

"No worry there," Tessa said, shaking her head. "The link was normal. She's just very, very mad. And what she's using is just going to be a delaying tactic if that thing's pilot get's settled."

"Then we have another problem," Sousuke said with a sigh.

"We need a better weapon to handle this," Tessa said.

****

"The hell is going on?!" Mao shouted out as she worked frantically at her controls.

She was trying to work out a landing that wasn't going to leave her with shrapnel in her gut or a leg snapped.

"Grabbed by King Mecha and tossed to a giant piece of Tako-Shishkabob," Mao grumbled as she braced herself for collision with the ground. "Damage report!"

The mecha's AI pulled up screens and reports for Mao to consider as she tried to pilot the mecha into standing. Left knee joint was crap. Right hand actuator was twitchy.

Gyros were iffy.

But she still had the AS-Assault Rifle, so she was still in the fight, sort of.

"Sergeant Major Mao here," she said. "Someone thank the fucking squid for putting me down on a bunch of I-Beams, but I'm still somewhat operational."

"We read you Sergeant Major," Sousuke's voice called out. "We think the 'squid' might be something from Satomi."

"The green-haired girl that led us here?" Mao asked.

"Affirmative," Sousuke responded.

"I have some additions to make to your performance assessment on that girl, Sagara," Mao said irritably.

****

Takuma growled as he shook his head clear and sprayed the clinging tentacles with cannon fire dispersing them into water at least temporarily.

As he did so, the AS started registering weapons impacts on the AS's armor.

"Damn it! Behemoth is supposed to be invincible!" he snapped as he registered several readings of minor damage, mostly cosmetic. "Wait, I need to focus. A shield. Yeah, a shield."

Slowly a red glow formed aside the behemoth in the shape of an old style european shield that deflect all the weapon's fire coming in at his AS.

"And thorns," Takuma said with a vicious smile as the tentacles reached out to grab him again.

****

"Tendrils of the Kraken?" Urd said as she looked over the battlefield. "Really? Biting off more than she can chew might be a little off. This goes into overkill."

She glanced across the way where she spotted Mara and someone else.

"She has an apprentice," Urd said, shaking her head. "No wonder things have been quiet."

Then the red-glow started up around the robot and the latent mass of energy she'd felt earlier confirmed itself as being definitely chi.

"By Heaven," she said quietly.

Despite Skuld's opinion to the contrary, Urd was well versed in divine and infernal history, and she knew what made mana and pishogue superior to chi.

There were two reasons.

The Nidhog and Yggdrasil networks that let gods and demons borrow each other's powers and energy through spell formulae.

The devices and machines that focused and enhanced the pishogue and mana so that there were massive amounts of energy on hand floating about the network.

Chi users existed all on their own, at least until conversion formulas were added to spells and blessed or cursed items and weapons.

But what she was seeing wasn't a conversion matrix.

"That thing has a chi-enhancing array," she whispered. She looked over to Mara again. "I renew my original statement, Mara. More than you can chew."

That said, Urd found herself a high point and started focusing her own magic.

****

Mara stared in shock as the chi shield formed to block the smaller AS's cannon fire.

More chi wrapped around the Behemoth in the shape of giant, red spikes that slashed up the Kraken tentacles as they tried to wrap around the monstrous robot again.

"That thing down there is using chi!" Naiki snapped angrily. "I spend most of my life trying to learn it and use it and build it up and some drugged out kid in a machine is putting out enough to make me look like a dim light bulb."

At least the thing that had her so freaked out had her potential apprentice flaming mad enough to make up for slack in the spell that Mara had allowed in her shock.

Anyway, had to think of that later, fight right now.

Big fight.

Big enough fight that she really wished she wasn't wearing limiters just at the moment.

As the clouds above them started to coalesce, Mara blinked and followed the trail of energy, grimacing.

Heavenly reinforcements.

Even if they were nominally on the same side in this, that complicated things.

****

Seina watched the battle in shock as the tentacles kept battering the Behemoth, rising up out of the water. Now that they couldn't grab it, they lashing out like whips, cracking the lambda-driver's shield as they dispersed.

The fact that the Behemoth was standing up to the slowing attacks of the tentacles was perhaps the most intimidating part of it.

Still, at least the tentacle's appearance had given her the chance to get away from that meddlesome old man before the Behemoth tore apart the cargo ship.

*****

Blazing mad, Takuma brought the hands of the Behemoth up toward's the sword and started swinging.

One swing dissipated several tentacles and slashed through many of surrounding structures.

****

Mara and Naiki felt their perch shake out from under them as the sword sliced through the crane they were standing on.

Mara dashed out and grabbed Naiki before the green-haired girl could tumble further downward.

"Damn it!" Naiki shouted as she lost hold of the spell and all her tentacles dissapated into water.

"Don't worry about it, student," Mara said as she brought them to the ground. "We're still in this fight."

"Hai, Geisthexe-sensei," Naiki said.

"And that hand better not be moving toward copping a feel," the demoness said.

"I'm not doing anything," the demi-goddess said. "Focus on the fight Geisthexe-sensei, you can't let yourself be distracted."

"Is reinstatement worth dealing with this?" Mara wondered quietly.

****

"This is good," Kaname said as another explosion rocked the building they were currently on.

"Are you sure?" Ranma asked. "I could get you further back before I go in."

Kaname wasn't really certain how close she had to be, but she could feel the....magic she guessed it was, from here. So she assumed this would be good.

"This is about how close we were to Sousuke's fight before," Eija noted.

"All right," Ranma said. "I'm going in to help, call my cell phone if you have an answer."

****

"Okay, squid looks out of it," Mao said as she took aim. "Lambda driver needs the target to be aware of the attack right?"

"That's correct, Sergeant Major," Tessa said over the radio she was handed.

"Well, I'd rather have Kurz in my AS right now," she said. "But we'll see if I can get a few sniped shots in before I have to abandon AS."

She continued looking for a good shot when she noticed where the Behemoth was turning.

"Sousuke, Kurz!" she shouted. "Get the captain out of there!"

****

Smiling broadly, Takuma watched his mysterious adversary vanish into mere water and started walking back toward the ruined harbor, taking a moment to blast away at the Japanese AS's with a few well placed canon fire bursts.

He climbed up on land with slow, burdensome steps, eager to get away from the water in case the tentacles returned.

Then the Behemoth's AS zeroed in on an image that it had gleaned from its pilot's frenzied mind.

Takuma almost instantly turned his head toward the monitor and the image of Tessa Testarosa fleeing the area with two men in crash-suits.

Even with the very limited exposure to Tessa that he'd had and a few brief conversations while that green-haired bitch stood guard, Takuma had developed an...interest in the lavender haired genius.

A rather unhealthy interest.

"There she is," he growled. "The girl who didn't notice my feelings."

The Behemoth moved forward with clear intent.

He was distracted as his computers registered another weapon impact in its back. A second weapon impact and functional damage was done to his right arm's elbow.

The sword full out of his AS's hand and crashed to the ground with an metal shearing sound that clattered through the ears of everyone present.

Then he slammed the lambda driver field around his entire mech, resisting the driving headache that brought him.

Growling he started to twist his head to face the attacker, launching a blast toward the crippled M9 it had had in hand earlier. The AS rolled mostly out of the way, but Takuma was amused to see that the thing's left side was obliterated.

when the cameras caught sight of the anomalous image of a red-haired woman charging forward toward him with what the computer was clocking at inhuman speeds.

"Please," Takuma growled as he fired the canon at the image.

****

Ranma stared up at the monster in front of her.

A huge machine, somehow making use of chi. Very clumsy, brute force use, but definitely use.

The burst of gunfire from the head pointed roughly in her direction warned her that the thing had taken notice of her.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken Kansei!" she shouted.

The original amaguriken only enhanced the speed of her hands and arms, and only partially sped up her mind to be able to accurately place each strike. The full body amaguriken applied that speed of thought and body as whole.

Unfortunately, she could only do it in short bursts or she'd drain herself. That technique was easily the most chi-intensive technique she had.

Suddenly, all about her, movement slowed to almost a crawl. Only the supersonic shells streaking toward her showed much of anything resembling real speed.

Leaping upward, Ranma stepped forward onto the first shield, quietly counting to herself as she pushed herself from that shell to another, to another in a swirling procession up the channel of hot bullets.

"Hiryu Hyo Toppa!" she shouted before launching herself straight out away from the column of bullets.

A sigh of relief flowed through her body as she released the full body chestnut technique and was treated to the image of a tornado spear up through the column of bullets, taking them with it and colliding with the Behemoth's head, blowing a quarter of the AS's skull away.

Ranma also realized that she'd blown the cannon away. Which meant that she was unlikely to get another use of the hiryu shoten ha. She was unlikely to get tight enough a spiral with anything else to do with the monstrous thing.

As Ranma landed some hundred yards away, taking in what she had managed, a blast of powerful lightning struck downwards into the lambda driver field that the hiryu shoten ha had momentarily subverted and was just now recovering.

The lightning coruscated over the red field causing the monster to shudder and shiver for several moments.

****

"Well, looks like God's on our side," Kurz said as he stopped his most recent borrowed vehicle some blocks away. "Any word on how to handle this?"

"The Danaan said the Arbalest would be here soon," Sousuke noted. "Until then, all we have on hand is my personelle defense weapon and your sniper rifle."

Tessa leaned against the wall near here and shook her head.

It was hard to focus with all the interference around her, then she felt something...or rather someone.

Someone she'd Resonated with only once before and only briefly.

Miss Chidori, she thought clearly.

Who are you? came the response.

This is Captain Telarossa, a third, unlooked for presence stated. I recognize the voice

Captain... Kaname started to respond

Never mind, we need to find a weakness and fast.

****

"Good one, Urd," Mara muttered. "Okay, kid, you've got an idea of what you're doing? You know how to use that spell?"

"I've got it," Naiki said. "Attack the field, crack it open. Do you know how much chi that is?"

"Oh, I know all right," Mara said, though it was followed by a particular thought. "Damn it, I'm class 1 demoness, but I'm not a war demon."

"Searing ashes of of Nifelheim," Naiki intoned firmly. "Empower my strikes and weapons to smite my enemy."

"Mastery of treachery and fire," Mara said with a grimace, and all the fires in her sight flared brightly as she spoke. "Your disciple seeks your power again."

****

Urd watched from where she was building another lightning strike to see smoke rise up and engulf the Behemoth as it scanned about looking for something.

Then several black curving shapes whipped out through the air into the amorphous cloud of blinding ash and smoke, each one crashing into the chi-shield with a brilliant red flash that spoke of a slowly weakening defense.

"I think we've got this," Urd smirked as her lightning crashed down again.

****

Seina hefted the weapon in her hand and traced the black sickle blades to their source and found, to her surprise a pair of women, one was really nothing more than a girl, without any apparent weapons.

One was chanting, the red-tattoos on her face flaring brightly, and the other was hurling those black blades at the Behemoth.

Unable to cope with what she was seeing, Seina let her obsession for revenge take over and lifted the weapon she'd gotten hold of.

The first burst caught the blonde in the shoulder, and then the green-haired one was looking her way, enraged.

Seina peppered the charging figure with fire but was horrified to see several definite hits just ricochet off as the girl charged her position, moving at inhuman speed.

Launching one of those black crescents ahead of her, the green-haired school girl leaped upward at Seina's position.

It was only the necessity for dodging that crescent that had Seina moving in time to avoid Naiki's pounce, leaving a grenade in her wake.

Rolling aside, Seina was up and moving at a run as Naiki turned to follow her deliberately, taking the time to stare at the running foe, still futiley throwing back bursts of automatic fire.

And then she saw the grenade and kicked it up into the air between her and the fleeing woman.

The explosion between them threw both girls away with brutal force, though Naiki was able to roll herself clear of the worst of it and come to a landing. She couldn't see what had happened to Seina.

The young terrorist landed painfully in the water and started swimming away, smirking as she saw the Behemoth walking forward.

****

The problem is even when we find a weakness, Kaname noted. with all the surprise attacks...

The lambda driver and pilot have shorn up all their weaknesses, Tessa finished. Too bad we can't attack that confidence.

Actually... Eija's mental voice noted as the girl watched what was developing.

****

"Damn it," Ranma grimaced as she noticed the black-magic enhanced Kijin Ran's were no longer in the fight. "That could have gotten it given time."

Black magic though.

Naiki was getting a talking to.

And so was whoever it was that was teaching her daughter and helping her in this fight.

Another lightning strike came down, but when it slammed into the lambda driver's chi field this time, it didn't have near the effect.

Chi was based on strength of will. They hadn't been able to overwhelm this monster, and whoever was at the center of it was getting more confident as a result. It was turning into a battle of attrition which they would probably win only at the cost of much of the city.

Ranma slipped into the Goshin Dai Ryûsei Fu, the invisibility technique of the Umisen. Then she darted forward under the Behemoth, grabbing a tarp from a turned over truck as she moved. he let the Amaguriken-Kansei fade as she arrived.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken Kansei!" she shouted. "Yasha Tankai Ho!"

Whipping about at nearly imperceptible speeds, she gathered debris into the tarp around her. At this speed, she was even able to loosen the concrete into sand as she wound about the Behemoth and leapt up into the sky above leaping more and more and more above it until the massive form of the debris filled tarp was hanging over the robot.

She let the full chestnut fade and released the Umisenken's final attack at her normal speed before diving into that draining speed again, sweat streaming around her as she hit the bottom and, all along the way released Kijin-Gun Dai Ranbu's all about the Behemoth, providing the void that the Yasha Tankai Ho needed to complete the technique.

The chi master was pushing the edge of her strength now as she landed and felt the Yasha Tankai Ho and the Kijin Ran's combine into a force dragging all loose matter around the Behemoth inward.

Ranma didn't expect to do too much damage with this, but perhaps she could shake that confidence and slow it down a little.

If she let the full chestnut go this time, she wouldn't be able to go back in without a substantial rest.

Still in full chestnut speed she hit the nearest of the eight directions and twisted in the bursting heat of the smoke about the monster before forming the first spiral, then crisscrossing to the opposite and so on until she was directly under the Behemoth.

Voids above her were slowly, to her perception, forming and in all eight directions hot chi was spiraling in individual twisters that spiralled in with each other.

****

Urd blinked, there was a chi-master down there trying to damage this thing. The chi output was much smaller compared to what the machine was putting out, but it didn't have near the unfocused nature that the machine did.

"That would be Miss Satomi," Urd said, remembering the very brief and near even exchange the woman had had with Morrigan.

Granted, Morrigan had been wearing limiters, just like Urd and, judging by the lack of a flash fried robot, Mara had. But the limiters basically brought a goddess down to just their own inherent mana and whatever spells they could cast to borrow other powers.

Still, even as she watched the high speed manipulations, she couldn't see what the point was.

The woman would have been better off doing like she and Mara were, and unleashing a barrage of constant attacks.

Ranma was expelling a lot of energy to basically pelt the Behemoth's chi shield with debris. Then the Kijin-Gun Dai Ranbo's started, blinking into experience with insane speed, the flying debris and vacuum blade dances forming gravity wells that would soon be slamming the shields with intense force.

Finally, the smoke Mara's spell carried around the Behemoth swirled about it into eight interlocking and forming twists below.

It was still less than three seconds since the whole thing had started.

Then finally she heard the cry.

"Hachi Houkou Hiryu Shoten Senken!" she shouted.

Eight Directions Flying Dragon Ascension Thousand Fists.

Urd had barely any space of time to figure out that Ranma had spent the entire past moments setting up this one chi manipulation.

And then the Behemoth rose into the air, riding eight tornadoes swirling into a coiled windstorm that was pulled off the ground by a multitude of growing black spheres that pulled in close to each other, trying to crush the Behemoth between them while succeeding in twisting the eight tornadoes into a single black ball of wind, ash and debris.

Urd was capable of similar shows with her own power, even with a limiter. She had passed her first class license test, even if she refused the promotion. But, with the limiters that would wipe her out.

She could only assume that Ranma was in similar straights.

Forgetting her next lightning strike, Urd dived downward as Ranma's attack started running out of steam and the Behemoth crashed downward.

The goddess spotted the red-headed woman trying to catch her breath and gather herself to move, too slowly, and whipped past grabbing her out from under the monstrous robot.

****

Takuma stared at his monitors, one of them black from when the head had been damaged somehow, another cracked from whatever that had been that had just hit him.

His focus was suffering and he could tell that his shield was flickering all over his Behemoth as he pulled himself out of the water filled crater his fall had left.

He had a snapped rip that was threatening to puncture a lung at any point, but he didn't know that. All he knew was that his chest hurt like fire.

Standing up, his remaining monitors scanned through the few undamaged scanners and found, to his rage, that red-head being dropped off on a building by some sort of flying woman.

Angrily, the urge to destroy built up in him.

****

Mara stared, impressed as she pulled herself away from the field. Naiki backing off with her, eyes scanning about.

The girl was making sure her teacher wasn't ambushed again.

Mara smirked out the sentiment.

"That is probably the only use of pure chi I've seen match up to a Class 1 spell," Mara noted with a whistle.

"What have we been doing," Naiki asked.

"We shared a class 1, I supplied most of the power and gave you the control," Mara said, checking her injury and wiping her brow of sweat. "Since then, Class 3. I'm tired, and I'm not sure what you can handle on your own."

"What's class 2?" Naiki asked.

"Did you see those lightning bolts?" Mara asked.

"There's another demon out there?" Naiki said in surprise.

"Something like that," Mara noted.

"So, it's down now right?" Naiki asked, eyeing where Mara was bleeding, watching a parachute start landing in the distance for some reason.

"No such luck," Mara said. "That machine there is magnifying the power of whoever's in it. If I had to guess, I'd say we're basically trying to deal with an average 2nd class god or demon not wearing limiters."

"Umm, right," Naiki said.

"Enough power to level a France sized portion of the Himalayas," Mara said simply.

"But you're first class!" Naiki protested.

"With limiter!" the demoness said, pointing to her earrings. "Gods and Demons with limiters aren't much different than powerful chi-users. I need permission to drop it."

"Is that why the bullets hurt you?" the demi-goddess asked.

"Not right now, kid," Mara said. "It's moving again. Kid? Naiki?"

Mara turned to look at her to-be apprentice and watched as the girl's eyes fade out, as if not seeing the world around her.

"The hell?" Mara said, and then her eyes widened. "Oh crap!"

****

Eija blinked as the world around them vanished into whispers and strange symbols again. Suddenly, she looked about and saw the nude forms of Tessa and Kaname focusing hard on their task, so hard they didn't seem to notice the shift to that mental frame work.

Suddenly, across from her, she saw the sea-green skinned and blue-eyed form of her sister, glancing about in surprise and shock.

The hell? her sister said.

Naiki! Eija called out.

The mental projection of the sharkish Satomi turned to find Eija's jet-black, red-eyed body standing close at guard behind Kaname's form.

What is this place Naiki asked.

It's a mindscape, Eija explained. Tessa and Kaname are 'resonating' together to find how to beat this thing.

Naiki looked to the other two mental forms, the two pale skinned girls who looked as they did in the real world, save nude. The other Satomi was in the process of committing the sights to memory when she noticed that Kaname and Tessa's forms were coming closer together.

"Eija! Keep them from touching!" Naiki shouted, reaching forward to grab Tessa's spirit and start to pull.

"What?!" Eija asked. "Why?"

"I don't know!" Naiki said, struggling with Tessa's form and at times being dragged forward. "But Tessa said too much resonating was bad! Just grab Kaname!"

Eija nodded and shifted forward smoothly to easily lay hold of Kaname's soul and pull it way from Naiki and Tessa in a motion that looked as easy as breathing.

Naiki felt more than a slight pang of envy at that, but for the moment, she was more concerned with keeping Tessa seperate from Kaname.

Eija shrieked then, as she watched the hand she was using to push Kaname back started to turn white and some of her black slip into the blue-haired girl.

Concerned herself, Naiki turned about to see one of her hands likewise bleeding its color into Tessa, even as the sub-captain's partially bled into her.

Then both Whispered's eyes snapped open.

Got it!

I'll tell Sousuke!

All right, Miss Chidori, let's go.

And then the mind-scape vanished for all four.

****

Sousuke was moving toward the canister and setting up arbalest when his cell phone rang.

He checked the number and saw that it was Kaname. For a moment he thought about not answering, but perhaps it was something important, like that pervert attacking again. Something he'd have to deal with immediately on finishing this monstrosity.

"Miss Chidori, hello," Sousuke said calmly as he slipped into the cockpit. "Is everything oh..."

"There's a cooling system," Kaname said.

"What are you talking about?" Sousuke asked nervously.

"The Behemoth," Kaname said. "Tessa and I found it's weak point. There's a cooling system for the lambda driver in the thing's groin. Take that out and the lambda driver shuts down, the Behemoth is too heavy to move on its own."

"The groin?" Sousuke asked in confirmation.

"That's right," Kaname said. "You'll have to use the lambda driver for the attack. Nothing else is getting through."

"Affirmative," Sousuke said grimmly.

"It'll be a slit, left or right," Kaname said. "Either one will do."

"So basically..." Sousuke hesitated to continue.

"Yeah, kick it in the nuts," Kaname said viciously. "And do it HARD! Sousuke! Do you hear me?!"

"Affirmative," the mercenary said as the arbalest finished starting up. "Beginning attack run."

****

Urd blinked as a wave a chi started flashing toward her position.

The tired red-head she'd rescued stood up, her breath mostly caught and whirled her arms in swift circles.

"Kijin Toku!" she shouted, continuing to swing her arms about as a black shield came into being in front of her.

The red chi from the Behemoth slammed into the shield of vacuum, threatning, and, even if Ranma had managed to successfully give herself and Urd protection in her "Fierce-God Shelter", the building they were standing on should have been blown away.

Urd was nothing if not a quick learner and willing to experiment, however.

Also, she had not yet tired herself as thoroughly as either Ranma or Mara had.

She reached quickly through all the magic she could find and, borrowing the Yggdrasil readings of the phenomena in front of her, improvised a much wider shield.

"Now, that's not fair," Ranma said as she leapt away and looked towards the edges where Urd's shield hadn't protected the building from the lambda-chi blast.

"Excuse me, who was braiding tornadoes earlier?" Urd asked, breathing hard herself as she flew backwards away from the Behemoth.

****

Takuma slammed his fist down as his targets got away...again and then turned toward a threat assessment to see an AS heading his way.

Laughing uproariously at the absurdity of his powerful Behemoth being taken apart by such foes as unequipped men and women and old AS's, he lurched his machine forward to meet the attack by just outright smashing the white machine heading his way.

It seemed that was the new AS's intention as well, to die, smashed under Behemoth's foot, as it slid under the red monstrosity and fired a single lambda enhanced blast.

And then failure messages starting erupting all over his machine.

****

Sousuke rolled his AS into a standing position and bolted away to avoid the falling Behemoth. That hadn't required near the effort that beating Gauron had. Perhaps this Behemoth's lambda driver hadn't been as powerful.

Of course, another part of him said. It could also have had to do with how much of a beating the machine took before I got a credible shot at it.

****

Mara looked up from where Naiki was coming too, glancing toward where the Behemoth was finally falling.

Another chi-enhancing array armed into a suit. Granted this chi-enhancer was much more reasonable than that monstrosity, but still, it meant that this was more than just a fluke.

As did Naiki's current condition.

Human Chi had evolved into a Network, and there was no telling how many elements there were in it right now.

A quick check of Naiki told the demoness that the demi-goddess wasn't an element in a network yet, but she'd closely resonated with someone lacking necessary protections.

The personality bleed was starting already.