"Hooray for Hollywood! ... ... da da da da da da da HOLLYWOOD!  Sing
with me, Dai!"

	Daisuke eyed Hiroshi out of the corner of his eye as he adjusted his
bow tie.  "No."  To further punctuate his point, he breezed out of the
dressing room and started a brisk pace down the hall.

	A few moments later, a second pair of footsteps echoed down the hall
of the Rose Bowl, more rapid until they caught up with the first.  "This
is going to be a great show!" Hiroshi enthused.  "Perfect weather, over
a hundred thousand fans, and blondes as far as the eye can see!"

	"Smog, earthquakes, and traffic jams," Daisuke shot back.

	"So it's like Tokyo, only sunny!"  Refusing to let his chipper
spirits be brought down to earth, Hiroshi babbled on.  "Did you know
that all sorts of producers and directors are going to be in the stadium
tonight?  Maybe I'll get offered a movie deal!  Can't you see me as an
A-list star?"

	"Yes."

	"Really?"

	Daisuke looked over at Hiroshi.  "What did I say about asking
'really?'"

	"Geez, you're in a bad mood even for you.  What's up?"

	"Before I came here, I was warned that Los Angeles makes people
act... weird."

	Hiroshi blinked.  "Weird?  I guess, but it's a fun kind of weird!"

	A level stare was his response as Daisuke stopped in his tracks.  "I
saw someone checking out the ads in the local newspaper for breast
enlargement surgery."

	First making sure she wasn't around to lay some formerly-holy smack
down upon him, Hiroshi asked, "Lina?"

	"Naga."

	Local seismograph stations recorded a 2.3 on the Richter Scale as
Hiroshi hit the ground, head-first.  "Ow."

	"Indeed."  Daisuke snapped his fingers, and paused to dig a bottle
out of his pocket.  He offered it to Hiroshi; the albino stared at it
blankly.  "Sunblock," he explained.  "SPF 50.  The sun'll be up for
another few hours."

	"Bah!" Hiroshi blustered, waving the bottle away with the back of
his hand.  "That stuff's a crock.  Just like Scientology, or exercise." 
As they strode towards the doors, Hiroshi slid on his sunglasses.  Were
it not for him having picked up a pair of wraparounds from the local
7-11, he would have been the epitome of cool.  "Just smile, Dai, smile! 
Or at least tell me what's eating you."

	"If you must know," Daisuke sighed, the weight of the world taking
time out of its busy schedule to rest itself upon his shoulders, "it
took me nearly an hour to convince Team Rocket to show up for their
fight later.  What kind of a cruel joke was it to schedule Reboot near
Hollywood and put them up for an exhibition match?"
	
	"Buck up, Dai!  We're about to be stars!  I already have to deal
with the boss' grumpiness before any big show, I don't want you to be
unhappy, too.  Have you seen her, by the way?  She seemed all worried."

	"Nabiki was uneasy at first about how much this would all cost, but
she found a lot of dancers for a really good price."  Daisuke opened the
door, letting the fresh, sweet-smelling air of Los Angeles waft to their
nostrils and the beautiful vista of the astroturf meet their gaze.

	"..." commented Hiroshi as he attempted to stuff his eyes back in
their sockets.  "Guhmuhnehm."

	Daisuke shrugged.  "They're from something called the XFL.  Come on,
let's go warm up the crowd."

*  *  *  *  *

	"They did this just to annoy me."  Morrigan set her lipstick
carefully down on her desk, then ran her tongue sensually across her
newly-crimson lips.  Once that beauty ritual was complete, she resumed
her frown.  To complete the look, a slight pout was added.  A heavy sigh
sent her chest to heaving, but even that impressive sight as the
minuscule piece of fabric she called an outfit stretched to its limits
failed to brighten her mood.  "I hate the sun."

	A perfectly-tanned acquaintance of peroxide turned from arranging
Morrigan's courtesy gift basket.  "Sorry, ma'am?"

	Morrigan considered for a moment, putting her index finger to her
lip.  "It would really make sense to make sure my power's at maximum
before I have to fight out in the bright sunlight for three rounds. 
You're from around here, right?"  At the employee's nod, Morrigan's
frown turned to a predatory smile.  "Then tell me where I can find men. 
Lots of them.  The more sculpted, the better."

	"Well..."

*  *  *  *  *

	"Hey, let's do lunch!"

	"Knock it off, Jack."

	Jack Lysias twirled around in his rolling chair, stopping in the
perfect spot to make little gun fingers at Nabiki and sleaze, "I'll have
my people call your people."

	"And as I was saying, Mr. Thorne," Nabiki said as she turned away
from Jack, "you don't have to worry at all about tonight.  I know Ultra
Pay Per Views have lent themselves to massive destruction in the past,
but I assure you that nothing along those lines will happen tonight." 
There was a short pause as Jack whispered something to her.  She turned
to look at him flatly.  "No, Jack, you are not guaranteed the right to
lead the people of Los Angeles in a revolt against their oppressors."

	Jack threw his hands into the air.  "Well then, why don't we just
all move to communist Russia?"

	The sound of valium being popped was his response.  Both of them
turned to look at the manager of the Rose Bowl.  "Are you all right?"
Nabiki asked him, though she eyed the container in his hands
predatorily.

	"I... I don't think I can go through with this," he forced out
through his quivering.  "Ultra... fights... booms..."

	"I think the moon exploding made more of a 'BANG!'," Jack offered.

	"Shut up, Jack!" Nabiki barely restrained herself from saying.  She
dug her fingernails into and through another Ultra Stress Doll, threw
the mangled Mr. Satan onto the rest of the pile, then leaned forward
towards the frazzled man.  "Now, let me assure you that every
precautionary measure possible has been taken," she soothed him.  "All
the matches that will take place here involve normal power levels, and
the Omega fight will be all the way over in... it's very hard to talk to
you when you have that paper bag over your mouth."

	"Lawyers are *WHEEZE* on call, Ms. *WHEEZE* Tendou.  Mean ones. 
*WHEEZE*  Californian ones."

	She recoiled at the L-word.  That was only a good word when she was
throwing it around at people.  "Aheh.  Well, I'll give you my personal
assurance that everything will be fine.  ... My personal assurance and a
security deposit.  ... My personal assurance, a security deposit, and a
t-shirt signed by, uh, Tifa."

	He yanked the bag away from his mouth.  "Do you really think I can
be bought that easily?  ... ... I want Sakura's autograph, too."

	"Deal."  Nabiki snapped her fingers and extended an open palm.  The
nearest flunky scurried to place a stack of papers in her hand.  She
inspected them, lips growing progressively tighter as she read.  "Decent
buyrates, we'll cover all our costs.  But not anywhere close to where I
was expecting.  And where are all the stars and directors?"

	"...Uh, well, this is Oscar weekend," offered the Californian.

	There was a short pause.

	"Why did I not know that?" Nabiki snapped at the nearest person.

	Jack shrugged.  "Not my fault you weren't lucky enough to be born
American.  Any culture that doesn't have important cultural events like
the Oscars and the Superbowl seems like an awfully hollow one to me."

	Nabiki forced her jaw to unclench and turned her attentions back to
Thorne.  "It's almost time.  Will you be joining us in the manager's
box?"

	"After you write me your security deposit."

	"...right," Nabiki muttered as she ripped out a check.  "Any last
minute problems I should know about?"

	"They wouldn't let us plug in the field around the ring," Jack said.
 "Said it would take up too much electricity."

	Nabiki favored Thorne with a flat look.  "Are you looking for a
lawsuit when something comes flying out of the ring?"

	He shrugged.  "You're the one who just assured me that there would
be no problems.  Are you saying there will be?" he asked as his hands
hovered over the security deposit.  The words carried a weight of
several tons each.

	Nabiki swallowed.  "Of course not!  The show can go ahead, right as
planned.  No need for any delays that might lower viewership."  The man
nodded, and slipped the check into the deep recesses of his jacket. 
Nabiki watched it go with an almost palpable pain.  The benefits of
increasing viewership in a major market seemed awfully small compared to
the sight of watching someone pocket a check she'd written.

	"Five minutes until airtime, Ms. Tendou."

	She turned to thank the flunky, then rose to her feet with a smooth
motion.  "Jack, Mr. Thorne, it's time to go.  We have a show to maintain
and another world-threatening event to squelch before it starts."

	As the three breezed out of the office, Jack turned to her.  "Have
you ever heard of the powers of positive thinking?  Think it, say it, do
it!  Actualize your sense of self!  Synergy!  Let's think like a team
and maximize our output!"

	Nabiki rubbed her hand against her temple.  Maybe they had alcohol
in the manager's box.

*  *  *  *  *


         { M A G I C A L  T R O U B L E S H O O T I N G }
         {      C R O S S O V E R  F I G H T I N G      }
         {             F E D E R A T I O N              }
         {                .-----------.                  }
         {                | U-L-T-R-A |                 }
         {                `-----------'                 }
         {          http://www.mtcffultra.com           }

               |  | |    --+-- ---.  ._      
               |  | |      |   | /  | \     
               \__/ \___   |   | \  | _\    
                               +---
                 Ultra         | -       
                 REBOOT:       +---  v3.0
                               | \
                               |-<
                               |_/
                               .__
                               |  \
                               \__|
                               .__
                               |  \
                                 |
                                 |

                            Episode 67
                    Written by Kristen Smirnov
           with assistance from Grayson Towler


*  *  *  *  *
	No one can overdo things like Los Angelinos.  Therefore, the Rose
Bowl-cum-Ultradome was not loud.  It was THX Surround Sound Linda
Hamilton And Tom Hanks Invade Normandy Beach To Kill A Terminator Who
Wants To Blow Up The White House Let's All Go To The Lobby And Have
Ourselves A Snack Loud.  And that's without the pod race.

	"We are coming at you LIVE from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,
California!  This is the biggest simulcast yet for a REBOOT, as we're
being seen live everywhere from Tokyo to New York City!  So, thanks to
everyone who decided not to sleep in back home and to everyone who
stayed up in the Big Apple!  You won't be disappointed!"

	In Rome, the Pope grumbled at his television in the early morning
darkness.  They always forgot to say hi to him.  Not that it mattered,
as he waved his giant Dan Fan foam finger anyway.

	"We've got eight fighters who are raring to go to put on a
FAN-TAS-TIC show for you all!  With very little time to recover between
matches, fighters will have to worry as much about staying in good shape
as claiming the victories!  Who will be the last one standing: Bean,
Haohmaru, Ash, Morrigan, Tifa, Mousse, Karin, or Akane?  Who are the
MYSTERY ADDITIONS to Ultra?  And will it be Shinji or Gally that pulls
out a win and sends the other one packing, permanently?  All these
questions and more will be answered tonight, during Ultra REBOOT 3.0!"

	"Actually," Daisuke said as he leaned over, "Those are all the
questions that will be answered."

	"...And let's say hello to the Big Hollywood Stars who are watching
from the boxes this evening... Farrah Fawcett, Valerie Bertinelli, and
Cheech Marin!  Welcome to Ultra!"  Hiroshi let the smile slip from his
face and bawled, "I feel so cheated."

	"Maybe Cheech has a production studio."

	Hiroshi perked up.  "You think so?"

	Daisuke stared at him for a moment, then turned to his microphone. 
"So, here's a familiar sight to all of you American fans... let's
welcome-"	

	"Hiii!"  Nuku Nuku yoinked Daisuke's microphone, only to use the
hand holding it to wave to the crowd.  The announcer quietly pried it
from her and swapped in a mic of her own before she noticed the change.

	"Welcome to Ultra, everyone!  This is the first time we've ever held
a PPV in California, and it's more exciting than sitting absolutely
still in front of a wall for eight hours waiting for a mouse to come
out!  Even if one never does!"

	At the both ends of the stadium, the display screens fired up. 
Super-deformed Nuku Nukus that could crush several city blocks under
their adorable little feet waved down at everyone from them.  "Let's
look at some of the fun Ultra competitors have been having around here!"

	"I'm in front of Mann's Chinese Theater," the cartoon figure chirped
as it was overlaid on video footage.  "And here's a familiar face!"

	Johnny Cage flashed a million-watt grin at the reporters nearby. 
"Well, sure it's an honor, but I knew it was coming.  After all, this is
what they have all the big stars do, and if there's one thing I've
proved..."

	"Nuku Nuku is getting bored!" the cartoon chirped as Johnny let his
ego out for a walk.  "Oh, but look!  Some of his friends came to visit! 
But I wonder why they're just sneaking up behind him?"

	"...when I run for president."  Johnny rolled up his sleeves and
knelt down.  "Okay, let's get this show on... the..."  Behind his
sunglasses, one eye twitched.   In the fresh cement at his knees was
carefully written "Team Rocket."

	The screen went to black, save for the cartoon popping up in one
corner.  "Sorry, but the American censors won't let us show what
happened next!"  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  "Mr. Cage knows a lot
of really bad words."

	Another sight appeared on the giant screens.  "Did you know that
Highway 1 is one of the curviest in the whole wide world?  It runs right
along the coast, and if you're not careful, you can fall allllllllll the
way down the side!"  The cartoon hopped to her feet, then fell over
again.  "Whee!"

	"What's scary is that I can't really tell the two apart," Daisuke
mused as he looked between Nuku Nuku and her cartoon counterpart.

	"Mr. Bandit loved this highway!"  Cartoon-Nuku put a finger to her
chin.  "He wouldn't say where he got the car, though."

	A close-up of Bean in the red convertible showed him grinning like a
maniac as the shouts and obscene gestures of drivers he'd passed faded
behind him.  "This is quality American workmanship, babe!"

	"Bean, is it normal to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less
than an hour?" Tifa asked as she picked pieces of windblown hair from
her mouth.

	"Uh, sure."

	"And here's Mister Schneider at something in Los Angeles called the
Kit Kat Club!  They wouldn't let me take a camera in, which made me
really sad because they said there were lots of kitties and I wanted to
see them!"  She flashed a 'V' sign at the audience.  "We did get a
cambot in, though, and here's the footage!"  The cartoon looked over to
the side of the screen.  "No, I thought they said there were lots of
kitties!  ... What difference does that ma-"

	Daisuke took his hand off the controls to the screen, a drop of
sweat trailing its way down his cheek.  "Whatever our editors are
getting paid, it's too much.  ...Don't look too disappointed, Hiroshi."

	The albino pried his eyes off the viewscreens.  "Uh, uh, right! 
Great to see you, Nuku, and why don't you tell everyone where you'll be
appearing next?"

	"I'm going to be guest hosting MTV's Spring Break in Fort
Lauderdale!" she chirped.  "Isn't that great?"

	"You've really tapped into the heart of American youth culture,"
Daisuke agreed.  "We'll make sure and catch you then."

	"Isn't Nuku Nuku great?" Hiroshi gushed as the cyborg practically
scampered away.  "But if you like here, then you're going to love who's
coming next.  That's right, it's time to begin our first match.  A fan
favorite ever since she came to Ultra, she's keeping up that tradition
today.  Here she is, the first Reboot champion, who's now back to
reclaim her title... Tifa Lockhart!"

	The brunette waved cheerfully to everyone from atop her ramp,
beaming a thousand-watt smile that went mostly unnoticed as every male
present stared at her chest.  She jogged down the ramp with a relative
lack of fanfare and turned to wait for her opponent.

	"And facing her is one of the Ultra Samurai, a man who always makes
his presence known-"

	"GREETINGS!" came the bellow from atop the other ramp.  Haohmaru set
into an easy stride towards the ring, favoring anyone who dared insult
him with a glare.  As he approached the ring, he cleared his throat, a
sure sign of incipient loudness.  "I AM VERY PLEASED INDEED THAT I
ARRIVED HERE IN STYLE FOR MY MATCH.  I DO LOVE MY NEW PONTIAC AZTEC."

	Tifa blinked at Haohmaru.  "Uh... what?"

	"IT IS RUDE TO NOT ATTEMPT TO INTEGRATE YOURSELF INTO A NEW CULTURE
WHEN YOU VISIT IT AND SHOW RESPECT FOR THEIR VALUES.  I SIMPLY WISH TO
SHOW APPRECIATION TO OUR GRACIOUS HOSTS."

	"Most honorable sensei!" came Kunou's voice from the side of the
ring.  "The check cleared!"

	"SPLENDID!  A FINE EXAMPLE OF OUR HOSTS' EXCELLENT TASTE CAN BE SEEN
IN DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE.  CALL YOUR TRAVEL AGENT NOW."

	"You have gotta be kidding me," Tifa muttered as Haohmaru climbed
through the ropes.

][ REBOOT 3.0 FIRST ROUND
][ FIRST MATCH
][ TIFA LOCKHART VS. HAOHMARU
][ FIGHT!

	"THIS MATCH WILL SOON BE OVER, FOR I WILL DISPOSE OF THE CHAFF ALONG
MY ROUTE QUICKLY ON THE ROUTE TO MY ULTIMATE TRIUMPH.  I WILL OFFER YOU
THE CHANCE TO SURRENDER NOW, THAT YOU MAY AVOID-"

	Tifa flashed the audience a thumbs-up as she completed her high
spinning kick.  They roared their approval, hoping for a quick end to
the match so that they could avoid-

	"A MERE SCRATCH!" Haohmaru bellowed as he picked himself up from the
mat.  "I WILL NOT BE FELLED BY ANY ATTACK FROM A WOMAN, LET ALONE ONE AS
HALF-HEARTED AS THAT."

	-listening to any more of that.

	Tifa frowned.  She began hopping lightly from foot to foot, all her
weight on the balls of her feet so she could launch a counter-offensive
with the greatest possible haste.  It was true, Haohmaru was hard to
take down with a direct attack.  Thick skulls tended to be tough that
way.  
	
	He raised his sword above his head, striking a dramatic pose.  On
cue, the sunlight glinted dazzlingly off it.  Centuries of samurai
tradition stood behind him as he declared, "TASTE THE RAINBOW."

	"..." blinked Hiroshi as he stared at the stage.  "I wouldn't have
thought the amount of corporate whoring in Ultra could have increased
any more."

	"Then you don't know popular culture," Daisuke dryly said.  "Nabiki
just told us to keep track of all of these, by the way."

	There was a standoff of a few seconds as Tifa and Haohmaru each
waited for the other to move.  It was broken by the latter, who brought
his sword down in a great arc as he leapt forward towards his waiting
opponent.  Tifa twisted to the side,  bringing her arm around to strike
him as he passed.  Her elbow drove into the small of his back, sending
him staggering forward.  Before he could compensate for his overreach,
she had completed her turn and was drawing her foot across the back of
his knees, driving him to his own.

	Face bright with an imminent victory, Tifa advanced, raising her
hand high to drive a strike to the side of his neck that would knock him
out.  As she lowered it, though, he raised his sword.  Were it not for
the thick padding around her wrists, the action would have resulted in a
nasty cut, dulled sword or not; as was, her hand just bounced away and
left her with a developing bruise.

	"IT IS A FOOL THAT GOES FOR THE FINAL BLOW DURING THE MIDDLE OF A
MATCH, AND A WISE MAN THAT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF HIS FOE'S ARROGANCE. 
PERHAPS YOUR FOOLISHNESS AND IGNORANCE WILL BE REMEDIED WITH TIME,
GIRL."

	"Someone shut him UP," Tifa groaned.

	"People have been trying to figure out the secret to that for six
seasons," Hiroshi remarked from ringside.

	Tifa turned to smirk at him, only to get clocked across the back of
her head with the flat of Haohmaru's sword.  She went staggering
forward, leaving him laughing behind.

	"IT IS THE MARK OF AN UNTRAINED FIGHTER WHO WOULD LEAVE THEMSELVES
OPEN TO SUCH AN EASY ATTACK.  IF YOU ARE TO LEAVE BEHIND YOUR FOOLISH
WEAKNESSES, YOU MUST LEARN TO THINK DIFFERENT."

	"Does that count?" Hiroshi asked, pencil hovering over his paper.

	"I think so."

	"If I have to wear you down, I will," Tifa grimaced at Haohmaru as
she cracked her knuckles.  "Even if it means listening to more of your
yells."

	"TRY ALL YOU WANT, FOR I WILL NOT BE TAKEN DOWN BY ANY ATTACKS OF
YOURS.  I AM LIKE A ROC-"

	Tifa drove her fist firmly into his stomach.  He staggered back, but
laughed.  At the sidelines, the scion of House Kunou waved a fan
encouragingly with one hand and made check marks on a list with the
other.

	"I AM GLAD TO SEE THAT YOU ARE MAKING AN ATTEMPT TO DEFEAT ME,
HOWEVER FUTILE IT MIGHT BE.  THIS IS TRULY MAKING FOR MUST-SEE TV."

	Tifa gritted her teeth and rushed the samurai, causing him to twist
to one side to avoid her fists.  She shifted into a spinning kick to
round off the motion, bringing her right leg out to catch Haohmaru
across the back.  Unable to move in time, he stumbled forward from the
force of the attack.  It did not, however, drive the air from his lungs.

	"ATTACK ALL YOU WANT, BUT..." Haohmaru stopped to wheeze slightly,
then quickly straightened in an attempt to cover his weakness.  "BUT I
WILL BE THE ULTIMATE SURVIVOR."

	Smirking as she saw the effectiveness her layered attacks were
having, Tifa launched another offensive.  She sent out a volley of rapid
strikes, caring more about landing them than their strength.  Haohmaru
attempted to parry, but still took hits all across his body.  He wobbled
slightly, then righted himself.

	"FOOLISH WOMAN, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO DEFEAT ME."  Haohmaru threw
his head back and bellowed, "NOT GOING ANYWHERE FOR A WHILE?  TRY A
SNICKE-"

	A heavy 'thunk' echoed throughout the Rose Bowl as the samurai's
thick skull impacted on the apron.  Tifa dusted her hands as the ref
counted down, a satisfied smile on her face.  The straw that had broken
the annoyingly loud camel's back, and all that.

	"The winner of our first match... Tifa Lockhart, and, well,
corporate America."  Hiroshi looked down at his list.  "Funny, I
wouldn't have guessed Haohmaru to be the first choice for sponsors."

	"They made sure their slogans got heard," Daisuke smirked.  "But
that's right, Tifa progresses on to the next round and Haohmaru,
thankfully, is done for the night!  Now it's time to see how her partner
fares in his match!"  Craning his head over, he checked to make sure the
ring was cleared from the first fight, then returned to his mic. 
"Coming at you from Chicago, Illinois, it's the ultimate Road Warrior,
making his first appearance in a Reboot competition!  Let's welcome Bean
Bandit!"

	The formidable man appeared atop one of the ramps, flashing a broad,
glinty-toothed grin at the audience.  He walked solidly down to the
ring, heavy gait interrupted by the occasional wave to the audience. 
Once he'd reached the ring and climbed into it, he removed his
sunglasses and tossed them to Hiroshi.  The announcer scrambled to catch
them as if his life depended on it, which was probably not a bad
attitude to have.

	Once he'd safely set the sunglasses on the announcer's table,
Hiroshi reached for his mic and turned towards the other ramp.  "And his
opponent, hailing from Tokyo, is acquainted with the road only when she
calls her driver to take her somewhere.  Let's see how this match of
martial arts versus barroom brawling goes down as Bean faces Karin
Kanzuki!"

	The blonde stepped through the doors atop the ramp into the stadium,
favoring the audience with a haughty look that showed she cared no more
about their boos than she did about working conditions in her father's
factories.  Flunkies buzzed around her, fluffing her outfit, primping
her hair, and generally doing everything possible to make sure the heir
to the Kanzuki fortune looked her absolute best.

	With an elegant flutter of her hand, she scattered them.  Karin set
gracefully into motion down the ramp, practically waltzing down it.  As
she reached the bottom, a flunky once again appeared and provided her
with a stepladder to ease her entry into the ring.

	At his side of the ring, Bean resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

	At her side of the ring, Karin smiled and took a deep, deep breath.

][ REBOOT 3.0 FIRST ROUND
][ SECOND MATCH
][ BEAN BANDIT VS. KARIN KANZUKI
][ FIGHT!

	"OOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" Karin laughed, breaking seven pairs of
glasses in the audience in the process.  "To think that a brute like you
would think of laying a finger on a member of House Kanzuki!  And an
American brute, no less!"

	Audiences love an easy target, and Karin had just made the one on
her back even bigger.  Their boos increased threefold.  

	Heedless of their reaction, Karin flipped one perfectly-formed
ringlet over her shoulder with one hand and raised the other to her
mouth.  "As if you could possibly hope to match my skill! 
OOOOOOOOOHOHOHOHO-erfm."

	Bean looked down at Karin.  She looked up at him, eyes furious, then
tried to look down at the hand he was currently covering her mouth with.
"MmmpHRRPMHR!  MMMPHRM!"

	"I couldn't take it any more," Bean shrugged as he took his hand
away.  "Can we just fight?"  Karin answered him with an elbow jab, which
he blocked with a meaty forearm.  Bean grinned.  "Yeah, like that."

	"How dare you!" she seethed, faking to the left before she attempted
a heel kick to the right.  "How DARE you lay your hands on Karin
Kanzuki?"

	"Egos always make these fights more entertaining," Bean said
sarcastically to no one in particular.  

	"I do not have an EGO!" Karin replied, sounding offended by the mere
suggestion.  "Just because you don't have the background to appreciate
real class doesn't mean that anyone who does is arrogant!"

	"Eh," came his eloquent reply as he snagged Karin's wrist as she
went for a jab to his side.  He twisted hard, forcing her to tumble
forward to avoid damage to the joint.  Bean moved forward to get the pin
before she could react, but she was too agile.

	"Pathetic!" she cried.  She fired a Ressen Chou at Bean, who was
slightly off-balance from his move forward.  The twin elbow strikes
struck him hard on the back, throwing his balance even more into
question.  Before he could move, she let off a Hou Shou, driving her
palm into his back.  That compromised what balance he had left, and he
was sent stumbling forward into a turnbuckle.

	Karin advanced on him, only to let out a cry of delight as she saw
his glassy eyes.  "Oh, you're making this too easy!  I'll thank you
later."  She waved to all her nonexistent fans, then went in for the
kill.

	Taking advantage of Bean's momentary stun, Karin launched a Mujin
Kyaku.  Kicking Bean into the air once, then again to send him higher,
Karin let her smile grow as she felt her feet impact solidly against
him.  If she could angle it right, then he'd hit the ground head-first,
and there would be no getting up after that attack.

	This plan having settled into her mind, it came as a surprised when
the supposedly dazed Bean reached out and grabbed her by the ankle. 
Karin's eyes widened as she instinctively tried to struggle free from
the grasp.  All her actions resulted in was her being closer to the mat
when the duo returned to earth.

	Bean sighed at the unconscious girl, the victim of her own attack. 
"Don't kick me on the kevlar," he snorted as he pointed to his
reinforced leather jacket.  "EVERYONE knows not to try and get an attack
through the kevlar."

	Admirably, Hiroshi avoided the obvious comment.  "That's the match,
folks, and you know what that means... Tifa and Bean are going to be
facing each other in the first match of the second round!  What a shock!
 What a great moment in the making!  What-"

	"A planned set-up."  Daisuke spoke into his headphone for a second,
then frowned and turned to Hiroshi.  "Do you have any idea where
Morrigan is?"

	"No, why?"

*  *  *  *  *

	"Do I have a male opponent?" Morrigan snapped as she stormed back
into the Rose Bowl.

	The nearest worker there checked his convenient clipboard, doing so
while taking one giant step backwards.  If Hell hath no fury like a
woman scorned and a demoness was looking pissed, then... well, he
couldn't do the math, but it looked bad.  "Ah... ah, yes.  They've been
looking for you, actually-"

	"Then get out of my way," the green-haired succubus growled as she
stormed towards the ramp door.  Note to self, she thought: If you ask
someone where a lot of men are gathered, and they say West Hollywood,
IGNORE THEM.

	It took the audience a second to realize Morrigan was in the
stadium, as entering anywhere with a complete lack of fanfare simply
wasn't done.  She purposefully strode out to the center of the ring,
staring hungrily up at the opposite ramp.  She was only able to restrain
herself for a few moments before she began licking her lips in
anticipation, firmly grabbing anyone's attention who'd let theirs
foolishly start to wander.

	There was a flash of pyros, a surge of music, and Morrigan leaned
forward in anticipation.  When the lights and smoke cleared, she was
left staring blankly at her opponent.

	Ash Ketchum stared blankly back at her.
	
	Morrigan twitched.

][ REBOOT 3.0 FIRST ROUND
][ THIRD MATCH
][ MORRIGAN AENSLAND VS. ASH KETCHUM
][ FIG-

	"This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life."  Morrigan
turned on her heel and walked away, putting the censors to work as she
swore up a blue streak.

	Ash blinked.    

	The audience blinked.

	"And... uh... it would appear that Morrigan has forfeited!  How
amazing!  How unexpected!  How... uh... please say our next fighters are
ready, Dai."

	"I'm working on it, I'm working on it."  Daisuke clutched his
headset progressively tighter, nodding furiously.  "Yes, NOW.  Just get
the word to them!"

*  *  *  *  *

	Bat the hand away.

	"Ranma, would you just stop?!  I'm gonna be fine, okay?"

	"Well, uh, it's not like you can see to tie your headband right. 
And Mousse has been gettin' a lot meaner since he came to Ultra, and he
knows all your moves, and just... well..."

	Akane turned and smile at Ranma.  "And I've gotten a lot better,
thanks to our practices.  I'll be fine."

	There was an uncomfortable pause as a year of relationship inertia
made itself known.  Ranma, who is nothing if not predictable, finally
responded, "Want me to tighten your belt, too?  I mean, these guys just
saw Tifa and Morrigan."

	A deadly silence replaced the uncomfortable pause.  A moment later,
it was thankfully broken by a crew member poking his head into the room
and saying, "You're needed in the ring now, Ms. Tendou.  Your fight's
up."

	Akane adjusted her armbands in a quick motion, breezing towards the
door once she'd finished her final checks.  She sighed as Ranma planted
himself in front of it.  "You heard him, Ranma, it's time for my first
fight."

	"Well... uh... I just wanted to tell you to, uh, be careful, you
know."  Ranma shifted uncomfortably.  "And do good.  Stay focused, and
remember our training.  You've seen me fight Mousse a lot, and we
watched all those tapes, so just remember what you saw.  But don't think
too much."

	Akane felt her annoyance slipping away under the sight of a truly
worried Ranma, and she smiled.  "I will.  Now get out of my way, before
I'm late."

	She quickly jogged down the hall, taking her place in front of the
door.  A crew member relayed her readiness to Hiroshi and Daisuke, and
the quick flurry of activity that preceded an entrance began.  Akane
swallowed.  She could do this, she could win.  She... had totally let
Ranma's "don't think too much" line pass without comment.  She was
definitely getting out of practice.

	She could dimly hear Hiroshi's voice through the heavy metal doors
that waited between her and the audience.  She swallowed hard,
attempting to still the butterflies in her stomach.  There, he was
saying her name, and the doors were opening...  She raised a hand to
block the sunlight from her eyes for a second, then lowered it and waved
broadly at the audience.  She felt like skipping down the ramp from the
sheer excitement, but restrained herself to a quick walk.

	As she took her place in the ring, the doors on the opposite side of
the arena opened, revealing her opponent.  Akane waved up at Mousse.  He
didn't return the favor.

	Heedless of the boos that greeted him and Daisuke's lackluster
introduction, Mousse proceeded into the ring.  His gaze was flat, but it
couldn't take the smile off Akane's face.

	"Ready?" she asked.

	He shrugged.

	The bell rang.

][ REBOOT 3.0 FIRST ROUND
][ FOURTH MATCH
][ AKANE TENDOU VS. MOUSSE
][ FIGHT!

	"Hard to believe we're fighting each other, huh?" Akane asked with a
bright smile.

	Mousse nodded.  "Things have changed."

	There was a pause, heavy with reminiscence.  Then there was another
pause, heavy with one-ton weights.  Akane looked to where the anvil had
buried itself into the mat from her newly-seated position, then up to
Mousse.  "You... you almost hit me with that!"

	"I'm not here to lose," he coldly replied, bringing his right arm
forward with a sharp motion.  Doing so loosed a six of one type of
weapon and a half dozen of another, all of which zoomed in on Akane's
location.

	She threw herself into a graceless backroll, shoulders and hips
landing against the mat heavily as she quickly went anywhere but THERE. 
Pulling out of it, she looked at her former location; her face paled as
she saw the metal porcupine that had appeared.  "A...aheh.  Mousse. 
Mousse, can we just talk about this?"

	"If you're not here to fight, Akane, then you shouldn't be in Ultra
at all."  Mousse flicked his hand up with a quick snap of his wrist,
recalling all the weapons.  As he did, a dark expression tantrum'd its
way onto Akane's face.

	"What did you say?  I have every right to be here, and I'm just
surprised that you've turned into such a JERK!  I remember when you used
to be a nice guy, Mousse, but if that's how you want to play it, then
that's fine by me... ee... eeeee...." Akane trailed off as she stared at
the giant sledgehammer over her head that was rapidly descending.

	Mousse's expression then went through three distinct phases in a
very short amount of time.  First, satisfaction at an imminent easy
victory.  Then, shock as Akane reached up and grabbed the handle of the
hammer as it descended, bringing it to her side.  Finally, growing panic
as she then raised it and began advancing on him.

	"Thanks, Mousse," she grinned.  "You know how much I love to fight
with mallets, and this is even better!"

	"..." he replied as she jerked back on the hammer and its attached
chain, pulling him a step forward.  As she moved to do so again, he
quickly severed the chain with a convenient sickle, sending her
stumbling backwards.  "So what if you have a hammer?" he smirked.  "What
good is a short-range weapon going to do if I never get in close enough
for you to use it?"

	She simply shrugged, hands moving on the grip of the hammer.  Mousse
scowled.  "Fine."  He brought his hand back, then drew up one leg to
display perfect offensive form.  Akane let her weight rock forward and
back as she waited for the attack, resisting the urge to twirl the
hammer to match Mousse's display.

	His movement came quickly, a quick horizontal sweep of his arm that
loosed a volley of weapons.  They covered the width of the ring, leaving
Akane with no option but to bring up the hammer in hopes of blocking the
oncoming missiles.  One chain wrapped around the hilt, stopping a flail
from impacting with her head.  To either side, similar weapons passed,
dodged as much from luck as adrenaline.

	"Ha!" she crowed.  "You missed!"

	Mousse jerked his arm backwards, yanking the hammer from her hands.

	"..." replied Akane as she stared at her empty palms.

	"Still a novice compared to the real fighters," Mousse sneered. 
"You were always the weakest link in any fight back in Nerima."

	Akane felt her temper surge, but forced it back down.  She could
taste the bitter anger at the back of her throat.  Maybe she had been
weak then, but she'd gotten a lot stronger!  And one thing she'd known
then and still knew was that Mousse was very dangerous at long range,
but his effectiveness was severely cut at melee.  And that's where she
shone.

	Mousse's eyes widened slightly as Akane rushed him, then quickly
narrowed.  "Just like always, your temper's getting the better of you." 
He sneered.  "Looks like I'll be heading for another championship," he
said as he whipped a chain behind him, then back around in a wide arc to
take down the girl as she approached.

	Except, the chain only did the first half of that arc.  Mousse's
eyes shot open wide, and he turned to see what had held the chain up.

	A hand was grasping the chain.  Specifically, a hand of someone who
was conferring with the referee.  More specifically, the hand of Bean
Bandit.  "It's dumb luck that nothing he's thrown out had hit the
audience, yet," the driver was saying to the official.  "Without the
protective shield around the ring, he's a real threat if he doesn't rein
it in."

	"Agreed," the referee nodded.  He turned back to Mousse.  "Keep it
inside the ring."

	The chain fell from Mousse's hands as he frantically dug for a melee
weapon.  Before him, Akane stood, arms folded as she counted down. 
"3... 2... 1.  Too late!"

	Mousse looked up from his search just in time to get clocked across
the jaw by one of Akane's punches.  She rotated on one foot to catch him
on the side of the neck as he stumbled, sweeping him face-first into the
mat.  He remained down for a moment, then shakily began to stand up. 
Another sweeping kick by Akane put him down, and when his head impacted
on the mat again, it assured that he stayed there.

	After the countdown, the referee jogged over to raise Akane's hand
in a victory pose.  "And the fourth winner of the first round of
competition is Akane Tendou!"  Next to him, she beamed at the audience,
waving wildly with her free hand.

	Mousse groggily began to come to behind them, only to see a familiar
face filling his gaze when he raised his head.  "Turnabout's fair play,"
Bean growled as he firmly bapped Mousse on top of the head with a
massive fist.  "That's for my left rear view mirror."

	"Even with giving Mousse a chance to adjust his fighting style,
Akane takes this one home!" Hiroshi crowed, waving wildly to her. 
"That's our girl!  Go Akane!  Go go go!  You've got this belt in the
bag!"

	"Hiroshi."

	"You're gonna kick Ash's ASS!"

	"Hiroshi."

	"You're... uh... good job, Akane," Hiroshi meekly said as he waved
to the departing girl.  "Sorry, Dai.  Gotta cheer for the home team, you
know.  Go, Akane, go.  ANYWAYS!  It's time for the first of our
exhibition matches.  Who is the new team to enter Lambda?  Well, folks,
you're about to find out."
	
	The audience waited expectantly for the cues that would tell them
whether to cheer or boo the newcomers.  Hiroshi did not disappoint. 
"Murderers.  Assassins.  Spies.  This new Lambda team will commit any
crime, destroy any location, and smack anyone down... so long as you
have the cash.  They are-"

	"Booyaka!"

	Atop of one of the stairways proceeding up past the good seats and
into free radio giveaway territory stood two teenagers, both posed to
show off their weapons to their best possible advantage.  The
blond-haired boy with bangs that could themselves serve as an offensive
instrument clenched his glove-clad fist threateningly.  The girl with
reddish-brown gravity-defying hair next to him went straight for the
kill and spilled quarts of blood in the area immediately surrounding
her.  Then she 'eww'd at the nosebleeds, tugged down at the dress that
set a new shortness record for Ultra, and waved her big-ass nunchaku in
an all-too-cheery manner.

	"Hi everyone!" Selphie Tilmitt chirped.

	Everyone booed.

	"Yeah, bring it AWHN!  We're here to kick someone around, and we
don't care what you think about it!"  She thrust one end of her nunchaku
dramatically forward; Zell made a similar move with his glove when she
gave him a side kick to the shin.

	"We just gotta show up, cheat our way to a win if we have to, and we
get paid!"  A smirk spread across Zell's face.  "And it's all about the
contract money!"

	Nearly a hundred thousand fans, all wearing hideously overpriced
official MTCFF Ultra apparel, booed them.  After all, greed is bad!

	The two set into motion, firing back barbs at the audience as they
proceeded down the steps.  The sound man finally got a song playing over
the speakers, and the ferocious, awe-inspiring strains of "Eyes on Me"
floated delicately through the Rose Bowl's sound system.  

	Two left eyebrows of teenaged mercenaries twitched in unison.  At
the announcer's table, Daisuke tried unsuccessfully to hold back a
smirk.  Hiroshi flashed a questioning glance at him.

	Successfully dodging the unasked question, Daisuke grabbed his mic
and said, "And now, here's those perpetual favorites and the opponents
for the new additions to Ultra's ranks: Team Rocket!"

	Even in the California sun, a dramatic spotlight somehow could be
seen illuminating the doors.  The steel doors burst open, accompanied by
a musical sting courtesy of John Williams.  

	Jessie and James posed back to back, the whites of their uniforms
almost too bright to look at and the black leather polished to a
blinding sheen.  Appropriately, they had on pairs of matching
sunglasses.  At the perfect moment in the sting, the sunlight glinted
visibly off the rims.  As they moved away from each other into poses
whose improbability was matched only by Egyptian tomb paintings, the
audience gathered their breaths for the communal chanting.

	"Prepare for trouble!"
	"And make it double!"

	They whipped off their sunglasses in unison and threw them to two
lucky, lucky fans who would soon make a killing on eBay.

	"To protect the world from devastation!"
	"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
	"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
	"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

	In the ring, Selphie was watching the proceedings and taking notes.

	"Jessie!"
	"James!"
	"Team Rocket BLASTS OFF at the speed of light!"
	"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"

	Pikachu hopped in front of them, pointed dramatically at the teens
in the ring, and chirped, "Pika-pi!"

	"That's right!" chanted the audience, who all felt validated by
their surrender to the forces of popular culture and group behavior.
	
	Wanting to indulge in every possible second of adulation from their
fans, Team Rocket walked down the ramp, waving to people as they passed.
A large group they passed had dyed their hair to match the duo's... not
that the Los Angelinos had needed much of a reason.

	When they reached the ring, Jessie slid smoothly under the ropes. 
"Foolish boy, you'll soon learn the folly of attempting to win against
Team Rocket!  We're master of pokemon, weapons, and fashion, and we'll
combine all our knowledge to send you back where you came from!"

	Zell blinked at the last 'ability,' then smirked.  "I don't need any
weapons, and if you think those boots are gonna HELP you in a fight,
then you're gonna be an even easier match than I thought!"

	Jessie and James blinked at each other, then at him.  "You won't be
fighting ME, silly boy," Jessie snorted.  "You'll be going up against my
pokemon!"

	Zell scratched his head.  "Pokemon?"

	The shock of someone being so totally unacquainted with the concept
of pokemon sent Jessie to wobbling slightly where she stood.  "You don't
know what pokemon are?"

	"Pokemon, schmokemon!" chimed in Selphie from the side of the ring. 
"Just kick her butt, Zell!"

	"Right!" he agreed, motioning for the bell.  Jessie smirked, her
surprise gone, and did the same.

][ REBOOT 3.0 EXHIBITION MATCH
][ TEAM ROCKET VS. ZELL/SELPHIE
][ FIGHT!

	"So, bring on those pokeymachall'ems," Zell prompted. 

	"Oh, you're actually asking for one to be called on you?  Well, I'll
certainly oblige!"  Jessie raised her hand high, then sent the red and
white orb she'd been holding arcing towards Zell.  "Persian, I choose
you!"

	The feline pokemon appeared in a flash of light, hissing at the
blond boy as soon as its form solidified.  The hiss stopped as it saw
the expression on his face, replaced by a look of confusion that was
matched by its master.

	"Ohhh!" Zell cried as he snapped his fingers.  "Gotcha!  How many do
you have, anyways?"  She told him, and his jaw dropped.  He looked back
and forth between the two Rocket teammates in mingled shock and envy;
Selphie's expression would have been the same if she too had failed to
do her homework.  "Dude, no fair!  You've got five or six GFs each!"

	Jessie and James looked blankly at him; their expression was matched
by their pokemon.

	"They sure are puny, though.  Boy, with you using all of 'em at
once, your brains must just be fried!"

	The sound of a young Pokemon Master laughing his cap-clad head off
could be heard echoing down the halls backstage.

	"Why... why... how dare you?" Jessie sputtered indignantly at him. 
"I'll teach you to impinge the intelligence of Team Rocket!  Persian,
Fury Swipe that annoying boy!"

	The fact that no one corrected her verbal slip should be a
commentary on all four fighters involved.

	The cat leapt for Zell, claws extended.  He danced to one side,
bringing his foot around as he did.  It caught Persian on the underside,
turning its flight from horizontal to vertical.  When the pokemon
returned to earth after its short trip, Zell was ready to send it back
into the sky with a driving punch towards the clouds.  Persian
mercifully landed after that, disappearing back into its pokeball when
it passed out.

	Ignoring Jessie's outraged sputtering at the treatment of her
pokemon, Zell flashed her a victory sign.  "Now let me show you my GF! 
They only let us bring one, but they've gotta be better than any ones
you have!"

	Leaving Jessie wondering why he kept calling her pokemon 'GFs,' Zell
closed his eyes and concentrated his attentions for a moment in a
surprising display of focus.  A flash of light surrounded the boy, and
when he opened his eyes once more, a third figure was in the ring.

	"Tooonnnnn..." the diminutive form moaned as it slowly began
waddling across the apron.  Jessie blinked at it.  It blinked up at her,
never slowing its pace.

	"Tonberry may not look like much, but he's a lot stronger than he
looks... wait, that wasn't right."  Zell pondered for a second.  "He may
be small, but he and I both know that size doesn't matter!  And he's
going to wipe you out with one blow, and do the same to your partn-"

	Jessie took one step to the left.  

	The GF continued straight ahead on its path, which meant that it
promptly took a header off the side of the ring.  As the painful screech
of a chef's knife bending as it hit the floor faded, Jessie crossed her
arms, threw her hips out to one side, and laughed dramatically.  "Did
you really think you could win over Team Rocket that way?  If there's
anyone in this federation who knows how to run from an attack, it's ow."

	Selphie caught her nunchaku as it returned, then biiiiiida'd at
Jessie.  "You talk way too much!"  She hopped from foot to foot,
flashing a confident grin to her opponent and recently tagged-out
partner in turn.

	"...OW!" Jessie restated, clutching her head.  She drew her hand
into a fist and spun to glare daggers at Selphie.  "How dare you, you
little brat?"

	There was a short pause as Selphie tried to figure out if Jessie was
really offended by being attacked.  After a second, she shrugged and
whipped her weapon out again.  After all, if someone was scared of
getting hit, they certainly wouldn't be in Ultra, right?

	The audience collectively cringed as Jessie's terrified shriek sent
the sound system into a feedback loop.  Finally collecting herself as
the crazy girl who had no respect whatsoever for Ultra norms (read:
letting Team Rocket pontificate), Jessie reached to snag the closest
convenient pokeball.

	"I choose you, Arbok!  Poison sting that uncouth girl!"

	Arbok reared back to let loose the dozens of poisonous spikes, only
to be met with a wide-eyed gaze of a newcomer to the ring.  The snake
blinked at what appeared to be a new, turquoise breed of Pokemon. 
Carbuncle chirped back at it.

	"DRAW!"

	Arbok reared back as a wave of poison suddenly washed through its
system.  It had no effect, but having its own attack drawn from it and
turned back on it was surprising at the very least.  Arbok was
well-trained, though, and quickly reared back to return the favor.

	Pokemon and owner both twitched as the poison attack bounced off the
magical shield Carbuncle had erected before Selphie.  The girl in the
tiny yellow jumpsuit pointed and laughed at Jessie in the fine tradition
of wannabe-bullies everywhere.  "Nice try, or something.  DRAW!"

	Her attempt had a striking result, if "no result at all" is
considered striking.  Selphie pouted.  "It's so hard to get a lock on
the stuff here!  Everything feels so different from back home!"  Her
pout deepened as the magical shield faded, but, to her surprise, Jessie
was recalling Arbok even while Selphie's defenses fell.

	"Whatcha doing now?" Selphie asked, craning her head to one side. 
"Who're you calling now... oh!  Aww, is that one of your pokemon?  It's
so cute!" Selphie beamed as she leaned down towards Pikachu.  "Hi there!
Sorry, but I have to beat your owner senseless!"

	"Pika?" it chirped as it looked up at her.  Pikachu extended one
hesitant paw towards her, ears perked forward.  Somehow, its big black
eyes looked even larger and shinier than usual as an aura of supreme
adorability surrounded the pokemon.

	Selphie dropped onto her heels, face even brighter.  "So cuuuute!  I
wish I had a GF like y-"

	*ZOT*

	A fine trail of smoke wound its way towards the sky above as Selphie
unsteadily rose to her feet.  "That was... *cough* so not cool." She
quickly wobbled over to the corner, barely staying ahead of Pikachu's
subsequent electrical attacks. Zell quickly slapped her on the hand and
hopped into the ring, sweeping Pikachu away with his foot before the
rodent could build up another charge.

	As he took his place, he grinned.  "About time you came in.  What,
were you gonna let the girl do all the fighting?"

	"Well, she told me not to hog the camera time-OW!" James yelped as
Jessie hit him across the ankles with a rolled-up program.  "I mean,
Jessie's so skilled that she's the match for any team by herself!"

	There was a long pause as Zell stared at James.  "Dude, you are
WHIPPED."  He shook his head.  "Let's get this match over with.  They
told us that there would be real fighters to go up against here."  

	James scowled the scowl of the petulant.  "Weezing, I choose you!" 
The pokemon appeared from its pokeball and hurtled towards a waiting
Zell, who had a wickedly expectant look on his face.  James took a step
back as the poison pokemon was sent flying by Zell's Punch Rush attack. 
"Ah... Growly, I choose you!"  One childhood pet was conked out by a
well-place Booya.  No small amount of desperation (and girlish terror)
in his voice, James called out, "Jigglypuff, save me!"

	Zell actually stopped his string of attacks for a moment to look
down at the pink puff.  "You've gotta be kidding me," he snorted as he
Heel Dropped the pokemon onto the ring, up into the sky on the rebound,
and finally into Jessie's arms.

	"Ah... er... can't we discuss this like civilized people?" James
asked Zell as he started pressing against the ropes in the vain hope
that the ring would suddenly become around one mile wider.

	The blond cracked his knuckles.  "No way!  We didn't come here to go
easy on anyone, especially not a..."  He trailed off, flashing a
reluctant look at Selphie.  She shrugged, then motioned him forward.  He
sighed.  "Especially not a stupid, stuck-up 'fighter' who got every win
on his record from dumb luck."  As the audience booed his insults, his
expression wavered between determined and apologetic.  No one in the
seats seemed to notice the latter when it appeared.

	James swallowed hard, throwing a nervous glance over towards Jessie.
 Her face had paled somewhat as she'd watched Zell's impressive string
of attacks, and she quickly tossed over their ace in the hole.

	Catching it, nearly dropping it, and attempting to cover his fumble
with a dramatic pose, James proclaimed, "Mew, I choose you!"  He sent
the pokeball hurtling towards Zell.

	Zell sent it hurtling into the sky with a Meteor Strike before the
pokeball could even open.

	At the sidelines, Hiroshi looked down at his notes on the new
fighters with no small amount of unease.  "If he just did that, then the
finishing move is..."

	The dull roar of gathering energy filled the ring, centered around
Zell's fist.  As there was only one other figure left in the ring, it
was obvious what... or, rather, who would be the target of whatever
attack he was about to launch.

	James' face turned as white as his uniform.  "Ah... if you just stop
whatever you're doing, I'll give you some advice on taming those nasty
flyaways.  What do you say?"

	Zell drew back his hand, put his weight on one foot in anticipation
of launching a massive final attack...

	...then ran right past James, out of the ring, and up the ramp.  The
audience stared silently after him as he left the arena.

	The sound of Selphie conking her head against the turnbuckle was the
first to arise.  "I told him not to use that one, but noooooo, he's
gotta show off.  Stupid Zell.  Stupid!"

	Only a few moments later, Zell re-entered the stadium... from the
opposite side.  He raced down the ramp, energy around his fist growing
brighter by the second... until he was clotheslined by Selphie grabbing
him by the jacket of his collar as he approached the ring and shaking
him firmly.  "WOAH!" he cried.  "Selphie, what are you doing?"

	"I told you before we *shake* came out here!  *shake* Leaving the
stadium is an instant disqualification!"  Selphie snorted and pushed
Zell into the ring.  "Well, make fun of him some more, then let's go
practice for our next match."

	"...Well, that was nice of her," Daisuke commented, his head tilted
to one side.  A second later, he looked down at his shattered
microphone, courtesy of Selphie's nunchaku.  He leaned over to
Hiroshi's.  "Silly me.  She's obviously a very mean, driven fighter who
will go to any lengths to win," Daisuke monotoned.

	"So, folks, what do you think of the new guys?" Hiroshi asked,
elbowing Daisuke away from his mic.  A round of boos greeted him, and a
grin popped onto the albino's face.  "That's what we like to hear!  Now,
get out of here, you two, before Daisuke gets any more excited."

	Daisuke looked up from trying to piece his microphone back together
and snorted.

	Of course, they couldn't just LEAVE.  Instead, Zell leaned towards
James.  A frightened yelp as the trainer tried to dart backwards turned
into a full-blown cry for help as Zell grabbed him by the upper arm.  A
look that promised pain in many varied and interesting ways was on his
face as he whispered, "Sorry I had to make fun of you."

	James blinked at him.

	No sooner had he made the apology than Zell shoved James, sending
him stumbling backwards across the mat.  The lavender-haired bishounen
landed ungracefully, pure shrieking girlish terror at actually being
physically assaulted the only thing keeping him from firing a catty
remark at Zell.

	"And we'll do the same to anyone who tries to cross us!" Zell
proclaimed, apparently back in his groove.
	
	"So bring 'em all on, because we've got the MAD SKEELZ to take
anyone in Ultra down!" Selphie cried as she struck a pose in the middle
of the ring.  "...so long as Zell doesn't use a My Final Heaven again,"
she muttered as she grabbed her partner by the wrist and dragged him
towards an exit.  Jessie did the same to a quaking James.

	"Another happy partnership is born," said Daisuke's monotone in its
triumphant return.  He adjusted his new microphone, then finished, "With
a combination of martial arts, magic, and the ability to turn elemental
attacks back on their sources, they should be a force to reckon with in
the division."

	"They seem unstoppable!" Hiroshi cried.  "Are they just going to
plow through Lambda?"

	"Any new fighter has an advantage on their first week," Daisuke
countered as the audience's negativity increased.  "Give the rest of the
teams a couple of weeks to figure out their abilities, and they'll be on
equal footing."

	"Speaking of equal footing, I can't wait until Tifa meets Zell face
to face.  I think they'll have some discussing to do about some of their
move names."  Hiroshi pointed dramatically at the audience.  "And yes,
you heard right, Tifa!  It's time to begin the second tier of matches,
now, and to start them off is... Tifa Lockhar-"  Hiroshi blinked as Bean
took his place on his ramp at the same time as Tifa entered.  "-and Bean
Bandit!  They've entered at the same time, and, are, uh, proceeding down
step for step!"

	Tifa pondered for a second, a smile crossing onto her face.  She
broke into a quick jog; a second later, Bean matched it.  Barely a few
steps at that pace passed before Tifa broke into a full-out run, daring
Bean with her expression to match her pace.  He did, and rolled under
the ropes at the same time as Tifa launched herself over them.

	"Didn't beat me," he grinned at her as he got to his feet.

	"Almost did."  Tifa rocked back on one hip, a slight frown having
made a sudden appearance.  "We're not gonna try to actually knock each
other out, are we?"

	"Teef, I thought we said we weren't going to hold back."

	She considered that.  "Well... what about that way to decide that we
talked about?  You know, first one out of the ring loses?"

	Bean nodded.  "Sounds good.  First one out of the ring loses.  Let's
get ready to rumble, babe."  A cockeyed smile slide onto his face, one
that was matched by his partner in fighting, crime, and romance.

	"I can't wait."

][ REBOOT 3.0 SECOND ROUND
][ FIRST MATCH
][ TIFA LOCKHART VS. BEAN BANDIT
][ FIGHT!

	Only, apparently she could, as neither Tifa nor Bean made a move
towards each other after the bell rang.  The audience held its
collective breath, started to turn blue from the duration they'd held
it, then took another.

	"One of us is gonna have to make the first move, Beanie.  There can
only be one win-"  Tifa suddenly found herself dodging a hamfisted
punch, barely sidestepping in time.

	"That's for bringing up that nickname again," he grinned lopsidedly.
 "So Teef, are you ready for that real match that we talked about?"

	She quirked an eyebrow, dropping into a defensive stance as she eyed
her opponent.  "If you think you can keep up with me, feel free to try."

	Bean cracked his head to one side, then the other.  Waiting one more
moment to throw Tifa slightly off-guard, he then barreled towards her
like a double locomotive.  The analogy was particularly apt as he leaned
forward into his punch, moving more towards the horizontal with each
step.

	...Which gave Tifa a perfect opportunity to hop into the air just
before he got to her, take a flying leap off his back, and send him
rolling towards the side of the ring as he was sent off-balance.  He
bounced off the ropes, sending himself back (albeit with some momentary
dizziness) into the ring.

	"For the first time since they were competing for one spot in
Ultra's roster, Tifa and Bean are fighting each other!  And it appears
that they've put any romantic reservations aside, and will be going at
each other with every ounce of their skill!"

	"Good girl," Bean grinned as he climbed to his feet.  "Glad to know
you can't be taken down by a straightforward attack like that."

	"Of course not!" Tifa snorted as she danced out of the way of Bean's
leg sweep.  "I'd like to think that I'm a little better at my art than
that!"

	"Oh, you are, babe," Bean assured her as he leaned to the right of
her high jab.  "There's no one else like you here in Ultra, and there
won't ever be."

	"Aww, you're going to make me blush," Tifa beamed as she caught
Bean's ankle and twisted it, sending him heavily to the ground.  "You're
no slouch yourself, Beanie."

	"None of the other girls here hold a candle to you in fighting OR
looks," he assured her as he hooked his ankle around the back of her
heel, then pulled her other leg out from under her when she quickly
jerked the first away.

	"And I can't wait to see you take on some other pretty boy," Tifa
purred as she sent a triad of quick jabs at Bean's head as he got to his
feet.  He returned the favor with a haymaker that forced her to drop to
her knees.

	"God, you're sexy," Bean breathed as Tifa's fist plowed into his
gut.

	"You've been-" Tifa tumbled across the mat, courtesy of Bean's foot.
 She got onto her hands and knees, narrowing her eyes slightly and
speaking in a voice that was just on this side of husky.  "You've been
working out."

	"I think we're watching the weirdest foreplay in the history of the
world," Hiroshi said as he stared at the ring.

	"Let's get this match over with," Bean breathed as he reached down
towards Tifa.  "Remember that great beach we drove past?  I don't think
the cops will have traced the plates on that car, yet."

	"Sounds fantastic."  Tifa reached up, interlaced her fingers behind
his neck and pulled Bean on top of herself...

	...then continued on her backwards roll and flipped him out of the
ring.

	He landed heavily, blinking in a daze at the ground for a few
moments.  Finally regaining his equilibrium, he looked up to Tifa. 
She'd risen to her feet, a crooked grin on her face. The exertion had
covered her in a faint sheen of sweat, with a few beads trailing their
way past her collarbone and between her breasts.  

	"And, based on the rules they set for themselves, Tifa Lockhart is
the winner of this match!"  Hiroshi paused to look at Bean.  "Do you
think he's okay?  He hasn't moved since he got thrown out of the ring."

	"Would you?" Daisuke asked dryly, noting where Bean's gaze lie.

	"...good point."

*  *  *  *  *

	"I thought you did quite well."

	Karin turned, eyes wide at the voice behind her.  "What are you
doing here?"

	Morrigan smiled, leaning casually against the doorframe.  She looked
rather... satisfied compared to her appearance in the main arena.  "I
was out of the stadium, and just now saw your match on tape.  I had to
come compliment you, as I couldn't then.  Really, that big...
muscular... giant of a man..."  She stopped to fan at herself with her
hand for a few moments.  "That... brute had no business defeating an
elegant woman such as yourself."

	"He certainly did not!" huffed Karin as she folded her arms
definitively across her chest.  "

	The soft padding of footsteps behind her drew Morrigan's attention,
and she turned with a wicked smile to greet the new arrival.  "I was
wondering where you were.  It's not very gentlemanly to leave Karin
alone to think about her unfortunate defeat."

	Shingo blinked at Morrigan, looked down at the two meals he'd bought
for him and Karin, then frowned at the succubus.  "Hey, I was getting us
dinner.  And why are you here, anyway?"

	Morrigan put a hand to her chest and sucked in a breath of feigned
shock.  "Why, I've never been so insulted!  I always thought a lady
should be greeted when she arrived."

	"Yes, Shingo, be polite," came the third voice in the room.

	His frown deepened as he slowly edged around Morrigan, eyes locked
on her as he did.  She raised one eyebrow to meet his suspicious gaze. 
"I have to say, though, you really do show a lot of respect for
Karin-san's abilities."

	Shingo flashed a smile towards his girlfriend.  "Of course I do! 
Karin's got a lot of talent!"

	"...so much that you didn't think to help her out when she was
losing.  It must be really hard to restrain yourself from helping out
someone you care about, but it really does show a great amount of
respect."

	Karin flashed a sharp glance at the boy.  "Shingo... why didn't you
come help me?"

	"What?  Karin, that would've disqualified you!  I knew you could do
fine on your own!"

	"Well, she didn't," Morrigan smirked back.  The words weren't
questioned by Karin, whose gaze had turned from sharp to increasingly
angry.  "But I do go on!  I should leave you two alone to eat your
dinner."

	"No, Morrigan, please join us," Karin replied, still scowling at
Shingo.  "You've proven to be an excellent dinner companion.  Someone
who makes intelligent conversation, the kind the heir to Kanzuki
Industries' tremendous fortune should be engaging in."  Her tone
couldn't be more pointed if it was cut with a diamond saw.

	Needing no further encouragement, the succubus slid into the seat
next to Karin, favoring her with a bright smile that was returned. 
"Shall we make disparaging comments about the fighters?" Morrigan asked,
voice light.

	"Let's!"

	As the two women began talking amiably together, the third wheel
otherwise known as Shingo Yabuki started dourly eating his dinner.  He
wasn't sure what just happened, but it was all Morrigan's fault.  He was
sure that Karin wasn't normally this mean to him.

*  *  *  *  *

	"Hey, it's those guys!"

	Jessie and James turned in unison to see a tiny figure running
towards them, perkiness radiating in waves as she approached.  They took
a nervous step backwards.

	Selphie blinked at them for a moment, then snapped her fingers. 
"Oh, I know!  You think we're gonna kick you around again.  Nah, I think
you guys are awesome!  That was a great speech!"

	"...thanks," they weakly said, pride battling against the desire to
run for their lives.

	"Aww, c'mon, relax!  Look, I don't really wanna hurt ya and be all
mean, but that's what we got hired to do.  We're mercenaries, y'know,
and we gotta do whatever the contract says, so you pansies had better
start CRAWLING now because me and Zell are gonna take those sissy
outfits of yours and stuff them so far up where the sun don't shine that
you'll go running to your mommies!"

	She paused, looked to the left, and bounced back into her earlier
position.  "Okay, the camera's gone.  This is so much fun!  You can get
away with so much when you're the bad guy!"

	"Mrphm?"

	Selphie hopped over to her partner as he walked up and squeezed his
shoulders tightly.  There was a slight sound of bones shifting in their
joints.  "Well, we gotta go!  Was really nice meeting you, good luck,
all that stuff, see ya!"

	Zell swallowed his hot dog and flashed them a thumbs-up, oblivious
to Selphie's physical manipulations.  "Yeah, see you around!"

	There was a short pause as the hallway was filled with judgmental
behavior.

	"I've never seen such atrocious outfits," James prissed.

	"And what hideous hair," Jessie sniffed as she turned tightly on her
heel.

	There was a clattering, and James quickly replaced the phone that'd
been knocked off the wall when Jessie turned.  "Oh yes, wretched.  Let's
go get seats for the rest of the fights."

*  *  *  *  *

	"Here it is, folks, the second match of the second tier, and the one
that will determine the other finalist for the championship match! 
She's taken down the most recent Reboot champion... will she take that
all the way to the final match and claim the title that Mousse has left
open?"  The audience's reaction said that they would like that rather a
lot.  Hiroshi grinned, grabbed his microphone tighter and yelled, "Then
welcome once again... Akane Tendou!"

	The short-haired girl burst through the doors, waving wildly at
everyone.  Hiroshi waved back.  She jogged down the ramp, slid under the
ropes, and hopped to her feet in one almost-smooth motion.  As she
flashed a 'V' sign, the audience roared even more, in the fine tradition
of taking whatever stimulus is given to them and rolling with it.

	"And her opponent... Ash Ketchum," Hiroshi trailed off
non-committedly.  He yelped as Daisuke elbowed him in the ribs.  "Ah...
one of the most determined fighters in Ultra ever since he went off the
deep end, Ash Ketchum!"

	Next to him, Daisuke dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

	Thanks to that lackluster introduction, Ash's expression was even
darker than normal as he stormed down the ramp.  He took the ring, then
spun to meet the audience's jeers.  The look of confusion he'd had for
them in days past was replaced now with mingled anger and disgust.

	"Let's keep this match fun, okay?"

	The preteen turned to Akane, who'd stuck her hand out towards him. 
He eyed it suspiciously and took a step backwards.  "Just fight," he
sneered.

][ REBOOT 3.0 SECOND ROUND
][ SECOND MATCH
][ AKANE TENDOU VS. ASH KETCHUM
][ FIGHT!

	Akane's face fell at Ash's reply, but she quickly brightened. 
"Fine, you may not want to have fun in this match, but I still do!"

	"Of course you want to have 'fun'," he shot back.  "You wouldn't
know anything about a real fight."

	That drew her to a halt, and Akane stared at Ash.  "Do you even KNOW
what you're talking about?  You just go on and on about everyone, but
we're the good fighters!"  A smug grin was her response, and Akane
frowned.  "Answer me!  How can you say that I'm not a real fighter?"

	"I guess you would forget about cheating," he said.  "That's what
everyone here does.  They cheat, and so long as they get away with it,
they pretend it never happened.  I remember, though.  Even if I'm the
only person who does, I remember!"

	It took all the effort Akane could muster not to let her temper
flare up as it had with Mousse.  He was a dumb little kid, she told
herself, and she shouldn't let him get to her.  If she wanted to prove
herself as a real fighter, it would mean focusing on this match like
Ranma had taught her, not getting into a shouting match with Ash. 
Keeping herself focused on that, she steadied her breath and took a
defensive stance, waiting for Ash to send his first pokemon to begin the
match for real.  She was dimly aware of the audience's yells growing
louder, the majority directed at her, but she forced them to the back of
her mind.  She couldn't afford to get distracted.

	The yells swelled to a crescendo, foretelling the arm that suddenly
snaked around Akane's waist.  She let out a strangled yelp, but it was
cut short by the flash of pain that struck her from knees to neck,
sending her hurtling into the air before she landed heavily back on the
mat.

	From the apron, Akane stared up through half-open eyes at Sagat.  A
voice at the back of her mind told her to get away, but even pulling
herself up on her hands and knees nearly made her sick.  She closed her
eyes, trying to quell her dizziness.  A dull, nagging feeling of
incompetence filtered through her, but she lacked the mental focus to
fully acknowledge it.

	"Your sister certainly is well-protected," the voice came from above
her head.  "She doesn't have to worry about anyone attacking her, now. 
Too bad she wasn't generous enough to extend that protection to the rest
of her family."

	Aware of movement from the massive man, Akane turned to look at
Sagat.  He'd dropped down onto his heels, and was there to meet her
bleary gaze.  "It's nothing personal, kid, but the boss wants to make a
point.  And you're the easiest target."

	Feeling his arm creep around her waist once more, Akane's eyes flew
open.  She struggled weakly against Sagat, who'd begun carrying her like
a rag doll.  After a moment of that, she turned a desperate gaze to the
other occupant of the ring.

	Ash refused to meet her gaze from where he'd leaned casually against
the ropes.  Turning his nose slightly up, he sniffed, "This is what you
get for letting your sister give you all the good matches and handing
you the Gamma belt.  You disqualified yourself, but she still gave it to
you.  Letting your sister do that just because she owns Ultra is
cheating!"

	From her position four feet above the mat, Akane stared at Ash. 
"You are absolutely insane!" she half-cried, half-slurred as she
redoubled her efforts to break free of Sagat's grip.

	The preteen turned decisively away, looking to the audience to find
some support for his firm moral stance.  What he found was Gary staring
at him in abject horror.  Ash grit his teeth and moved his gaze to
another section of the crowd... where Team Rocket looked vaguely ill and
extremely anxious as they moved their gazes between him and Akane. 

	Refusing to acknowledge the significance of these looks, Ash resumed
his assured position of staring up at the sky while leaning comfortably
against the ropes.

	"...And Ash isn't going to help Akane out in the slightest!" Hiroshi
exposited, a growing expression of panic appearing.  "Sagat's just
playing with Akane, and she's not getting a chance to try and launch a
counterattack!"

	Daisuke was talking into his headset, growing more anxious by the
second.  He paused in his fierce nodding to point Hiroshi towards
movement in the ring, then clicked off his headset after a few more
moments of hissed communication.  Even that action looked on the verge
of panic.

	Hiroshi looked over, then breathed a sigh of relief.  "And it looks
like the referee is coming in to stop Sagat!"

	Sagat flashed a glance the official's way for .104 seconds. 
Immediately after that, all that could be seen was a vaguely
referee-shaped cloud of dust as he took of for locations more secure. 
The massive fighter let out a derisive snort.

	"...are the referees good for anything, ever?" Hiroshi asked
Daisuke.

	"No."  The brunette announcer leaned forward, rising slightly out of
his chair.  A look of relief washed over him as he did, a look of one
who'd seen the scene he expected to soon play out many times before. 
"But wait, folks... there's another new presence in the ring!  And, of
course, it's-"

	"She may not have some fancy sorcerer chicks, but she's got me,"
came a rapidly-approaching, perpetually-arrogant voice.

	Sagat turned, a smirk on his face.  "Well, isn't this nice?  The
boyfriend comes to save the little woman.  Tell me, are you planning to
use that snack food attack, or perhaps that kitten-fist?"

	The black-haired martial artist's expression darkened even further
as he swung himself over the ropes.  "If you're not gonna show respect
for my training, I don't have to show any to you.  Put Akane down, let
her finish her match, and we'll settle this later.  And when we do, I'll
pound you into the ground for touching her."

	Knowing he held the advantage so long as the struggling girl
remained in his arms, Sagat took two powerful steps towards Ranma.  The
height differential between them became even more noticeable, and soon
the young man was forced to crane his head upwards to look at his foe's
face, instead of battle scar.  "Okay, kid.  Make me take one step back,
I set down your girlfriend, and we settle this next week."

	With a surprising lack of arrogance, Ranma simply drew back his fist
and sent it towards Sagat's gut.  The punch impacted with a solid smack,
but had no effect on the man's stance.  Ranma's face pulled into a
deeper scowl.

	Akane, if she wasn't so busy being terrified, would have been
mortified at being an object of rescue yet again.  Temporary concern for
her safety thankfully overrode any ego, and she flashed a wide, open
gaze towards Ranma.  Her brown eyes flickered back and forth as she
scanned his expression, looking for any hint of a plan to be launched.

	"You could do that peanut fist and make me move," Sagat pondered,
"but you'd probably break every bone in the girl's body, first.  Or that
chi blast, but anything that'd faze me would fry her.  Oh!," he said
with a sadistic chuckle.  "Should I get a cat?"

	Forcing down his shuddering at the 'C' word, Ranma steadied his
breathing as he focused his energy.  His hair raised slightly as his
aura gathered, the visible evidence of the power gathered around him to
the casual observer.  

	Sagat, who was not a casual observer, snorted at the amount of
energy gathered, which he could see quite clearly.  "Go ahead, fry your
girlfriend."

	"Mouko..."

	The Thai fighter swung Akane in front of him, holding her firmly by
the shoulders and several inches off the ground.

	"...TAKABISHA!" Ranma yelled as he swung his hands forward, palms
facing Sagat as he loosed the massive power that had been building.  

	Sagat hadn't been expecting it to go to one side of him.  Nor had he
expected it to be a tiny piffle of energy instead of the blue chi blast
he knew the boy could do.  The two realizations were mostly subconscious
and took less than a second to process, but taking that time set him up
for another set of observations.

	One, Akane had taken advantage of his momentary distraction to twist
in his grasp, weakening his grip.  Two, Ranma's fist was heading
directly towards his face and was approaching fast.

	Not being an idiot, Sagat resolved both of his problems at once by
tossing Akane towards Ranma.  The two went down in a tumbled heap, and
he favored them with a few, amused claps.  "Very impressive.  You
managed to fake me out.  Not bad at all, not bad at all.  We'll settle
this next week, then, and the little girl gets a reprieve from Bison's
attention until then.  ...Probably."  He took a step back and swept into
a shallow, mock bow, then pulled himself over the ropes.

	"Wait, Ranma!" Akane yelled as she yanked on his arm.  He'd turned
to run after Sagat, and instead found his foul mood directed at the girl
holding him back.

	"Whadduya holding me back for, Akane?  Now that he doesn't have you
to block with any more, I'm gonna go teach him a lesson!"

	"Next week," she said quietly but firmly.  "We'll do it together."

	An annoyed sigh escaped Ranma's lips.  "...Yeah, okay.  I guess it'd
be better if you were fresh for the match, anyways."

	"Right!  And we'll take him-"

	As if on cue, Akane demonstrated the phrase she was about to say by
twitching violently to one side and smacking her head against the apron.
 There was a soft thud, which had a moment to echo through the stadium
before it was followed by a derisive snort.

	"Stupid," Ash sneered.  "The match was still going."  He recalled
Bulbasaur, whose Vine Whips had made an excellent tool to yank his
opponent off her feet.

	Ranma spun on Ash.  "HEY, you little punk, wh-"

	Totally unafraid, Ash looked up at the furious martial artist.  "At
the last pay per view, you guys left in the middle of a match that was
still going on, disqualified yourself, and still wound up as champions. 
I had to knock her out before she tried to do something like that
again."

	"I... er..."  Ranma spun angrily on his heel, focusing his attention
on helping Akane to her feet.  He hated being wrong, really hated being
wrong, so it was best not to even talk about the fact that the match had
indeed still been going on.  And that he wasn't really supposed to be in
the ring.  Instead, he threw a hopeful look over to the announcers. 
They nodded in understanding.

	"With all the interference in this match, we're going to need to go
to the officials for a ruling..."  Hiroshi listened to his headset for a
moment, then sighed.  "Due to the knockout coming from Ash, and not
being able to replay the whole fight, the match has been awarded to him.
But Akane could always challenge that..." he noted/suggested.

	The audience, who'd started to raise a chorus of boos towards Ash,
turned to look at the shaken Akane.  She looked up from where Ranma was
quietly talking to her, a mingled expression of determination and
awkward assurance on his face, and shook her head.  "-on't challenge the
results," came her shaky voice as they scrambled to find a microphone
for her.  "We have to be ready for next week's match."

	"And in his second lucky break of the night, Ash wins," Hiroshi
muttered.  "Kids these days don't have to work for anything they get."

	"Yes, Hiroshi, and you had to walk ten miles in the snow both ways
to win your Hardcore title.  And that concludes the second tier of
competition!  But coming right at you, we have the Loser Leaves Ultra
fight and the Reboot championship match!  Go grab those snacks and get
back to your seats, because it'll be on in just a second!"

*  *  *  *  *

	The trans-dimensional lab which Washuu and the Cybergrrlz called
home rested in some unimaginable loophole of relativity, nestled between
the folds of space and time like a pearl tucked into a pile of clean
sheets.  Within this impossible (or, at least, very improbable)
structure, Gally was undergoing a last-minute systems check. The
black-haired Hunter-Warrior leaned her head back and stared at the light
fixtures as Washuu tinkered with the joints in her knee.  The cyborg
gave a worried look to the host of tiny metallic insects lined up in a
plastic tray on the table next to her.  "Are you sure I shouldn't just
take some of them along?"

	The intergalactically-renowned genius did not look up from her work.
 "Positive.  Those things wouldn't make much of a dent in an Eva,
anyway."

	"Maybe I should at least take my Damascus blade," Gally hazarded.

	Washuu flashed her a stern look.  "No, no, no," she said, tapping
Gally's knee with each word.  "This one is going to come down to speed,
kiddo.  You're fast, but the Eva has a terrain advantage.  You don't
want to be lugging a gram of weight that you don't strictly need."

	"Okay, okay," Gally relented.  "At least my Panzer Kunst is enough
to..."

	"Just stick with the plan," Washuu interrupted.  "Got it?"

	"I got it." 

	Washuu returned to her tinkering, but there was something in her
eyes that gave Gally pause.  There was a hint of some emotion in her
friend's bearing - was it anxiety, or even fear?  The cyborg listened to
the tiny sounds of Washuu's labor for a while longer, then spoke up. 
"Um... is there something wrong?" she asked.

	The scientist rose slowly and set her tools aside.  "Gally.  I need
to ask you something about last week."

	"Last week?  You mean my fight with Lina?"  She had a feeling she
knew what was coming.

	"Yeah," Washuu said, her voice grave.  "The way you were fighting,
the things you were saying... look, I know you said that you were just
trying to do a psych-job on Inverse to spook her into using the Dragon
Slave.  But that isn't all there is to it... is it?"

	Gally shifted her shoulders and fought the impulse to look away. 
"No.  It was more than that."

	"You want to tell me about it?"

	The cyborg lifted her arm, clenching and unclenching her fingers. 
"This body you made for me.  It's... very strong.  Much stronger than
the last one.  Having that kind of power... changes things for me."

	The super-genius frowned.  "Look, we can switch you back to your old
body.  You were competing just fine..."

	"NO!" Gally cried with a urgency that surprised both of them.  "I
mean... please don't.  That's not what I want."

	Washuu gave her a wary look.  "Gally..."

	The Battle Angel searched for the right words.  "For the longest
time, it seemed like I was dreaming.  It was a good dream, mostly.  But
since I've had this body, I feel like I'm finally awake.  I don't want
to go back to sleep again, Washuu."

	"I don't know if I follow you," her friend said.

	Gally leaned forward, hands clenched together.  "You don't know what
it's like, Washuu.  When you fight, it's like a game of chess.  You're
pitting your intellect against your opponent, trying to out-smart them. 
For me... it's about a feeling."

	"What kind of feeling?"

	She bit her lip and shook her head.  "It's so hard to put into
words.  I'm a cyborg.  I live in a grey margin between flesh and steel. 
When my heart is pounding and my mind is racing and there's nothing else
but the battle, it's like my whole world burns away.  I'm in this
perfect white space, where it doesn't matter if I remember my past or if
I even know my own name.  When I'm there, I AM the battle.  It's... when
I'm being true to myself."  She spread her hands helplessly.  "Does that
make any sense?"

	Washuu rubbed her chin.  "A state of mental hyper-awareness and
heightened reflexive acuity.  It's not uncommon for fighters and
athletes to experience that kind of fugue.  Only..."  She paused.

	"Yes?"

	"It concerns me that you take it to such an extreme," Washuu told
her bluntly.  "That state you're after requires a fine balance.  If you
take it too far, it can be psychologically dangerous."

	"I can handle it," Gally assured her.  "This is what I was meant to
do.  I can feel it in my soul."

	"That's not a very objective standpoint!" A edge of frustration
crept into Washuu's voice.  "You are messing with your own head in a
very risky way, girl.  Don't you see that?"

"What are you so worried about?" Gally asked.  "Are you really afraid
I'm going to hurt her?"

	"Her?" Washuu pulled back, her features hardening.  "I don't know
who you mean."

	"Yes you do," Gally pressed.  "Mary.  I'm talking about Mary. 
That's what's got you so worried, isn't it?"

	"Mary has nothing to do with this."

	"Of course she does!" The cyborg spread her hands.  "Don't you think
I can see what's been going on around here?  Ever since you adopted her,
you've been different.  Before, you were the most carefree person I've
ever met.  Now... it's like you're always looking over your shoulder,
Washuu.  Like you're carrying some heavy weight."

	"You are reading too much into it," Washuu insisted, crossing her
arms.

	"Am I?" The Battle Angel peered intently at the scientist.  "The
timing of Mary's arrival... the way you've been acting... the things
that I've seen her do... come on!  I may not be a super genius, but I
can still put two and two together!"

	The brilliant inventor pressed her fingers to her temples and grit
her teeth.  "It's just a mother's protectiveness!  That's IT, all
right?"

	"So you have to be a mother to protect her," Gally said.  "And I
have to be a warrior."

	"Gally..."

	"I don't know who she really is," the cyborg admitted.  "And I'm not
going to ask.  But you wouldn't be so scared if there wasn't a good
reason.  That's all I need to know, Washuu.  I promise you, I'll be
strong enough to protect you both when you need me.  Okay?"

	Washuu rubbed her eyes.  "Okay.  Just... just be careful, all right?
 That's all I'm asking."  

	Gally gave her an affectionate squeeze on the arm before she hopped
off the table.  "I've got to get ready for the match," she said.  As she
made her way to the door, she turned back to give Washuu one last glance
over her shoulder.  "Don't worry," she said.  "No matter what happens,
I'll still be the same Gally you've always known."

	Washuu watched the cyborg's graceful form as she disappeared through
the doorway.  'I hope you're right,' she thought.

*  *  *  *  *

	"Now, for our second exhibition match of the evening, we'll be going
to a location not too far away from Los Angeles."

	"And what a match it'll be!" Hiroshi cliche'd, grabbing his
microphone like it was a pet mouse and his name was Lenny.  "Is it an
Omega match?  Is it flat-out knock-down no-holds-barred?  Is it LOSER
LEAVES ULTRA?  Why, YES IT IS!"

	Daisuke shuffled some papers in front of him and coolly explained,
"Shinji Ikari and Gally will soon be deposited at one point in Death
Valley.  They will race for the finish somewhere else in the national
park, doing everything in their power to slow the other competitor. 
Whoever reaches the end first maintains their Ultra contract; whoever
comes in second is fired."

	"That's right!  In this PPV of the City of Angels, the former agent
of Heaven and the Battle Angel must fight one another to stay where
they've made their home for so long!"

	"We thought about making them wear pipe-cleaner halos," Daisuke
deadpanned, "but someone thought that was taking the theme a bit too
far."

	"Angels or not, I'm told that Death Valley is like Hell on Earth!"
Hiroshi segued.  "Folks, the action doesn't get any hotter than this! 
So let's take you there now, where Jack and Krillin are waiting to start
the show!"

*  *  *  *  *

	The shimmering blue portals opened to release the two Omega
competitors into the murderous furnace that was Death Valley.  Waves of
crippling heat rippled from the desert floor, distorting the parched
air. Yellow-brown desert stretched out in every direction, rimmed by
towering cliffs of jagged, contorted stone. Only the most tenacious,
bloody-minded plants dared to sink their roots into this blighted
landscape.  

	Gally stepped forth onto the burning sands, shading her eyes against
the blinding glare of the sun.  It felt like she'd just stuck her face
into an oven.  From the way Shinji Ikari was already sweating, it was
clear that he was even more uncomfortable in the heat.  The boy stood in
his white shirt and blue jeans, squinting painfully against the light. 

	"Shinji!" Gally called to him.

	"Hmm?" The Eva pilot approached her, walking gingerly across the
sun-baked desert. 

	"I consider you a friend," she told her opponent, "but this is the
battlefield!  I'm here to win, no matter what."

	"I'm going to try my hardest," he told her.  "I guess I'll see if
I'm meant to win or not."

	"What does that mean?"

	He shrugged.  "All I can do is give it everything I've got.  If I'm
supposed to stay in Ultra, then I'll win.  If not... then I guess
there's something else in store for me.  That's all."

	"You're going to lose," Gally assured him, a harsh edge to her
voice.  "Count on it.  Get in my way, Shinji, and I'll show you no
mercy!"

	Shinji just cocked his head and gave her a curious look.

	The UltraPod camera (outfitted with special afterburners for this
event) drifted towards them, with Krillin close behind.  The two
fighters turned to the sturdy little floating device and watched as it
emitted a holographic projection of Controversial Jack.  The head booker
wore a baseball cap and dark shades, as did his constant companion, Mr.
Duck.  

	"WOW!" he said, doffing his hat momentarily to mop his brow.  "Hot
enough for you?"

	"I was hoping we'd get through this without anybody saying that,"
Krillin grumbled.

	"Okay, kids," Jack addressed the two Omega competitors.  "Right now
you two are somewhere south of Badwater, the lowest point in this
hemisphere.  You've got a forty mile run until you get to the Mesquite
Flats sand dunes, which is where I'm standing now!"

	The hologram expanded to reveal more of Jack's surroundings.  The
two fighters could see that he was standing next to the official Ultra
dune buggy, nestled in the scant shade provided by an outcrop of ruddy
stone.  

	>Squeak!<

	"Mr. Duck here says that he's going to be waiting to greet the
winner!" Jack translated.  He set the small yellow figure down on the
hood of the dune buggy.  "He's volunteered to be the finish line. 
Whoever gets their mitts on the duck first gets to keep their job! Got
that, kids?"

	"I understand," Shinji said.

	"Let's start this!" Gally demanded.

	"All right!" Jack pumped his fist in the air.    "I'll see you at
the finish!  Krillin, they're all yours!"  

	"Okay, it's time," the bald referee instructed.  "Take your
places..."

	Shinji closed his eyes, shifted out of phase, and was replaced by
the immense form of Evangelion Unit 01.  The vast purple mech crouched
before the starting line drawn in the sand and waited, poised to run. 
Gally adjusted her goggles in place and took her spot several paces
away, coiled like a spring.

][ SPECIAL OMEGA MATCH - LOSER LEAVES ULTRA 
][ WITH SPECIAL GUEST BOOKER GRAYSON TOWLER
][ Shinji Ikari in Evangelion Unit 01 vs. Gally
][ ON YOUR MARK... GET SET...

	"...GO!" Krillin shouted.

	Gally exploded forward the moment she heard Krillin give the word. 
'A good start is all that matters!' she thought.  The Evangelion could
cover a lot of ground with its long strides, but she had the advantage
in acceleration.  If she could get out in front of her opponent, she
could make sure he'd never overtake her.  She streaked from the finish
line, a humming black blur against the blazing sands...

	... and crashed hard into an invisible barrier.

	Evangelion Unit 01 took a thunderous step forward.

	'His AT Field!' Gally realized.  'He's using it to keep me in!'

	Hundreds of miles away, Hiroshi shouted into his microphone.  "A
strong opening move by Shinji!  He's extending that AT Field like a
bubble to keep Gally from taking the lead!"

	"I thought Gally would have a serious speed advantage," Daisuke
commented, "but this could turn the tables."

	"A GREAT strategy by the Eva pilot!" Hiroshi enthused.  

	"There's only one drawback," Daisuke noted.  "If he's using his
force field to keep her close to him..."

	'...he can't use it to protect himself!' Gally thought.  She flashed
her teeth in a predator's grin.  The Eva was big, but her Panzer Kunst
style of fighting was designed to give her the edge against opponents of
greater size and strength.  "If it's a fight you want," she snarled,
"I'll GIVE you one!"

	A fight seemed to be exactly what Shinji wanted.  He reared back and
drove a colossal fist in Gally's direction.

	The Battle Angel assessed the incoming attack and hopped backwards. 
'Clumsy!' she thought.  'He'll miss me by a mile!'

	In fact, he did miss her by a sizable margin... but it was clear
that he hadn't been aiming for her in the first place.  Before the Eva
struck the ground, Shinji uncurled its fist and formed the massive
purple hand into a sort of scoop.  The powerful mech struck the desert
floor, kicking up a tremendous shower of sand and hot rubble.  

	The searing wave of debris washed over Gally's tiny form in a rush. 
Some of the more sizable chunks of stone hit her like shrapnel from a
grenade.  She tumbled to the ground, spluttering.  

	'Damn it!' she thought.  Before she managed to right herself, Shinji
reared back and drove another tsunami of desert floor her way.  She
braced herself against the impact.

	'Those waves are too big to dodge!' she thought.  'The only way to
deal with them... is to go right through!'

	As the Evangelion's hand plowed into the ground once again, Gally
covered her head and launched herself into the storm.  Her mechanized
body pierced the blistering sheet of debris and emerged through to the
other side... right next to the Eva's hand.

	'You're mine!' she thought savagely.  Artificial muscle flexed and
cybernetic limbs churned as Gally stepped onto the back of the Eva's
hand, then tore her way up the length of the great mecha's armor-clad
arm.  Shinji pulled back, but he wasn't fast enough to dislodge the
charging Battle Angel.

	Gally reared back her arm as she approached the Eva's head, fingers
extended like the blade of a knife.  She homed in on the Eva's glowing
white eye, ready to plant her arm up to the shoulder in its socket with
a deadly Panzer Kunst strike.  

	'What will that do to him?' she wondered.  Shinji was merged with
the Eva, which was a living machine... did that thing have a brain in
there?  If she drove her arm through it, then would he...

	'Crap!' she thought.  As she let fly with her attack, she changed
her trajectory.  She struck the Evangelion right between its eyes with a
flat vibrating palm, sending a powerful shockwave clean through its
purple armor.  The great mecha's head snapped back under the force of
the blow.

	Gravity took hold of the Hunter-Warrior and she dropped towards the
ground, while the Eva staggered back.  She lashed out with both feet,
kicking off with all her might against the expanse of Unit 01's chest. 
The force of the blow launched her through the air like a bullet, away
from the starting line and her adversary. Gally landed running, sparing
only the briefest look back.

	'That hit stunned him,' she thought as she worked her way up to
speed.  'I can get a lead on him, and he won't be able to catch me!'  

	But the scrub desert was not an easy place for the Battle Angel to
run.  Gnarled sage and tenacious cacti clutched at her feet as she tore
across Death Valley.  Hot sand sucked at her feet with every stride,
trying to kill her momentum with each step she took.  She had to veer to
avoid the spiny Joshua Trees in her path, and she needed to watch her
step with ultrasonic imaging to avoid tripping in the burrows of the
hardy little rodents and reptiles which made their homes in this
inhospitable place.  

	With the arid wind whistling past her ears, she didn't hear the
Evangelion's footfalls... but she could feel them.

	'I'm not moving fast enough!' she thought.  She'd suffered some
systems damage in her fight with the Evangelion, and she wasn't
operating at top capacity anymore.  Insidious grains of silica had found
their way into her joints, grinding along the insides of her body with
each stride.  

	Unit 01's thunderous footsteps shook the desert, each more powerful
than the last.

	'He's catching up!  I've got to turn and fight!'  Gally whirled to
face her adversary, poised to do battle once again...

	The Evangelion blew right by her, over a hundred yards to her left. 
Shinji clearly had no intention of fighting her this time - he simply
sprinted past her along the blistering desert floor, striding like a
titan.  By virtue of its sheer bulk, Unit 01 could ignore all the
obstacles which slowed Gally down

	'No!' Gally thought as she watched him pass.  'I won't lose!  I
won't!'  She took off again, veering away from the Eva to the east.  

	If there had been nothing but harsh scrub desert from there to the
finish line, Gally knew she wouldn't have had a chance of catching the
speeding Evangelion.  Fortunately, as Washuu had told her before the
race, she had another option besides trying to run through hot sand the
whole way.  A twisting strip of concrete called Interstate 190 ran
through the burning hell of Death Valley, and now it was Gally's only
hope.

	Evangelion Unit 01 had already disappeared from her sight, obscured
behind a tremendous cloud of dust kicked up in the wake of its passage. 
Gally didn't look at her adversary, but her sensors kept track of the
Eva's progress.  She sped through the desert towards the highway,
churning her way across the merciless sands.

	When Gally's feet hit I-190, she took off like a rocket.

	The cyborg's legs beat a frantic rhythm along the stretch of road,
pounding like pistons to drive her forward in a blinding streak.  She
checked her reading on the Eva as it chewed up huge chunks of distance
with its giant strides.  'I'm going faster!' she realized with elation. 
'On the road, I can outrun him!'

	But it wasn't that simple.  The highway arced its way through the
blistering basin of Death Valley in an oblique path, while the Eva had
the luxury of taking a direct route towards the finish.  And the road
didn't lead all the way to the finish - she was going to have to leave
the interstate and cross about five miles of dunes to get to Mr. Duck.  

	'More speed!' she demanded of herself.  'I can't afford to lose a
second!'

	Internal alarms flashed in her mind, warning her of the danger of
system failure.  The road was faster, but it was also hotter.  The heat
rising from the concrete turned the interstate into a baking thermal
corridor, even more brutal than the rest of the desert.  The grit lodged
in her joints wouldn't go away, and she couldn't afford to hold still
long enough to purge it.  Safety interlocks threatened to clamp down and
force her to give her body a rest.

	With a harsh mental shove, Gally overrode the failsafe systems and
ignored the mounting warnings.  Washuu had told her that her synthetic
muscle was susceptible to overheating, but she couldn't afford to ease
off.  'Have to push myself past the limit,' she thought with grim
determination.  'I can't lose, not this time!'

	The Battle Angel tore along the highway, trying to outrun the
unstoppable giant which raced through the desert several miles away.

	As she approached the critical point at which she would have to
leave the interstate, her internal computers gave her the verdict in
callous, pitiless math.  She wasn't going to make it.  She had a lead,
but it wasn't enough to carry her across that last stretch.  Even the
most generous estimates of her speed told the tale - the Eva was going
to overtake her.

	'No!' she thought furiously.  'There has to be a way!'

	She checked the vectors again, calculating madly.  She couldn't beat
the Evangelion to the finish, but if she pushed herself to the limit...
she could intercept it.

	"No choice!" she screamed.  "Here I come!"

	Gally banked off sharply and left the interstate, blasting into the
desert like a living artillery shell.  Sheets of ochre sand rose up on
either side of her as she tore across the waste, streaking towards the
Evangelion with all her might.  Internal claxons blared madly in her
mind, trying to warn her of the damage she was inflicting on her own
body, but she pushed onwards, carried on the wings of an irresistible
will to win.

	'One good shot to his knee!' she thought as the Eva grew larger in
her view, its purple body warped in her vision by the pulsing waves of
heated air rising from the nightmarish landscape.  'If I blow the joint
out, even that thing won't heal before I reach the finish!  That's all I
need!'

	The Evangelion loomed before her, a towering colossus striding like
a god across Death Valley.  She planted her foot, pivoted her hip, and
launched herself in a flying kick towards the leg of the immense
machine...

	Baleful, pale eyes tracked her movement.  Her throat clenched as she
hurtled towards the monstrous machine, but she couldn't change her
trajectory in mid-flight.  'He sees me!  I'm too slow!  I...'

	A flashing purple fist blurred before her, and something terrible
happened to her leg.  Gally screamed and tumbled through the air.

	The cyborg's body plowed into the desert floor, kicking up a spray
of sand in every direction.  She tried to roll with the impact, but her
body wouldn't respond, wouldn't move... 

	When she came to rest, she saw what had happened to her leg.  'No,'
she thought, unable to accept the sight of the pulverized chunk of
plastic and metal dangling below what used to be her knee.  'No, no,
no!'

	Cybernetic blood leaked from the mangled ruin of her leg into the
parched sands.  Gally rolled over to her belly, trying to orient on the
finish line.  Her movements were stiff and painfully slow as her
internal systems began to shut down, one by one.  

	"Can't... stop..."

	Gally crawled, slower than a Death Valley tortoise, desperately
yearning for the finish which lay just a mile in the distance.  The
Evangelion was already halfway there, and nothing she could do would
stop it now.

	The great purple machine broke its stride and thudded to a halt.  

	Gally thought she might be hallucinating.  The sinewy form of Unit
01 pulsed in her vision amongst the waves of heat rising from the desert
floor, but it was... turning around.  She felt the shockwaves of the
giant's footfalls grow more powerful as it strode back to where she lay,
until finally the Evangelion stood towered above her, looking down on
her broken body with glowing white eyes.

	Then, it was gone, and Shinji Ikari knelt beside her.

	"Wha..." she croaked, utterly confused.

	"Hold on a second," the boy said, examining the wreck of her leg. 
"I think this may hurt."

	Shinji concentrated, extending his AT Field.  The invisible sheet of
force materialized in the middle of Gally's thigh, instantly severing
the demolished leg.  The Hunter-Warrior yelped in shock as Shinji neatly
amputated her damaged limb.  

	"Here," he said.  "Got to stop the bleeding."  With that, he peeled
off his shirt and wrapped it around the stump of her thigh.  He tied the
garment in a rough tourniquet, tightening it down with all his strength.
 Supple synthetic muscle gave under the pressure, pinching off the flow
of Gally's artificial blood.  

	"What... are you..." she tried again.

	"I'm going to help you... OW!"  Shinji pulled his hand back in
surprise after touching her body, sucking on his burned fingers.  Her
cybernetic flesh was as hot as a blacksmith's forge.  Shinji frowned,
contemplating the problem.

	"You're... why..."

	"Let's see if this will work," he said.  Shinji reached down and
smeared his hands with the fluid that had leaked from Gally's wounded
leg.  Her cybernetic plasma was as complex as any human's blood, but one
of its components was a powerful machine coolant.  The young Eva pilot
coated his arm and side with Gally's blood, then tried touching her
again.

	He winced from the heat, but it seemed to be bearable.  Shinji
adjusted his grip, getting a hold of Gally under her arms.  With a grunt
of effort, he hauled her upright.

	"Come on," he gasped.  "Let's go."

	"I CAN'T believe it!" Hiroshi cried, all the way back in Pasadena. 
"Shinji has gone back to help his opponent finish the race!"

	"What does he think he's doing?" Daisuke asked rhetorically.  "And
how come..."

	"...how come..." Gally wheezed, "you don't... use the Eva... to
carry..."

	Shinji trudged forward, helping the battered cyborg hop awkwardly
alongside him.  "I guess there are just some things the Eva isn't meant
to do," he told her.

	"What... does that..." 

	"Don't talk," he instructed her.  "We've got... a long way to go."

	The sun hammered angry rays down upon their bodies as Shinji and
Gally hobbled across the dunes, inching their way towards the finish
line.  Though he commanded the power of a demi-god in his Evangelion,
Shinji was a small boy as a human.  He was hard pressed to support
Gally's heavy mechanical body.  His skin reddened under the onslaught of
the desert sun, and he panted from the strain of his burden.

	"Why..." Gally pleaded.  "Why are you... doing this...?"

	Shinji paused to take a few deep breaths before pressing on. 
"Because you didn't do what you said you would."

	"I... what?"

	"You might have killed me back there," he said, jerking his head
back in the general direction of the starting line.  "But you didn't. 
Instead, you showed me mercy."

	A hoarse, dry sob racked its way out of Gally's throat.  "Just
look... where that got me..."

	"Yes," Shinji agreed.  "Look where that got you."

	In her luxury booth in the Rose Bowl, Nabiki glared at the monitor
angrily.  'What the hell does that idiot think he's doing?' she thought,
looking at Shinji.  'If he thinks I'm going to get away with letting
them do some stupid simultaneous finish trick, he's dead wrong.  If
there's no clear winner, I'll fire both their asses.'

	She paced back and forth in her booth, glowering at the screen.  'I
ought to fire them both anyway!  Look at this... this is a complete
ratings disaster!  Nobody signed up to watch invalids crawling around in
the desert for thirty minutes!  Ultra fans want action, and this is
just... well, it's boring.  The fan's are going to...'

	Somewhere in the Rose Bowl, the chant began.  

	At first it was just a single voice, but the fans around that first
chanter began to add their voices as well.  The chant spread through the
Rose Bowl like the ripples of a stone in a pond, catching hold of every
member of the audience as it swept the stadium.  Just one simple word,
carrying with it a whole world of emotion.  "GO!  GO!  GO!"

	Nabiki stared in disbelief at the crowd as they rose to their feet,
shouting the word, thrusting their fists into the air.  The chant surged
in power with each repetition, louder and louder, stronger and stronger,
until the Rose Bowl pulsed like some great beating heart as the fans
called out in a single, deafening voice.  "GO! GO! GO! GO!"

	'I don't understand it,' she thought, thunderstruck.  'I don't...'

	"GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!!"

	The UltraPod beamed the chant across hundreds of miles into the
blistering, torrid air of Death Valley.  The voices swept through Gally
and Shinji, buoying their flagging strength.  Wordlessly, the two Omega
warriors crept across the parched wasteland, struggling against the
wrath of the desert sun.

	Gally's joints creaked horribly with every step.  'I can't go...
much further,' she thought.  Her energy reserves were all but dry, and
even her emergency life support batteries had only the barest flicker of
a charge left.  'I can't... I'm sorry... I...'

	She lost her balance, lurching forward.  Gally flailed her arm out
reflexively to catch her fall, and her hand touched something soft...
something that made a squeak.

	The Battle Angel leaned against the hood of the Ultra dune buggy,
staring with disbelief at the yellow rubber duck in her hand.

	"And the winner!" Krillin shouted.  "GALLY!"

	"No..." she cried out, tumbling to the desert floor.  "NO!  I...
I..."

	Now that the race was over, glowing portals opened to permit the
entrance of a team of paramedics and technicians.  They rushed to the
beleaguered fighters, life-saving equipment in their hands.  

	"You should have won!" she wept.  "I..."

	"You made it," Shinji told her, kneeling beside her and smiling. 
The medics buzzed around them, hooking wires into Gally's body to pump
energy and fluid back into her system.  "You won the race."

	As the medics shoveled her onto a stretcher, Gally reached up and
clasped Shinji in a desperate one-armed embrace.  "I won't forget this,"
she whispered to him feverishly, then planted a fierce kiss on his
cheek.  "I promise... I promise..."

	The white-clad technicians hauled her away, and Shinji rubbed his
cheek in wonder.  A few of the medics tried to herd Shinji off, but he
resisted for a moment.  Controversial Jack forced his way through the
crowd, followed by the UltraPod.  

	"Well, kid," the head booker said, "you could've had that race."

	"I know," Shinji agreed.  

	"But you gave it up!" Jack said, spreading his arms.  "You let her
have your job!"

	"I think... she needs to be here."  Shinji watched as the medics
carried Gally back through the portal  "And it's time for me to move
on."

	"Move on?"

	"Ultra's been good for me," Shinji explained.  "But it's not enough.
 I realized something.  I know there are people like Bison out there,
all over the world.  And there are other people who spend every day
standing up to them, not just once a week on television.  I think...
that's what I need to do."

	"You got a job lined up, kid?" Jack queried.

	"Not yet," Shinji admitted.  "I have some ideas.  Interpol, maybe. 
I may even contact the X-Men.  I'm not sure yet.  But this is what I
need to do."

	"It may seem kinda strange, since I'm the one handing you a pink
slip," Jack told him, "but I think we're going to miss you around here,
Shinji."

	"Well, you may not have seen the last of me," the young Eva pilot
said.  He closed his eyes, thinking of the face of the girl bathed in
golden light, and smiled to himself.  

	"You had a great run, kid."

	"Yes," he replied.  He turned to the UltraPod.  He was utterly
exhausted, sunburned and scorched, smeared with desert grit and
synthetic blood, but Shinji thrust his arms into the air and shouted. 
The exuberant roar of the crowd washed over him, filling him with utter
delight. "YES!  I did!  I had a GREAT run!  I'll never forget this time!
 Thank you!  Thank you, everybody!  THANK YOU, ULTRA!"

	As he said farewell to Ultra, Shinji Ikari's face shone with a smile
brighter than the California sun.

*  *  *  *  *

	"And... folks, let's say a collective goodbye to... to..."  Hiroshi
waved ineffectively at the empty air, then scrubbed at his cheek.  "Just
give me a second, Daisuke.  I'll be ... I'll be fine!"

	"And thus, we say goodbye to one of Ultra's first and finest
fighters.  The original Omega Champion has found another path to follow,
and all of us here at Ultra wish Shinji all the best."  Daisuke handed a
tissue to Hiroshi, then quickly continued before the emotional high tide
in the audience could ebb.

	"Now, the final match of the night.  This will determine the
Internet Champion for another season, but, more than that, it will prove
who has the determination, drive, and skill to take that title.  This is
what the night has been building up to, so, without further ado..."

	Hiroshi cut in, rising halfway out of his chair as he shouted, "Here
she is, former Lambda and Reboot champion... Tifa Lockhart!"

	Even before her white and black-clad form took the top of the ramp,
the audience was roaring.  An uncharacteristic flare of pyros greeted
Tifa as she stepped into the growing twilight.  She squinted against
their light for a moment, then smiled brightly and began a confident
stride down the ramp.  As she approached the bottom, she turned it into
a jog, to the delight of many.  At the base, Bean waited for her.  He
gave her a squeeze on her arm and an intense look of encouragement as
she momentarily stopped, which she returned with a quick peck on his
cheek.  

	The mood in the stadium when she took the ring was, shortly, one of
pure adoration.  More specifically, it was filled with adulations and
well-wishers for the martial artist, hoping she would take back her
title and see nothing but victory that day.

	As soon as Hiroshi raised his microphone once more, the mood in the
stadium suddenly became very different.

	There were no pyros as Ash entered, and no one to greet him at the
bottom of the ramp.  He was dimly aware of four sets of eyes watching
him as he stormed down the ramp, but firmly ignored his former partner,
rival, and enemies.  He also firmly ignored the boos that had started
up, and the signs that had appeared out of nowhere.  Even when one that
read "Ash 3:16 sez: Hail to the queen, baby!" with a cartoon of Tifa
stomping on him was thrown into his path, he simply walked over it.

	At his determined expression, Tifa's fell.

	Hiroshi's introduction, upset somewhat by his fanfare-less
appearance, was similarly ignored as Ash climbed into the ring.  He
pulled his hat around to face front once more, casting his eyes deep in
shadow.  Though Tifa could no longer see his face, he could see hers,
and it was growing more distressed by the second.

	"I am going to win," Ash said in a voice so low and determined that
it came out almost as a hiss.  "I'm the person who's supposed to win. 
People try to make me lose, but I'm the best, not them.  Not them!"

	At the other side of the ring, Tifa's expression grew even more
worried.

][ REBOOT 3.0 FINAL ROUND
][ CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
][ TIFA LOCKHART VS. ASH KETCHUM
][ FIGHT!

	"Ash, wait.  Please.  Just for a minute."

	A look of ultimate irritation present on his prepubescent face, Ash
let his pokeball drop to his side.  "What?"

	Tifa took a step forward, her gaze growing sadder with each step. 
"There was a boy that... I used to know, who thought he wasn't good
enough.  He'd try to do something, and someone he thought he could
better swept past him and did it instead."  As she'd talked, her voice
had choked up more by the word.  She paused to swallow hard, then
continued.  "And he let himself become very confused, and people started
manipulating him, and he couldn't see what was right in front of his
face."

	Ash's face was unreadable, looking far more stony than any ten
year-old's should.  Tifa swallowed again.  "And... and he only really
figured things out right before he... before he was killed."

	The audience was silent, waiting for Ash to respond.  He stared at
Tifa, measured breaths the only movement that could be seen.  Confusion
lay behind his eyes as he tried to process emotions that he didn't have
the experience or age to understand.

	Tifa took one step forward, her hand extended.  "And watching you
fight over the last season, Ash... you're starting to remind me of him
at his worst.  I'll let you win if you want.  I know this is important
to you, and I already won this championship once.  Think of it as a way
to set yourself back on the right track.  I... I really don't want to
see someone else start to go down that same path as... as he did."  She
cocked her head slightly to one side, smiling despite the sadness in her
gaze.  "What do you say?"

	The audience leaned forward.  More than anything, Hollywood loves a
happy ending.

	"...That guy sounds pretty stupid," Ash replied as he recalled
Bulbasaur.  Tifa was doubled over, now, clutching her stomach where the
Vine Whips had struck her in rapid succession.  "You should never let
people tell you what to do.  I know what's right, and I'm gonna stick to
that!  So what if he did a bunch of wrong stuff... that's not me!  Misty
left because she's better friends with a evil duck than me!  Gary thinks
he's better than me, but then he went and said that Team Rocket's been
playing fair!"

	Tifa raised up on one hand, gritting her teeth.  "Fine, if that's
the way you want it.  I'll beat some sense into you if I have to, kid." 
She moved to hop to her feet, only to get sent flying by a massive
strike.

	A bellow rang out through the stadium as Charizard brought its tail
back around.  It let out a satisfied snort, then another when Ash patted
it on the neck.  "I know you can take her, Charizard!  I won't even tell
you what to do, just win!"

	"Oh, you are really asking for it," Tifa muttered as she advanced
cautiously on the pair.  "I don't like fighting kids, but it's a whole
different matter when it's a brat like you.  I'm sorry I even offered to
let you win."

	"Don't feel too bad.  I'll win anyway," Ash smirked.

	"The audience is really into this-HEY!" Hiroshi yelped as he dodged
a full cup of cola someone had thrown at Ash.  It splatted harmlessly on
the ground, but Hiroshi's heart was left momentarily racing from his
near-miss.  "...Really into this match," he finished with a grumble.  "I
can't see one person here who's not on Tifa's side.  When Ash entered
Ultra, he was a fan favorite-"

	"But he's managed to shoot that straight to hell," Daisuke noted,
chin in hand.  "Maybe he should take some lessons from Marlo in crowd
entertainment.  They don't love to hate him, they just hate him."

	A 'hell yeah, we do!' erupted from the the nearest section of seats.
 Daisuke turned around in his chair to looked at them.  "How do they
coordinate that?" he wondered aloud.

	"And the stalemate is OVER!" Hiroshi cut in, leaning towards the
ring.  "Tifa has been dodging Charizard's attacks, which has infuriated
it to no end.  Ash is bringing out Squirtle, now, so he must be ready to
call Charizard off-"

	"Water blast!" Ash directed Squirtle.  He brought his arm up for
Charizard, too; the dragon, normally so obstinate, was more than happy
to comply against the woman who'd proved even more annoying than its
master.

	"-Or not," Hiroshi finished as the two pokemon launched their dual
attack.

	Tifa, who'd been content to hang back and wait for the considerably
less agile Charizard to make its moves, furrowed her brow slightly. 
"What are you doing?"  In short order, her questions were answered.  As
Squirtle's water stream impacted with Charizard's fire, a solid wall of
steam was created that she had barely a second to react to.  She dropped
into a ball, minimizing the amount of skin exposed to the searing vapor
as much as possible.  Her outfit being what it was, a large amount was
still hit.

	A collective wince ran through the stadium.  Nowhere was it more
pronounced that at the announcer's table, where Hiroshi was yelping
about some of the steam drifting over to him.

	A slightly reddened Tifa got to her feet, murder in her eyes. 
"You... little... BRAT!  You talk about fighting fair, and this is what
you think it entails?  You..."

	There was a pause among Tifa, the announcers, and the entire
audience as Ash released every single pokemon in his arsenal.  Several
people in the front three rows fell over with seizures from the light
show.

	"...You... yooohoohoohoo... you ARE insane!" she gasped as she took
a step backwards.  "What about all that stuff you've said about how
you're the only person here to fight fair?"

	"This isn't the Pokemon League," he smirked.  "I tried to be the
only one to play by its rules, but it's more important to win and play
by Ultra's rules than let people get away with cheating."

	Tifa flickered her gaze over to Bean; he was looking between Tifa
and the horde of pokemon opposite her, jaw clenched tight.  She could
see him swallow hard as he came to the same realization she had.

	Didn't mean she couldn't give winning a shot, though.

	With a yell, she pitched towards the pokemon.  They scattered on her
approach, forcing her to choose a single target.  She went for the most
dangerous first, and struck the side of Charizard's neck with her metal
foot plate before it could let loose a fire blast.  The move sent its
head whipping to one side, and she was ready with an elbow jab when it
turned back to face her.  In the focus that battle brought, she was
aware enough to reach out and block another Vine Whip attack with her
free arm, letting the thick cables wrap around her limb.  Bulbasaur was
sent flying into the turnbuckle as she jerked her arm around in a
circle, and Tifa gave herself the luxury of a manic grin.  The dragon
before her reared back for another attack, and she took the opportunity
to do a back flip that caught it on the bottom of the jaw, then took
Pidgeotto down on the follow through.

	She spun to flash a fierce grin at Ash.  "Nice try, kid, but you...
have to..."  She groggily looked down towards her arms, which were
covered in a faint pink powder.  Feeling her legs start to wobble under
her, she took her last few seconds of consciousness to look up at
Butterfree and curse herself for not keeping the benign-looking pokemon
in mind as a threat.

	She slumped to the ground and let out a faint snore.  One solid blow
to the head from Charizard's tail and a countdown later, it was over.

	"...dammit," Hiroshi muttered.

	"Your mic's on."

	"Yeah, I know.  Just wanted to express the opinion of the audience. 
Ash Ketchum takes the third Reboot Internet Championship," Hiroshi
practically spat out.

	The belt nearly dwarfed the boy as it was handed to him.  If it
didn't dwarf him, then the boos of the audience did.  He attempted to
manage the belt for a couple of seconds, then handed it to Charizard to
carry.  The pokemon let out a proud bellow at its accomplishments, and,
surprisingly, did what Ash asked.

	"Well, I guess I proved that-"

	The audience's boos grew louder.

	"...I am the pokemon master, after al-"

	People started throwing half-eaten concessions into the ring.

	"...I won and I'm the best," Ash spat out in a quick yell before he
could be interrupted again.  Charizard beside him, he strode up the
ramp.

	"How'd a kid that age learn all those gestures?" Hiroshi wondered
aloud as he watched Ash's departure.

	Daisuke sighed.  "That's all, folks!  People have joined Ultra,
we've said goodbye to an long-time competitor, and the Internet
Championship has passed from Mousse to Ash!  So long as there's not any
announcements from the folks upstairs, we're ready to sign off!"

	There was a short, expectant pause.

	"...then so long as we're not going to be attacked by a wanna-be god
or international crime lord, we're ready to sign off!"

	Daisuke hit Hiroshi across the arm.  "Do you want me to knock on
wood by smacking it against your HEAD?"

	As Hiroshi cringed, the audience waited fearfully.  Again, nothing
happened.
	
	"Well... I guess that's it, then!" Hiroshi beamed.  "Good night,
good fi... ow.  Why does my nose hurt?"

	"You'll be feeling that sunburn in a couple of days," Daisuke
smirked.  "Good night, folks!"

*  *  *  *  *

	It was a good day to be an evil bastard.

	Generalissimo M. Bison leaned back in his recliner, upholstered in
the finest calfskin money could buy.  If he was into that whole
"exchanging money for goods and services" thing instead of just
demanding it at gunpoint, that was.  

	"I could have figured out a way to start an earthquake or
something," B-ko sniffed.  "You let a golden opportunity go to waste. 
All those people out in the open; hold them hostage, and the bad
publicity would have sent ticket prices into the gutter.  Nabiki would
be dying to sell the company."

	Bison's massive shoulders shrugged, changing the air currents in the
room.  "It's not always about going in with your guns blazing. 
Sometimes, I like to use," he paused there to lift a martini glass into
the air, his pinky delicately extended, "finesse."

	"This from the man who blew up a Guatemalan village to check out a
new shipment of weapons," B-ko smirked.  

	Bison sipped at his martini.  "Paranoia is a highly overlooked tool
of negotiations.  Tendou knows about my physical assets-"

	B-ko looked slightly green at the choice of words.

	"-but she's not had the pleasure of having a mental war waged on
her, as well.  That Lysias man tried to do as much, but really, he
lacked... what?"  He smiled thinly at B-ko.

	"Finesse?" she sighed, mentally calculating all the ways she could
have attacked the stadium during the time they were talking.

	"Finesse!"  The maroon-clad man finished off his martini, then
crushed the glass in his hand.  "And it will be fun to watch her
squirm."

*  *  *  *  *

	The mood in the manager's box was less than pleasant.  Thorne had
wisely snuck out, leaving the two Ultra bosses to go over the night's
results in privacy.

	"Why didn't Team Rocket do what they do best... why didn't Team
Rocket do what they do most frequently and steal the title from Ash?"
Nabiki groaned.  "I'd have let them keep it.  People like them.  No one
likes Ash.  He was supposed to be an easy win for Morrigan."

	"Well, you're obviously not a very good manager if you keep your
fighters so undersexed.  Now, that could be remedied if we just-"

	"For the last time, Jack, I am not going to supply prostitutes to my
employees."

	"You turn down my all my ideas.  Hookers, holding the next UltraRage
in Akron, a demolition derby match through the streets of Shinjuku...  I
don't feel like this partnership is very equal."

	Nabiki contemplated answering him for a moment.  It was a short
moment.  She instead grabbed a stack of printouts and started rifling
through them.  "Replay rates aren't going to bring in much, but at least
we're getting a cut off of all Haohmaru's earnings."

	Jack blinked.  "You actually included something in the fighters'
contracts about that?"

	She handed one over.  "I can make someone name their first-born
child 'Ultra Means Quality Entertainment' if I want."

	Jack's eyebrow quirked as he leafed through the contracts.  "Beek,
I've underestimated you.  I highly approve."

	"And you know that I value your approval so highly."

	He shrugged.  "Care about what I think or not, Beeky babe, but I'll
tell you something.  You get way too worried about all this stuff, and
Ultra's no good if the person running it doesn't have fun with the job."

	"It's a little hard to have fun when-" Nabiki halted in her snapped
reply to Jack, reluctant to share her feelings with him.

	"When what?"

	She sighed.  "When your little sister is being targeted by Bison,
Jack, then talk to me about being worried."  She flipped through her
wallet, looking for a particular picture.  When she found the one of the
two people in question, she looked at it thoughtfully.  "Ranma's around,
though... I guess if he can protect her against egotistical princes,
figure skaters, tea house owners, and the rest of his fiances, he can
protect her against a megalomaniacal international crime lord.  Right?" 
Nabiki looked hopefully over to Jack for confirmation.

	"Figure skaters?"

	"...Maybe I'll look at someone else to get on the job besides Ranma.
Having two people protecting her wouldn't hurt."  She flipped through
the papers on her desk, setting the occasional one aside.  She carefully
ordered the stack, then started looking through the minute-by-minute
ratings.

	"At least the new hires look promising," Nabiki said with a sigh as
she looked through them.  "For once, I'd like to have some villains for
people to boo who won't have a surge of conscience and will just stick
to the program.  And who realize that being a stoic, driven fighter
doesn't bring in nearly the ratings as the flamboyant prima donnas do. 
Sorry, do I sound bitter?"

	"Yeah, they're cute kids.  Except for the freaky hair."

	Nabiki turned, taking a long, measured look at Jack's spikes.  He
stared back at her, then slowly asked, "Does that expression mean you're
reconsidering the prostitutes?"

	"Even when I'm not dealing with the end of the word, this job takes
a lot of out of me."  Nabiki sat up straight as she felt Jack's arm
around her shoulders.

	"Buck up!  Everything will turn out okay, and you're going to love
doing this job more than you'd love helping starving children in
Somalia!"

	"I wouldn't love helping starving children in Somalia."

	"Then that makes my job easier!"  Jack flashed a grin at her.  "I am
going to make your job more fun that you ever thought it could be, Beek.
 You're going to wet yourself from the sheer thrill of coming in to work
each day, never knowing what might be waiting for you.  Ultra will run
through your veins, and you will eat, sleep, eat, and live it!  Welcome
to my world, Nabiki Tendou!"

	In her heart, Nabiki knew fear.

*  *  *  *  *

Author's notes:

First, the thanks! Thanks to Kate and Jeff for prereading, again to the
latter who helped me with ideas when I was stuck, to Grayson for pulling
my posterior from the fire by writing the Omega match (more on this in a
second), and to Twoflower for understanding how important flexible
deadlines can be.

That last line ties into... the anti-thanks! This goes to the demons of
the flexible syllabus, which made this week rather more busy than I'd
anticipated.  As in, instead of having around 400 pages of reading to
do, I had 600. And three group projects. And two tests, one of which
involved a nine-page essay. A week where I was happy if I pulled three
and a HALF hours of sleep instead of three is not one condusive to
writing Ultra, especially not an episode like Reboot.

Having said all that, this isn't a pity party for Kristen. What that did
make me do is stick with my original plan for the episode... that of
sticking with, well, the original concept for Reboot. That of a fun,
mid-season PPV that the readership could get involved in, and that
wasn't necessarily a series-changing event. This isn't the biggest PPV
ever, and it's trumped by many regular episodes if you go by k count.
That said, it was a lot more fun to write than if I'd let myself get too
far off track. So, if you were hoping for a mid-season UltraRage...
sorry. :P

Again, major +1 propz to Grayson, who saved me from what I knew would be
THE major time sink (Omega is not my forte for fast writing, and the
majority of this ep was done, by necessity, in around six hours over
this weekend). And for turning in a wai wai lead-in ep.

Apologies if this isn't a fantastic episode... believe me, I'd love to
spend a lot more time polishing it. But even with all that, it was fun
to write, and I hope it was fun to read.

-Kristen
http://www.smirnov.net/